We drive to the nearest hotel, only a few blocks away and Becca complains when I refuse to produce my emergency credit card. If she wants to spring a surprise visit on me, she can occur the expenses that come with that.

The elevator ride up to our room is quiet and tense. I am curious to know which one of us will be the first to explode the moment our hotel room door closes. She wouldn't have shown up here if she didn't have a lot to say. I know we are going to be in for a long night.

When the elevator dings and the door slides open, I gesture for her to lead the way. She leaves her suitcase behind and saunters out the door. I roll my eyes as I grip the handle and pull it behind me, all the while fighting the urge to smack her in the back of the head.

I trail behind her and we stop outside room 306. She uses the key card and opens the door, immediately kicking off her shoes and turning to face me. The door clicks shut behind me and the bomb that is Becca goes off.

"A month. You have been lying to me for a full month. We are supposed to be best friends, and now it's like I don't even know you anymore! You came on this trip to 'discover yourself' or to find your 'life path' and it looks like all you have done is suck face with Nik! Where is your big revelation, Haven? Where is the big neon fucking sign pointing you to your destiny, huh?"

She takes a deep breath and plows on as she flops her suitcase on the bed and angrily wrenches on the zipper.

"I mean I honestly thought that you might come back from this trip different. I thought that being alone and having to make decisions for yourself might help you grow up but look at you." She gestures towards me and looks me up and down. "You're the same Haven you were when you left. Actually, I might even say your back to the old Haven from junior high." My jaw drops but she continues her verbal assault.

"Don't look so surprised. I saw the way you looked at me before you kissed Nik goodbye. You were sending me a message, marking your 'property'. Don't worry sweetie I'm not here to steal your man I'm here to see if there is even a sliver of my best friend left inside of you."

Finally, she stops. Her chest heaving as she recovers from her rant. She digs in her suitcase, pulling out a pair of pajamas for herself and then throws a pair at me. My eyes follow her as she stalks into the bathroom while pulling her long dark hair into a bun. The door slams, and I hear the lock click.

I'm not sure how long I stand staring at the closed door for. But somehow I snap out of it, strip my clothes off and replace them with the pajamas. I wish they didn't smell so familiar, but they do. They smell like my best friend, like her perfume.

I jump at the sound of the bathroom door swinging on its hinges. Becca appears wearing tiny black shorts and a tank top. Her hand comes to rest on her hip and she stares at me expectantly. I guess she wants me to respond to her explosion but I'm still working on absorbing her words, her accusations.

Am I more like the old Haven? No, I don't think it's possible. Sure I had to break her out tonight, but that was for a good reason. And it's not as if I was doing it to hurt Nik; In fact, I was doing it to prevent us from arguing. That's a good reason, right?

I shake my head, trying to stop myself from hosting a full-fledged conversation in my head.

"Come on, stop chatting inside your head and say what you want to say." Becca encourages me in a demeaning tone.

"I admit, I kissed Nik like that on purpose. But what did you expect when you just show up like that? And you can't tell me I am like the old Haven because you haven't been around me." I pause and take a deep breath, how am I going to explain this? "Becca, being with Nik, having this second chance with him has done something to me. It's healed a part of me that has been broken ever since he left."

"He left because you treated him like shit." Becca spits at me.

"Yes." I admit and sink onto the bed. "I was terrible to him. The games, the manipulation, the teasing, and flaunting myself at him. Trust me. I know better than anyone how awful I was. But it's different this time because I wouldn't do anything to hurt him. I..." I look up at my best friend, who is glaring at me with hate in her eyes while tears glisten in my own, "I'm in love with him, Becca."

My best friend switches her weight from foot to foot, watching me and looking incredibly uncomfortable by my admission. She probably came here thinking she would find fourteen-year-old Nik and Haven, playing their games and making a mess of each other's lives all over again. But that's not how it is this time. We are happy and until recently there has been nothing to worry about. However, I can't confide in her about that, not now when she is here and will stick her nose in everything.

"Haven." Becca stomps her foot in frustration and stalks over to the bed, flopping down beside me. "I knew this would happen." she sighs and takes my hands in hers. Despite my anger, I don't pull away. This is my best friend, and we make it through everything.

"As angry as I am at you for lying, and for going on this trip without me, I think... Ugh..." she groans. "I think that running into Nik was probably a good thing for you. Oh, stop looking at me like that," she snaps "I'm not a complete bitch, you know."

"I have watched you struggle with him since the day he disappeared. I have been the one you cried to, the one you burned his pictures with and I have watched you struggle with every relationship since him. You never feel like you deserve to be treated properly because you didn't treat him that way. I have seen it all. So yes, getting closure with Nik is a good thing, but babe, this is not your life. This is just a vacation Haven." She finishes slowly, making sure every single word sinks in.

"I'm in love with him." I repeat and that's when the tears brim over.

There is not one reason for the tears. It's because I am mad that she is here; It's because I am happy she is here. It's because I know she speaks the truth; This isn't my life. The fact that I am so terrified of leaving him is also contributing to the tears. Not to mention, Nik and Hayden's fight, feeling like I am tearing his friendship apart, thinking that he is keeping something from me and the looming doom of eventually having to face his parents. It is these things and so much more that causes this flood of tears to erupt from my eyes.

And despite her anger at me, Becca, my best friend in the entire world pulls me into her arms and lets me cry into her shoulder. This only makes me cry even harder. Full sobs rack my body until I am hyperventilating, but she calms me. Of course she does because she is my best friend and this is what we do.

"How am I going to leave him?" I choke out before another round of tears leaves me speechless.

By the time I am calmed down and tucked into bed, the clock on the nightstand reads 1:30 a.m. My mind still swirls with the events of today. How is it that just this morning, okay well I guess technically yesterday morning, I was waking up with Nik in my bed and feeling completely blissed out?

I now have to figure out what Nik is hiding and somehow merge Becca into this world I have created for myself. It's almost like popping the bubble on my imaginary world because with Becca comes a constant reminder of reality. This is not home. This is temporary.

"Haven, do you hate me for showing up here?" Becca asks as she crawls into bed beside me. I take her hand in mine and give it a reassuring squeeze.

"I could never hate you." I pause and bite my lip. "But I am curious to know, what the hell were you thinking?"

Becca pulls her hand from mine and turns to lie on her back, staring up at the ceiling. I watch her silently, waiting for an answer.

"I couldn't sit at home knowing that you were here, living this other life without me. It's almost as if I could feel you drifting further and further away from me as every day went by. When you told me about Nik, well, all I could do was think about how he had broken our friendship in the past and once that thought was in my mind..." she trails off and wipes a tear running down the side of her face. "I just had to come here. I had to see you and force you to remember me."

"As if I could ever forget you." I give her a playful shove and smile. In the silence, another question comes to mind. "You coming here has nothing to do with you wanting to see Nik?" I hate that I have to ask, but I can't help it. With such a sticky past between the three of us, I have to assume that there may be some feelings left there for her too.

"No." she replies firmly and turns her gaze to me. "I learned a long time ago that for Nik, nobody matters but you." She sighs and then adds with a small incredulous laugh, "not even himself." 

Despite the lingering tension between us, Becca and I have a pretty good day together. I fall into a familiar comfortability with her from the moment we wake up. She offers to do my hair and makeup for me and I take care as I run the straightener over the back of her hair. But when we check out of the hotel room, things are slightly different. I am the one to suggest what we do, where we go, and recommend the restaurant we get lunch at. Here, I am the one in control and I like it.

We still have things to work through, like my anger at her for showing up unannounced and her anger at me for lying to her but we can set that aside. For now. As we lay out on the beach, the sun tanning our exposed skin; We talk about everything the other has been missing. We have kept in contact over phone and video chat the last month, but it's different to hear it all in person. It is also different because I am now telling her the truth by including Nik in the majority of my stories.

It takes a while before she stops rolling her eyes every single time I mention his name, which is a lot. And soon she seems unaffected by his constant presence in my stories. It feels good to tell her everything and I realize I have missed gushing to my best friend.

While I love Jennie and she has been my rock the last month, there is something different about the way Becca approaches everything. They are both straightforward no nonsense girls. But while Jennie shrieked in girlish delight over mine and Nik's first kiss, Becca laughs and teases me for the ridiculous blush that comes to my face.

"Alright, so when am I going to meet these people you have replaced me with?" Becca asks as we shake out our towels. The sun is setting, sending a rainbow of orange and yellow dancing across the water.

"Don't start that, nobody could replace you." This is one thing I have been secretly dreading all day; The demand to meet all the new people in my life. How is this going to work? Becca is the way she is. Opinionated, no filter, tell you how it is and yet, completely sweet and loveable... when she wants to be. There is no way of knowing which Becca will make an appearance when I introduce her to everyone.

"I know," she quirks, "but seriously I want to meet everybody." She pushes.

"Well, we can call Jennie, see if she wants to go for drinks tonight?" I offer, avoiding looking her in the eyes. From the corner of my vision I see her place her hand on her hip, her eyes burn into the side of my head.

"You're not purposely keeping me from Nik, are you?" she accuses.

"Of course not! We can hang out with Nik too, I just..."

"You just what?" she interrupts and her tone sets my teeth on edge. I love her, I really do but her demanding demeanor can really get under my skin.

"I just don't want to take the liberty of introducing you to Nik's entire friend group. Jennie is different, she is my friend."

"That's fair." Becca shrugs and loops her arm in mine as we trek up the path that will lead us back to the Hutch's. "I don't mean to be pushy Haven, it's just, I came here to have a good time" I roll my eyes, knowing full well she came here to throw me off and yell at me in person, "and it sounds like you and this new group of friends have been having a blast."

"Tonight, girl's night with Jennie. Tomorrow, I will talk to Nik about getting everyone together."

"Are you going to make it that long without talking to him?" She teases, nudging me with her elbow. "I've watched you check your phone repeatedly all day, is he not talking to you or something?"

"Not since this morning." I grumble. "But that's fine, it's not like we have to talk all day long or anything."

"He is probably just giving us time to hang out." She encourages me, and I flash her an appreciative smile.

It's not abnormal for Nik not to respond to me right away. I know he was working today, but he should have been off a few hours ago. I don't want to be that girl freaking out about her boyfriend not texting her back, but I miss him. And, because of my recent revelation about him keeping something from me, my brain is conjuring up ridiculous reasons as to why he isn't talking to me.