Songs for this chapter are:

Someone Else- The 1975

When We Were Young- Adele

She Will Be Loved- Maroon 5

...

Dakota is standing in the kitchen, her eyes on me and her mouth set in an angry frown. Her hair is down, wild ringlets hanging loose over her shoulders. She's picking at her fingernails and I really don't like the way she's behaving, acting as if we are in high school.

Scratch that, she's acting full on elementary.

"What was that? What's up with you?" I ask her.

She's immediately defensive, glaring at me like I'm the one acting like a jealous child. Dakota doesn't say anything, she just looks at me and softens her gaze. Her lips pout out and she leans casually against my counter as if nothing happened.

"Why did you just dismiss Tessa's friend from my apartment?" I decide not to let this one go.

Dakota looks me over. I assume that her silence is buying her time to decide what to say.

Finally, after a few seconds she sighs and begins to speak.

"She's not just Tessa's friend to me, Landon. She's my roommate and I don't want her around you. She's not good for you and I'm not going to let her try to attach herself to you."

She pauses a beat then, "I refuse to let that happen."

I don't know if it's the tone of her voice or the possessive jealousy threaded through her words, but my skin prickles and adrenaline begins to build in my chest.

"You don't get to decide who's good for me, Dakota." I say and she blanches back like I've smacked her across her face.

"So you actually do like her!" Dakota replies, her mouth twists into a grimace at the end of her matter-of-fact statement.

I can feel myself getting angrier at her by the second and I can feel the tension between us building with every rise and fall of her chest.

"No. Well, I don't know what I feel about her, honestly." My answer sounds like I'm avoiding the truth, but I truly don't know how I feel about Nora. What I do know is that Dakota doesn't get to be the one who decides.

I have almost always been honest with Dakota. Almost, because sometimes the truth is better left unsaid.

Dakota walks across the kitchen to me, her glittery tutu sways with every step she takes.

"Well, try to figure it out because I don't want you to be confused about how you feel about me either," she rolls her eyes.

I recognize this tone, this guard.

"Cut it out. Turn it on," I tell her.

She knows exactly what I mean.

Dakota is good at turning her emotions off and completely unlatching herself from any danger of pain and throughout the years I've been good at reminding her to turn them on and put the guard down. Only when it's safe tough, I've always wanted to keep her safe.

She sighs in defeat, "I've been thinking about you so much lately."

"What about me?" I ask her.

Dakota swallows and pulls her bottom lip between her teeth.

"Just that I love you, Landon."

She says the words so casually, as if her words didn't unwind something inside of me, a knot pulled so tight, that has been stuck underneath my ribcage, waiting for her to untie, to ease the pain.

I haven't heard those words from her mouth since before I moved to New York. Those three words used to be as normal to my ears as hearing my own name, but not anymore.

Now they cut at me, lashing at the progress I've made to recover from the pain of loneliness that came with her leaving me. These three words threaten to break the already fragile fort I've been working on constructing since she decided she didn't want me.

These three words are much more significant to me than she can even fathom and I feel like my heart is going to rip angrily from my chest at any moment.

I wasn't expecting a declaration of love from her. I was prepared for angry words to be thrown at me. I don't know which would have hurt worse, to be honest.

"I do Landon," Dakota cuts through my silence. "I've loved you ever since I can remember and I'm sorry that I keep causing trouble in your life. I hurt you, I know I did and I'm so sorry-" Her voice breaks at the end and her eyes gloss with tears. She's standing closer now, so close that I can hear her breathing. I must have missed the steps she took closer to me.

"I was selfish, I still am, and as fucked up as it is, I can't bear to see you with anyone else. I'm not ready to share you. I remember the first time I saw you," she pauses and I try to catch my breath.

I should stop her from digging up old memories, but I can't bring myself to. I want to hear them.

I need to hear them.

"You were riding your bike up and down the street. I could see you from the window in my room. Carter had just gotten home from some camping trip, and one of the parents called my dad with some rumor, something about Carter trying to kiss another boy."

My heart sinks as her words gnaw at me. She never talks about Carter, not in this much detail, not anymore.

"My dad came barreling down the hallway, belt in hand," she shudders.

I do too.

"Everything was so loud. I remember thinking the house was going to fall down if he didn't stop."

Dakota is staring past me. She's no longer in New York, she's back in Saginaw and I'm there with her.

"You were riding your bike in the street and your mom was out there with you, taking pictures or videos maybe, with a camera and when Carter started to scream with every lash of that leather belt, I watched you and your mom. She fell somehow, like she tripped over her own feet or something, and you ran over to her like you were the parent and she was the child. I remember wishing I could be strong, like you, and help Carter. But I knew I couldn't."

Her lip begins to quiver and my chest is aching, pain shooting through me like a burning star.

"You know how it was. How bad it was when I tried to help."

I did know. I witnessed it a few times. My mom called the cops twice before we learned that the system is flawed, so very flawed, and much more complicated than two kids could imagine.

My feet shuffle and bring me closer to Dakota without my mind's permission. She holds up a small hand and I stop in my tracks.

"Just listen, don't try to fix anything," Dakota urges.

I do everything I can to abide by her. I stare at the green numbers on the stove and tuck my hands behind my back. It's almost nine, the day has flown.

I continue to focus on the numbers and she continues.

"I remember the first time you talked to me, the first time you told me you loved me. Do you remember the first time you told me you loved me?"

I do remember, how could I have possibly forgotten that day?

Dakota had run away; she was missing for hours. Her dad, drunk and seemingly un-phased that his fifteen-year-old daughter was no where to be found, sat in his stained recliner, a cold beer can sweating in his hand. His stomach had grown fuller, all the liquor and beer had to go somewhere. His face hadn't been shaved in weeks, the hair on chin was unruly, growing thick and rough in patches on his face.

I couldn't get a response from him, I couldn't even get him to glance away from the damn television screen. I remember he was watching CSI and the small living room was full of smoke and cluttered with junk. Empty beer cans covered the table and unread magazines were piled on the floor.

"Where is she?" I asked him for the fifth time.

My voice was so loud that I was scared he was going to react and hit me like he did his son. He didn't though, he just sat there lazily staring at the screen. I gave up quickly, knowing he wasn't going to help me, he was too intoxicated to.

He moved and I jumped back a little, my fear soothed when he reached for his pack of Basic cigarettes. When he grabbed the ashtray, cigarette butts and ashes fell onto the brown carpet. He didn't seem to notice, just the way he didn't seem to notice me standing there, asking where his only daughter was.

I got on my bike and rode around the neighborhood, stopping everyone who passed. I began to panic after Buddy, one of the drunks who lived by the woods, said he saw her run inside the dangerous woods in Saginaw. We called the rows of trees and trash the patch, and it was full of people whose lives were empty.

Drugs and liquor was all they had and they littered the woods with it. The patch wasn't safe, she wasn't safe.

I dropped my bike at the edge of the spruce trees and ran into the darkness like my life depended on it. In a way, it did.

I followed the voices and ignored the burn of my muscles as I ran toward the center. The patch wasn't very big. You could run from one side to the other in about five minutes. I found her near the middle, leaning against a tree.

When I found her, my lungs burned and I could barely breathe, but she was safe, and that's all that mattered. She was sitting cross legged on the floor of the woods, dirt and sticks and leaves surrounded her and I had never been more relieved in my life.

She looked up at me and saw me standing in front of her, my hands on my knees trying to catch my breath.

"Landon?" She sounded confused, "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to find you! Why are you out here? You know what's out here!" was shouting and she looked around us, her dark eyes taking in the surroundings.

A blanket hung on broken branches, ripped and dirty, being used as a tent. Beer bottles laid scattered on the ground and the rain hadn't dried in some places, leaving wet trash and mud puddles all around us.

"You shouldn't ever, ever come out here again, it's not safe," I stood up straight and reached out my hand to her.

She seemed like she was in a trance when she ignored my hand and spoke.

"I could kill him. You know? I would get away with it, I think."

My heart sank with my body and I leaned against the tree and wrapped my fingers through hers.

"I've been watching a lot of crime shows and with the way he drinks and the trouble he causes...I could get away with it. I could take whatever money the house is worth and get out of this shitty town. Me, you, and Carter. We can go, Landon. We can," her voice was full of a painful urgency and it killed me to realize she was borderline serious about this plan.

"No one would miss him," she added, trying to sell me on the idea.

A small part of me wished I could go along with it, even for a few moments to ease her pain, but I knew if I did, reality would sink into both of us sooner or later anyway and it would be harder than it already was.

I decided to distract her instead of telling her she couldn't kill him. She needed to get away from here, even if just mentally.

"Where would we go?" I asked, knowing how much she loved to daydream.

"We could go to New York City. I could dance there and you could teach. We would be far away from here, but still have the snow."

Each time I asked Dakota this question, she always had a different answer. Sometimes she would even suggest we leave the country. Paris was her favorite city across the world and she could dance there, in the famous Opera. It seemed so unrealistic then, living anywhere but Saginaw. Now, here we are sitting in the kitchen of my Brooklyn apartment, remembering our dreams and the roots of our love.

"We could live in a skyrise above the city even. Anywhere but here Landon, anywhere but here." Her voice was distant, as if she was already there.

When I looked over at her, her eyes were closed. She had a streak of dirt on her cheek and her knee was scuffed up. She must have fallen, I thought to myself.

"I would go anywhere with you. You know that don't you?" I asked her.

She opened her eyes and the corner of her lips turned into a smile. "Anywhere?" She wondered.

"Everywhere," I promised.

"I love you," she claimed.

"I've always loved you." I confessed.

Her hand squeezed mine and she leaned her head on my shoulder and we sat there until the sun came up, bringing silence to her haunted house.

"You said you've always loved me." Dakota remembers with a low voice.

"I have."

(Author's note: I'll be updating every day until the end of the book, eeeekkkk.)