The final chapter - I hope you all enjoy! Please remember to check out the Series Directory! {Now posted below the Copyright chapter}

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© 2017 Shay Spencer. All rights reserved.

Something Real

[ Chapter 35 ] I'll Wait For You, However Long It Takes Scarlett Blaine

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Needing to act purely on impulse had never been my style. But it seemed Hayden Pennington brought out another side in me.

"I think I've given you as much information as possible," Zane said, his voice echoing around my car even through the phone. "We'll see what else is left when you actually get here."

"I'm about an hour away now," I breathed, turning into the large parking lot ahead of me. "Maybe a little longer, but I should be there by morning."

Zane chuckled, "taking a pit stop?"

"I've been driving for two days straight, Zane. I needed to stop."

"I'll see you tomorrow then," Zane agreed, hanging up the phone there after.

Pulling into the seemingly vacant parking lot, I took a deep breath and glanced over the tall building in front of me. Hayden's dorm looked almost exactly how I'd imagined it.

Though even with the short comfort of knowing where he would be the next two years, my heart still proceeded to drop at the thought of of it all.

Despite the circumstances, Hayden Pennington was on track to be the love of my life, and we'd now be living in different zip codes.

Our two weeks apart had been hell if nothing else, but it had given me time to explain my transfer to New York to my mother.

She had been reluctant to go along with my plan, the woman still seeing UC as the place for me. However, my mother couldn't deny the facts; I was lost in California, and moving may help me find my way.

In all honesty, I still had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Quickly, I gathered my things and got myself out of the car. I was exhausted to say the least, though seeing Hayden for the first time in two weeks was what kept me moving forward.

I missed him more than I had cared to admit.

I let myself stride across the grass on my way to the doors, stopping only when realizing these particular doors were locked. I had known Hayden had arrived back to school early, but I never would have thought the school kept the dorms on such high security.

I merely rolled my eyes, pulling my phone back out of my pocket.

There went the element of surprise.

"How long has it been, Blaine?" Hayden mused into the phone. I could practically hear his smirk. "I was almost beginning to think you'd bailed on this whole long distance thing."

"I'm downstairs, Hayden," I sighed, leaning back against the wall as I spoke. "Let me up."

The sound of him shuffling about cluttered the sound on his end of the phone, leaving me to simply imagine what kind of hectic scene would be waiting for me upstairs. "What?"

"I've got some news," I shook my head at myself. "Just let me up and I'll explain everything."

Hayden chuckled, the sound of his laughter calming me.

"You drive a hard bargain, Blaine," he teased. "I'll be down in a sec."

-

With an over exaggeration sigh coming from Hayden's lips, he tossed my bag into the corner of the room.

"You're such a baby," I smiled snidely his way, taking a seat on the edge of his very unmade bed.

"But you like it," Hayden nodded knowingly, popping his eyebrows up and down suggestively.

The man made his way over to me, falling back on the bed beside me and pulling me down with him.

Engulfed by the silence, we sat and basked in each other's quiet company for the first time in what felt like ages.

Elias had apparently sprung for Hayden to have his own room, there even being a connecting bathroom in the far left corner from what I could tell. The exposed brick wall and dark steel door across the room from us couldn't have done Hayden any better.

There was a small kitchen with white cabinets, one that stretched up to the ceiling, and the floors were a hardwood that matched the place perfectly. Hayden had even set up a small living room area just aside from the front door.

This was his place, the room spoke of that without saying a thing.

"I'm assuming you like the place?" Hayden whispered in my ear, the man pulling me into him by placing a hand on my waist. "You would have said something by now if you didn't."

"It seems so you," I said, not wanting to hold back. "My only concern is you don't have a tv. Even your room back home had one mounted on the walk across from your bed."

"Glad to hear you still hold that room so fondly in your memory," Hayden smirked before nuzzling his nose against my own. "Since it's just me, I figured I could get by with my laptop. Not go through the trouble of hooking everything up."

"And what if it wasn't just you?" I started, daring to meet his gaze.

Hayden merely frowned back at me, for once keeping his mouth shut.

"Zane wanted to make things right after everything that happened. He offered me a spot at NYU."

"Axel did the same for me at the beginning of the summer," Hayden recalled. At one of Jay's first tryouts, Elias had asked Hayden to travel to New York for an interview with the dean.

Obviously, he never followed through.

"That's why I'm here," I nodded. "I've transferred to NYU. I always hated UC and now we'll only be an hour or two away from each other-"

"Scarlett," Hayden groaned, sitting up from our very comfortable spot on his bed. The man ran a hand through his already disheveled hair, "you can't do this."

"It's already done," I corrected him, rising to my feet to look down at him. "I thought you'd be happy about this."

"I would be- I mean, I am," Hayden stuttered, still unsure of where to take his words. "Scarlett-"

"What?" I cut him off. "If you don't want me here, just say so. Even if I am in New York, you can avoid me just the same as you could if I was in California."

"It's not that!" Hayden yelled back, standing up and placing a hand on either one of my shoulders. He took a second, managing to even his breathing when he did. "Trust me when I say I didn't want to come back here. I wanted to stay in California with you."

"Then why didn't you?"

Hayden gave me a weak smile, "Elias made a promise to me, so long as I kept my word to him. He told me that if I finished up school here, got a degree and all that, that he wouldn't tell Angel about us."

His words struck me worse than I would have liked. "You mean-"

"Yeah," Hayden finish for me. "He wouldn't say me who told him, but someone figured it out. He knew about us, and he was threatening to tell your mom if I didn't leave you behind to finish off school. He thought it would be best if we both got a fresh start."

I could feel the tears welling in my eyes before I even had a chance to register what was happening.

Hayden pulled me into his arms, not saying a thing as I buried my head in his chest. I bunched up his thick grey sweater, that being the same one from the first day we had met, and allowed myself a moment to finally crack.

Even if I hated to even think about it, this felt like the beginning of the end.

"Scar," Hayden breathed into my hair, pulling me in tighter. "Who cares anymore. We can do this. We're adults, it's definitely not illegal for us to do this-"

"But we both know our parents would disown us," I sucked in as much air as my lungs would take in. "Elias has his reputation on the line, and my mother and I can barely see eye to eye on the simple things. They wouldn't want anything to do with us."

"Then so be it," Hayden continued, leaning down a bit to look into my eyes. "I'll have my mom, and you'll have your dad. If we lose Elias and Angel, or even Jay and Wren, it would be worth it."

"There's no telling if our other parents would be okay with this, Hayden," I cried, clutching onto him as if my life depended on it. "I don't know if I can risk it, not now, at least. You only just got Elias back, and I know that if I prove myself to my mother that she might start warming up to me too. I don't want to be the person that ruins your family."

Hayden nodded, this time and this time only, did the man decide not to fight the issue. "And I don't want to be the one that ruins your's."

He pulled me back down onto the bed, keeping his hold on me and letting my head rest on his shoulder.

"Does this mean we're over?" Hayden asked. "Because that's the last thing I want."

I shook my head, pulling back from him for only a second. "I don't know."

Hayden nodded, silently taking matters into his own hands as a look of determination flashed across his features.

"Elias will know if we keep things going. We need time for any rumors involving us to cool down," he began. "I don't want this to be where things end."

"I don't want it to be, either."

He shook his head, kneeling down on the floor in front of me and taking hold of my hands. "Then promise me this. We wait for each other, as long as it takes, and if in five years neither of us has found anything worth holding on to, we come back to each other."

"That's how we'll know it's real," I smiled back at him, Hayden barely taking a moment before capturing my lips with his own.

The quick kiss ended, and while Hayden kept close, it felt as if we were only drifting farther away from one another.

"I'll wait for you, Scarlett Blaine," Hayden whispered as he rested his forehead against my own. "However long it takes."

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I feel so bad about the Scarlett/Hayden breakup! How do you guys feel about it? And who do you think told Elias about their relationship?

Nonetheless, that's the final chapter! Now we'll get to see how the next five years go for each of them in the mini books! Both Pennsylvania Minute and Massachusetts Dreaming will be included in this book! Simply keep this in your libraries and wait for a new chapter next week like always 😜

The first chapter of either Hayden or Scarlett's book will be up on September 22nd! See you here NEXT Friday for the chapter!

Remember to vote!

Thank you all so much for reading!

And if you guys want a little peek into what's to come, check out the series directory! It was also posted today underneath the Copyright chapter!