THE WORDS WERE on the tip of her tongue. They lingered there, close to escaping her lips and flying out abruptly into the open. She would have even gone as far to say that she really did want to speak them into existence; but that would leave her with a big problem on her hands.

Reagan sat cross-legged on the edge of Dave's bed, wearing only one of his t-shirts and her underwear. Her hair was twisted into a messy braid that laid over her shoulder — she couldn't stop tugging on it with her hands, nervously watching Dave in front of her.

He was crouched down on the floor packing his small collection of things into a ratty duffle bag. Shirts, boxers, pants, the usual works. He would be needing all of it for his trip to England with the band. They were leaving the very next day.

"Do you want this shirt back? For the trip?"

Reagan pulled at the collar of the Buzzcocks t-shirt that Dave had loaned her the night before. She didn't actually want to give it back to him, but forcing herself to speak felt like the proper thing to do. She'd been very quiet up until then.

Plus, it would stop her from saying what she really wanted to say to him.

I don't want you to go.

Dave looked up from the bottomless pit of his bag. He was tossing each article of clothing inside as if he really didn't care what he ended up taking with him across the country. He smiled.

"You can keep that one."

"I already have three others."

"That would explain why my wardrobe is dwindling."

Dave stood up and joined Reagan at his bedside, leaning down and enveloping her into his arms. He was shirtless, which only added to the warmth Reagan felt when his skin met with hers. It was as inviting as a hearth, beckoning her to release her worries and enjoy what she had in front of her.

He kissed her deeply, parting her mouth with his own as he laid her down against the sheets. She pressed her hands against his shoulder blades, wishing she could keep him there in her hold forever.

It was a strange wish, something she had never planned on wishing for, but it was too late to take it back. She could feel the ache of sorrow it caused.

"I'll give it back," she whispered, pulling away from the kiss. She felt Dave's hair fall into her face, soft as a feather as it caught on her eyelashes.

Dave balanced himself over her, placing his hands on either side of her head. He stayed close to her face so that they were barely inches from each other, one of his playful smiles still brightening his perpetually happy visage. When he spoke, she felt the murmur of his words against her cheek.

"I don't want it back. It's yours now."

He went to kiss her again, but Reagan sat up, feeling too miserable to enjoy Dave's endearment. He was leaving her. That was the focal point of her problems. He'd be a whole continent away and once again, Reagan's life would go back to what she deemed normal.

Normal, in Reagan's vernacular, meant empty and boring, filled only with the provincial parts of living that she was used to juggling.

There would a cessation of sleepovers in Dave's bed, laughing into his shoulder and watching him brew coffee for her in the mornings. They'd be halting their guitar lessons and their plan — still small in the works — to soon visit Seattle together.

It was all going to be taken away, even if only for a short amount of time.

She knew he'd come back. He always would, despite the lengthy tours that any good band endured. That was merely the nature of his peculiar job. But his absence would leave a crater sized hole in her heart and Reagan had no idea how to patch it while he was away.

"What's wrong?" Dave questioned. He sat up with her, placing his chin on her shoulder and kissing the concave part of her neck gently. She resisted twitching away from him. There was no way that she was going to let Dave think something was up.

"Nothing. I'm tired, I think. Just tired," Reagan lied.

"You can sleep, Reags," Dave said, electing to use her nickname. It suddenly became hard for her to swallow when he did so. "Just go back to bed and I'll pack. I won't wake you up."

"It's our last day together though," Reagan reminded him. She regretted what she'd said almost instantly. If anything was going to reveal the best of her, that statement was bound to.

Dave's eyes softened, losing their lively glint. He tilted his forehead against hers and Reagan immediately glanced down. She couldn't believe how stupid she'd been to say such a thing when she'd been trying so hard to remain indifferent.

"I know. I'm coming back though. And I'm planning on buying you every souvenir that I can find."

"Don't buy me anything," Reagan mumbled. Dave kissed her forehead and she wrenched her eyes shut. She could almost feel the everlasting imprint of his kiss, his mark of adoration for her.

"I'm definitely getting you something, Reagan. What will it be? A never ending supply of English tea?"

Reagan wanted to laugh. What the hell did he know about tea? She wanted to swat at him and roll her eyes as she normally would, making fun of his willingness to please her. But she couldn't. A lump had formed in her throat as she thought once more of Dave being so far away and what that would possibly be like.

It was silly of her to think that she couldn't live without him, even for a short while, when she'd gone her whole life without knowing him. But that life before Dave had not been even nearly as great as it was presently with him in it.

She hadn't realized just how much she loved his constant presence until then.

"I'm serious. Don't get me anything. Or I'll be mad at you."

"Do you really think I believe your threats anymore?"

Dave moved to kiss her again, always determined to coax a smile out of her. But Reagan leapt to her feet, cradling her arms around her torso. It was the only thing she could do to keep herself from falling apart. She felt like she had to hold on to her own body in order to keep it together. She wouldn't let Dave see her cry.

No, scratch that.

She would not be crying at all.

"Reagan?" Dave asked, cinching his eyebrows together with confusion.

Reagan turned her back to him, stepping over his duffle bag without looking directly at it. Suddenly, she didn't want to give him his Buzzcocks shirt back anymore. All of his other t-shirts that she'd kept had lost his scent. This one still had the trace of him on it, evidence that he had really lived and breathed so close to her.

God, she was in pain. Reagan remembered all sorts of pain that she had encountered before. She thought back to scraping her knees as a child, always running outside on the asphalt with Kate trailing behind. There had even been the time when she'd jumped too high off of the swing set at school and ended up with her arm in a sling.

She also remembered her experiences with emotional pain, like when she'd first garnered the idea that Kimberly only loved her for her capability to make money for the family. That one had definitely hurt like hell to cope with.

But the thought of being away from Dave for an extended period of time hurt worse than all of those memories combined.

Reagan could sense that she was losing her control. Her grip on her and Dave's relationship had loosened and it was morphing into what she had initially dreaded. But she was truly tired of fearing that outcome so much, especially when it felt so good as it was happening.

She didn't see how she could demean the concept of her and Dave being happy together when it did just that — made her happy.

Yet, it seemed like the hardest choice to make was the only way of protecting herself in the end. That much was obvious as she stood there in Dave's room, clutching herself as if she were about to collapse into a pile of dust.

"Maybe it's good that you're leaving," she said, her voice hardly rising above a ragged whisper. It hurt to get the words out.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that we need this separation. Before things get bad."

"Bad? What's bad?"

She heard the springs of his mattress squeak as he stood up, probably worried about the distant tone of her voice. Dave didn't handle things that were 'bad.' He concerned himself solely with the positive and that was about it. To even hear Reagan allude to an invisible rain cloud hanging over them both made him fearful.

"What's bad is us acting like we're together when we're not. We just . . . fuck each other every now and then and that's it. And we can't forget that that's all this ever will be, so maybe you leaving will be good."

An empty silence ensued as Reagan made her declaration. She felt sick trying to convince herself as well as Dave that what she was saying was the truth. For a long time, she had thought it was.

Talk, she thought. Say something.

"You think that that's all this is?" Dave said. She knew right away that she'd hurt him, almost as badly as she had hurt Tommy the day before.

"That's how it has to be," she insisted. "I don't . . . I can't . . . I'm not girlfriend material. I'm not that person for you. I never will be."

Reagan suddenly felt compelled to leave. She wanted to escape the confines of Dave's room so that she wouldn't have to look at his face and know that she'd marred him in an unrepairable way. She felt disgusted with herself. She might as well have been the most vile person in the world, breaking Dave's heart while standing there in his t-shirt.

"You're not girlfriend material. What the hell is that even supposed to be? You're more than that," Dave argued.

Reagan tried to skirt around him, searching madly for her own clothes without raising her eyes to his. He caught her by the arm and stopped her, holding her tight enough to force her to look at him. His face was bewildered, equal parts terrified and angry. She'd never seen him look like that before.

"You're only going to be disappointed if you waste your time on me," Reagan promised. She would say every bad thing about herself that she could think of if it meant turning Dave away from her. Eventually, he would understand that she was right.

"Reagan, stop. None of that is fucking true. I wouldn't waste my time on anyone, least of all someone I was interested in."

"That's a lie, because you're doing it right now. Let me go."

"No!"

Instead of releasing her arm, Dave reached around and used his other hand to lock Reagan in place. When she refused to look at him, her eyes roving the room desperately for another place to land, he slid his hands around her jaw and with gentle exertion made her face look dead into his.

"Do you want to tell me why the fuck you're saying all of this?" he demanded. "What did I do? Did I say something?"

Reagan tried to twist away from him, but she couldn't. She wasn't sure if it was his grasp or just the mere fact that she was not exercising all of her effort. A slow burn of tears forming in her eyes made her grit her teeth with resistance. She had refused to cry. That much of her promise to herself she had to hold on to on.

"You didn't say anything. I'm just telling you the facts. You've got to let me go."

"Like hell I'll let you go," Dave spat back, though his hands fell away from Reagan's face paradoxically. She stumbled backwards and he recoiled away, as if her trying to free herself from his company had wounded him.

"It's just not going to work, Dave," Reagan said, blinking fiercely to rid her eyes of the brimming wetness building there. "It can't work between us."

It didn't feel right. Only minutes earlier, she'd been curled up in his bed and he'd been smiling her favorite smile, the one that made his eyes crinkle up at their edges. There had been no hard 'truth' or the need for Reagan to flee. It had been just the two of them, content to simply be together.

Dave shook his head, the muscle in his jaw jumping. He crossed his arms, looking like he was turning over several different things in his mind. He stared angrily at Reagan and she felt every ounce of his enmity drilling into her.

"Okay," Dave said indignantly. "I'll leave. And we won't talk ever again. How's that?"

Reagan didn't reply. She knew he was goading her. He would of course try to get her to envision a future in which they didn't speak or have contact. Just the thought sent stabbing shards of pain throughout Reagan's body, but she pushed it away. She had to.

"And I'll meet a girl," Dave continued. "Probably in England. There will be a lot of girls who come around on the tour."

He took a few leisure steps forward toward Reagan, his arms still crossed and his expression apathetic. She wanted to back away from him, but her feet were stuck to the floor and she didn't feel quite strong enough to move.

"I bet I'll find one that I really like. And we'll kiss. We'll definitely do that," Dave said.

Reagan bit down so hard on the inner part of her cheek that she swore she tasted the metallic flow of blood on her tongue. She closed her eyes and balled her hands into fists at her side. It had been torture enough to basically lie to his face, but now Dave only made it worse.

"And after we kiss, I'll take her back to wherever we're staying and I'll fuck her. Maybe we'll fuck twice, who knows. But I'll be able to do that because you won't be around —,"

She couldn't take it. His tricked had worked as planned, probably more effectively than he'd initially thought it would.

"Stop!" Reagan shouted. She unclenched her hands and brought them to her head, burying her face in her palms. "Please stop."

Dave did as told. He didn't press any further with his detailed storyline. Reagan didn't look at him, too busy trying to dig the heels of her hands into her eyes to stop the fresh welling of tears that were about to run down her face.

"Please don't," she said in a muffled voice. "Please."

"Reagan . . ." Dave began, already sounding regretful. He grabbed her hands and wrested them away from her face.

Reagan let him do it, though she kept her neck slack, still looking downward toward the floor. Her vision had become blurred and before she knew it, she could feel tears slipping past the rims of her eyes.

She would have never guessed that a random drummer from Virginia would have made her cry. Reagan had been through it all, between arguments with her mother to being reprimanded by burly car repairmen at Wilson's without shedding a single tear. But Dave would be the first person to make her cry in what felt like years.

"Are you crying?" he asked. His voice rose with panic. "Fuck. Reagan, I didn't mean to make you cry."

Of course he hadn't meant to. He'd played just as hard of a game as Reagan had, most likely pegging her as the kind of girl who wouldn't cry no matter how hard he challenged her. But something about the false image of Dave kissing another girl and taking her to bed had absolutely torn Reagan's heartstrings apart.

"I don't want you to do that," she told him.

He grabbed her face, this time tenderly, and began to kiss her. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her nose and her lips, kissing away the tears that escaped her eyes and dripped from her chin.

"I won't, I won't. I promise. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She let him wrap his arms around her, so tight that she was hidden safely into his chest. When she felt him lower his head so that his cheek pressed into her hair, she stopped crying. He was still there and as far she knew, still hers for the taking.

"I'm sorry," she breathed, trying to steady herself. "I didn't mean all that. I just don't know how to do this."

"There's no set way on how to do this. Unless you want me to go find a manual or something."

Reagan coughed out a stifled laugh. He squeezed her tighter, pleased to hear the sound of her laughter amidst their heavy conversation.

"You don't understand," she explained. "I want to be good to you, but I'm afraid I won't be. I feel like I come with baggage and problems and you've already got enough to deal with, being in a band and moving out here to the west coast. I don't want to add to that."

"I think I can handle you and a few carry on bags," Dave said gently. "Think of me as a Boeing seven-forty-seven. Totally impenetrable. Proved to be tested and Reagan-safe."

Reagan sniffed and clung to Dave, keeping her arms interlaced around him as he found an opportune moment to joke. Not even hugs from her parents in her youth had made her feel as safe as she did then. Dave easily made up for all that was lacking in her life. And better yet, he did it unknowingly, happy to be there for her even when she acted like she didn't need it.

She could be totally gutting him one second, only to have him trying to make her laugh in another. It was enough to make her feel pretty evil about her actions.

"I hate you for making me cry."

"I hate me for making you cry. So we're even."

"It's okay. I deserved it."

Carefully, he nudged Reagan back by her shoulders so that he could look into her glassy eyes. She wanted to kiss him in that moment, just so she could permanently erase the picture in her mind of him ever kissing another girl. It was torture to think of someone else lavishing in all that he had to give.

Dave cared for Reagan on levels that she was not used to, but she was finally beginning to accept that maybe, she was ready to be cared for. If keeping Dave meant making room for him in her hectic life, then she was willing to do it.

"Reagan," Dave said. He spoke softly, running the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. "I lo-,"

She knew what he was about to say before he even managed to get the words out. Hastily, Reagan put her fingers to Dave's lips and silenced him. She stood on the tips of her toes and leaned her forehead to his, just as they'd been earlier before their argument had even started.

"Wait," she said. "I know what you want to say. But don't say it yet. Wait until you get back from England. And if you still feel the same way about me . . . well, then you can say it."

And maybe I'll have the courage to say it back.

Dave hesitated for a moment before he kissed Reagan's fingertips, pulling her hand into his and tucking her once more into his embrace. He was willing to live with her negotiations if it meant keeping her in his life. And besides that, he would have waited for forever for her. Or at least, that's how it felt.

"Okay," he agreed. "I'll wait."