⌜ chapter fourteen ⌟

"Hey!" Hope yells as she makes her way into Jack and Eric's apartment. "Where's the pretty little dark-haired girl? She's late for our date."

"Scarlett's not here." Shawn says as he looks over at her from where he's laying on the couch.

"She ditched me for the boy-toy?" She quirks an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound like her."

"No, Eric's in their room." He tells her. "He was in the bathroom earlier, and I went to talk to her, but she wasn't in there. They got into a fight last night, so I figured she went over to your place."

"What?" Her eyebrows furrow as she looks at him. "I saw her last night on our back up here, and..." She shakes her head. "Eric!"

Jack, who started toward Eric's bedroom when he heard the conversation between Hope and his brother, pounds on Eric's door. "Open the door, man! We gotta talk!"

The door opens and he sees a sleep deprived, red-eyed Eric. "I don't have anything to say to you." He tells him, and then Hope walks over and grabs him by his ear to make him follow her back to the living room.

"What's going on?" Jason questions as he walks into the apartment behind Shawn, who went to get him when he realized that something quite obviously isn't right.

"I saw Scarlett last night, and she was in a great mood — puke-inducingly happy to get home just to lay down with you and talk." The brunette says as she looks at Eric. "Shawn says that you two were arguing, and now she's gone."

"She told me that she was going to your apartment." Eric says, obviously having a hard time just standing there in front of them.

"Well, we live five feet away, and she never made it. What the hell happened?"

"I really don't feel like getting—"

"How about you tell me why the last time I saw my sister, she was running to your room, choking back tears after you yelled at her?" Shawn demands, moving closer to him, and Hope and Jason exchange a concerned look.

"We broke up last night." Eric says, and the younger boy turns around and immediately starts for the door.

"Where are you going?" Jack asks as he watches him go.

"To find my sister." Shawn tells him.

"You're not wearing any—" The door shuts between them. "—shoes. And he left in sweats and a t-shirt."

"How the hell did she go from beyond happy to see you, to you two breaking up in the course of a couple hours?" Hope questions as she returns her attention to Eric.

"I think you'll find the answer in the Summer that she spent on the road with you." He says as he turns around and walks back to his bedroom.

"I don't understand." Jack says as he turns his attention to Hope and Jason, who are looking at each other.

"She was right about what would happen if he ever found out." Hope says, and her best friend sighs.

"This is gonna kill her." Jason shakes his head as he looks away from them.

Across town, Shawn knocks on the door to the apartment that became a safe haven for him and his sister years ago, and it opens not long after. "I know she's here." He says, and the older man steps out of his way.

"She got here around four this morning." Turner tells him. "She hasn't really said anything, and I haven't understood anything that she has said. Well, except that she didn't want me calling anyone to tell them that she's here. What happened?"

"She and Eric broke up."

"What?"

"I think she's supposed to have work at the bookstore today. Can you call Tyler and tell him that she can't come in?" He asks as he walks over to the brunette, who's laying on the couch.

"Yeah, sure thing." Turner nods as Shawn then pulls the coffee table closer to the couch so that he can sit at Letty's feet with his own feet propped up.

Alec shows up awhile later, and Turner lets him into the apartment. The younger of the two men takes a deep breath as he looks down at Letty and Shawn. The two teenagers are still on the couch — Shawn slouched down into the cushions with his feet up, and Letty's laying on him with a small pillow between her head and his chest. His arm's draped across her side, and she's laying along the length of the couch.

"How long have they been like this?" Alec asks.

"She's been on the couch since four this morning, and he showed up and laid down with her a few hours later. They haven't moved." The older man tells him. "I don't mind them being here, they're always welcome here — I just thought that you should know what's going on. And I assume she's gonna be needing a place to live. I mean, she moved in with Eric, didn't she?"

"Yeah." He nods. "I'm glad you called. I'll take her back to my house."

"You can leave her until they wake up." Turner says, and he shakes his head.

"If I leave her until she wakes up, she won't come." He tells him. "I tried to carry her from the couch to her room when she was sick, and she kicked me in the head. I had to wait until she was asleep."

He nods as he looks back at the two teenagers past out on his couch. "Is she gonna be okay?"

Alec takes a deep breath, thinking back on his own experience. Hope called him not long after Turner called to tell Tyler that Letty wasn't going to be working today, so he knows what's going on, and he knows how much it hurts.

"Eventually."

—

Letty's on her stomach, laying on her bed as she stares at her closet door on the other side of her room. She's hardly left her bedroom at the boys' house in days, and they're all becoming increasingly worried about her. What's most worrisome is that she hasn't cried since she walked out of her apartment the night that she and Eric broke up.

She doesn't cry, and she doesn't talk. She just lays in her room, avoiding everyone and everything around her. They're not sure when the last time she ate was; she refuses to do anything but lay in her room all alone.

There's a knock on the door, and her gaze shifts from one closed door to another before Tyler opens it and leans in the doorway. "I'm heading down to Chubbie's for some burgers. You want me to grab you anything?" He asks, and she just looks at him. "You gotta eat, kid."

She looks away from him, her dark eyes landing on the closet door across from her again. Her body doesn't move, and Tyler takes a deep breath before walking over to her bed. He then kneels down in her line of sight, and her gaze returns to him.

"Can you tell me anything...please?" He asks. "How are you feeling? What do you want on your burger? Do you know what day it is?"

Letty takes a deep breath, but doesn't say anything in response. He nods as he looks at her, and then he reaches over and takes her hand in his for a brief moment. He squeezes her hand gently and then stands up straight and starts for the door.

"Empty." Her hoarse voice gets his attention, and he looks back at her. "Bacon. No."

He goes over his questions again in his head and then nods. "I'll be back in about an hour. Maybe a shower could be a good thing, huh?" He suggests before leaving her room, shutting the door behind him.

After a few moments of indecision, the brunette pushes herself up and walks over to her connected bathroom. Her movements feel mechanical as she turns on the water in her shower and then pulls her clothes off, discarding them to the cold tile floor.

She then stands under the water, shutting her eyes as she lets the warmth envelope her. There's a part of her that wants to enjoy the small amount of false, temporary comfort that it brings, but she knows what's waiting for her. She knows that this numb feeling won't last forever — it never does — and eventually she'll have to face the pain and loss. It's a feeling that she knows all too well, and she's dreaded the day that she'd have to feel it for losing him.

There was always a part of her that knew that what she had with Eric was too good to be true. It couldn't last forever. Her childhood was far from normal, and it just keeps coming back to haunt her. So it was only a matter of time before the truth finally came out, and the happy, peaceful life that she built with Eric came crumbling down. Letty's always known that Eric and the entirety of who is...just doesn't belong together, and now he knows it too.

And when the new reality of her life without him finally sinks in...it'll destroy everything else along with it.