Everything after that didn't matter. Sawyer stayed with me, attempting to calm me down as I sobbed my heart out. We got kicked out of the library because of my racket, and we sat together on the curb by the entrance of the school as we waited for Toni to pick me up. I hid my face between my knees as my body convulsed with the force of my crying. He rubbed circles on my back until I felt hands grip my arms and attempt to lift me.

I fell into Toni's arms like she was a lifeline. Together they bundled me in her car and she drove us off. I caught a glimpse of Sawyer looking after us from the rearview mirror and I felt a twinge of shame at having broken down to pieces in front of him.

And yet, thinking about that set me off again. Between hiccups I told Toni I'd been rejected from Rollins, that my life plan had fallen through before I was even able to start it. The failure sat heavy over me, crushing my heart and my spirit.

We made it home and I stumbled upon a box of Christmas decor that mama was working with. One look at me and she asked what was wrong. I dashed upstairs without answering as another bout of tears started. I didn't even feel bad that I was leaving Toni to deal with mama, all I wanted was to fall asleep and forget that this had happened. Forget everything. Not think about a thing. I locked myself in my room and fell facedown on the bed, burying my face against my pillow. I screamed until my throat felt raw.

Of course I wasn't going to forget any time soon. I'd been working so hard for four years, I'd done everything I could to make a standout application. I'd volunteered. I'd raised money. I'd directed school functions. I tutored. I was a hispanic, middle class girl. I fit the profile for some sort of entrance requirement quota. I was the best student in my class. I had recommendations from my school. Where did I fail? What did I do wrong? Did I get too distracted with Sawyer the past couple of months? But that shouldn't have erased everything I'd already done, and when Mr. Davies reviewed my applications he'd said it was the best one he'd seen since Peyton and Ellen last year. Since the girl who'd grown famous for trying to topple the patriarchy and since her best friend got into Princeton for journalism.

I squeezed the pillow until my hands hurt. That was where I'd failed. Everything I'd done was a succession of little things that were not interconnected under a life altering vision. I hadn't fought against oppression, worked for freedom of speech, civil liberties. I hadn't come up with a brilliant idea. I didn't have a unique pastime. I was just a girl out of thousands of applicants whose sole interest in life was getting into that school.

I wasn't special. I was nobody.

The realization hurt so much that I gasped. Oxygen couldn't get into my lungs fast enough. My entire body coiled with more tension than I knew what to do with, and I lay on the bed like that, suddenly too exhausted to do anything but that. I closed my eyes. They stung so much that I couldn't possibly cry any longer. I begged myself to fall asleep.

When I eventually did I was so exhausted that I felt no hunger, no thirst. I slept like a log amid nonsensical dreams of spray paint on brick walls. I didn't move a muscle while I slept and woke up to my alarm in the exact same fetal position. Everything ached and I was disoriented, but I had the certainty in my bones that I couldn't face the day. I didn't have the strength to put on a brave face and go about life like I hadn't just missed the train that was supposed to take me to my future.

Mama opened the door at the same time as I asked myself what was I going to do now. I heard the click of her tongue behind me.

"You didn't even change into your pajamas." After no response from me she grew closer. "Mija, I know it's hard, but you have to get up and move on. I'm sure the other schools you applied to are dying to pick you up."

I sat up just so I could twist around and glare at her. "The other schools don't matter."

Her eyes rolled. "Of course they do. They can give you just as good of an education, and for cheaper."

I spluttered and shook my head. "Cheaper? I was supposed to get a scholarship! I was supposed to get into the best business school in town so that I could put our family business in the map. I was supposed to do all these things that now I can't do, and it's all my fault. I wasn't enough."

Mama gripped my chin hard and lifted my face up. Her eyes blazed with anger and for the first time I wondered if she was going to strike me.

"Yes, all that would've been nice, but I didn't raise you to crumble when things don't go your way." My chin throbbed, but she held on as she said, "Tu papá y yo no nos fuimos de Venezuela para que te rindas."

It was a fact that I couldn't speak Spanish well. No matter what I tried, I sounded like a gringa who couldn't hit the vowels correctly. I couldn't roll my r well and I sounded vaguely French when I attempted the ñ. I figured at some point in life that I was not meant for it, the same way as I wasn't made for art. The same way I was not made for Rollins, I guessed.

But mama was wrong. The fact that she and papa left everything behind to give Toni and I a better life didn't have anything to do with the fact that, while I'd never given up on whatever I'd wanted to do, just like I hadn't really given up art after they had closed that door for me, the truth was that nothing else in my life had been as final as this. I could draw in secret. I could even see Sawyer in secret and go about my life as usual. But I couldn't undo this. I couldn't go to the Rollins Admission Office and beg them for another chance. I also couldn't give up on the life I wanted.

I was stuck.

When my eyes welled with tears anew, mama let go of my face and made an impatient sound. "Get up and get washed."

She turned and when she was at the door I whispered, "Mama?"

"Qué?"

I flinched at the harshness in her voice. Still I asked, "Can I get a hug?"

She assessed me with her dark eyes, without moving from her spot. Finally she said, "Once you get yourself together."

She left the door open, knowing how much that annoyed me, but this time I just felt a stab of hurt right in the middle of my chest.

That moment was the reason why this defeat had destroyed me yesterday. Because it put the final nail on the coffin for any attempt I ever made at being the perfect daughter. I let mama and papa down, and the fact that I couldn't just bounce back right away just reinforced that disappointment.

I got up and slow crossed over to the door, closing it and locking it. I pulled the curtains closed all the way and climbed back into bed, this time under the covers. Minutes later mama banged on the door but I ignored her. It eventually took papa to remove her from my door.

I started drifting away to sleep when a soft knock woke me up.

"Aurora?" It was Toni. "Are you okay?"

I shuffled over but didn't open the door as I replied, "I need to be alone."

"Alright," she said. Her voice carried muffled to me but I noted the alarm in her voice. "Can I trust you to be by yourself in there?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm not—I wouldn't-"

I didn't even know how to finish that sentence, but the shock must have been there enough that she sighed in relief. "Oh, thank God."

"I just-" My voice was hoarse and I cleared my throat. "I just don't want to deal with anyone today, okay?"

"Okay." After a pause she added, "You'll call me when you're ready?"

"I promise."

That eased her off. Between Toni and papa they must have calmed mama down enough that she left me alone for the rest of the day. I'd never skipped a full day of class for anything other than sickness, but that day I was sick in my soul and I didn't know how to repair it. I sat in my favorite corner of my room with all my arts supplies. I picked a piece of charcoal and set out to draw shapes that made no sense other than to relieve the turmoil in my head.

I did end up calling Toni eventually, but it was so she'd bring me food. Not long after she came carrying a plate with two loaded arepas and a chilled malta. She sat next to me as I ate in silence, her arm around me as if she wanted me to know that she was with me.

I felt like such an idiot. My entire life I'd looked up to her as if she were my competition for our parents' affection when all along she'd been the person in my family who had loved me the most.

"Will you go to school tomorrow?" she asked when I was done, handing me a giant bottle of water. I realized then that I was really thirsty.

After I'd chugged enough water that my tummy started to ache I said, "I don't know."

"You should," she said. "Your friends have been blowing up my phone today. They're worried about you."

I hung my head. Oh, the girls. I hadn't told them what was going on. I searched my bag and found that my phone was dead. I couldn't deal with charging it and then have it explode with text messages and missed phone calls, so I left it like that.

"Besides," she added with a grimace. "I don't know how much longer I can keep mama off of you."

I groaned. That was a good point. I also didn't want to be around for mama's next explosion. That one was sure to contain a lot more insults directed my way.

"Okay," I agreed.

She kissed me on the forehead and I helped her get up from the floor. She wasn't huge yet, but the fact that she had a growing baby in her was starting to get in the way of her normal movements. Toni was going to make such an amazing mother. Supportive, sweet and tender. The way I wished mine was with me.

As I sat on the corner of my bed and let the minutes passed, I did admit to myself that mama was right in one aspect. It wasn't like my life was going to end here. I still had to do something with it, something that was hopefully not mediocre.

I woke up in the middle of the night, confused as to why until I heard the noise again. A small clang. Then it came once more. I felt like a rusty robot as I got out of bed in search of the noise. At the third time I figured it was coming from outside, as if something was smacking against the window. Except there shouldn't be any annoying little birds in the dead of the dark. I pulled the curtains aside but saw nothing. And then there was a small pebble hitting the pane across my face. I jumped and looked down.

There he was, Sawyer Logan throwing pebbles at my window like he was some modern Romeo.

I slid the window open and he stopped. Lucky, because I wasn't in the mood to get hit by a rock.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, hoping it wasn't loud enough that anyone but him would hear.

"I'm worried about you," was what he said. It made my shoulders deflate. "Let me in?"

I looked around, noting the obvious—which was that while he stood in the grass, I was high up on the second floor. I motioned for him to stay there and in bare feet I made my way downstairs. Every attempt at being quiet resulted in creaky floorboards and shuffles, but I made it without waking anybody up.

Sawyer slipped in when I opened the kitchen door and held my face in his rough hands. "Are you okay?"

I didn't think it was possible to want to cry once more, and yet my eyes welled. He leaned down and gave me a chaste kiss on my lips. But I clung to him as if I was afraid he'd let me go. We stayed like that for a long while, my tears soaking through the fabric of his t-shirt while I buried my face against his chest.

We both jumped as we heard something. My heart raced as I untangled myself from his arms and tiptoed to peek out the kitchen. A few beats passed but whatever we heard didn't happen again.

Sawyer sighed. "I should go. I just wanted to know you were okay."

"No, don't leave," I said, impulsively grabbing his hand. My eyes met the question in his, but I didn't have any plans other than keeping him with me. "Come upstairs."

His eyes narrowed. He licked his lips. "That's probably not a good idea."

I gave him a soft smack, surprised that I had some fight in me after all. But this was why I didn't want him to leave. Sawyer was the expert at making me feel alive.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, I just want cuddles," I hissed.

He grinned. "Okay."

Like the expert lover boy that he was, he removed his boots and padded up the stairs with me in near to perfect silence. I locked my bedroom door behind us and noticed that he'd frozen.

My room was a mess that I had compounded since yesterday. The corner was covered in sketches and pillows. There was a pile of textbooks by the bedside table and my desk was covered in concepts for the Yearbook. My bed was the authentic disaster and at that second I realized I was still in my clothes from yesterday.

"On second thought," I whispered. "Maybe it's really best that you go."

The smile on his face told me he was doing anything but. Sawyer set his boots on the floor and took off his leather jacket. I didn't even pretend I wasn't staring at the way his t-shirt didn't hide the muscles beneath, and suddenly I wanted to see them. I picked up a pencil and my sketchpad. I hesitated for a second, but I was glad that I finally wanted to do something other than wallow.

"Weird timing but, can I draw you?"

His eyebrows went up, but he recovered and gave me a bow. "I'm here to please the princess."

I wiped my face as he settled on the floor, in the middle of the room. Sawyer sat crosslegged, supporting his head with his hand as he stared at me. I couldn't have asked for a better pose. He let me draw in silence without demanding anything from me but I stopped when I could tell he was growing restless.

"What?" I asked him.

He scrunched up his nose. "My back itches but I'm afraid to move."

That disarmed me. The tension I'd felt on my shoulders since the news rolled off of me in waves. I suddenly wanted to laugh. I couldn't be certain if at myself or if at life for having such a weird sense of humor. How was it that I was in a deep hole of misery and with one adorable gesture from this boy I suddenly felt like there was light amidst the darkness after all?

"Who are you?"

The fact that that came out of my mouth startled both of us. Him, because it was a weird question. Me, because I hadn't meant to ask it aloud.

"I mean," I said, pushing my dirty hair behind my ears. "I was absolutely miserable before you arrived and now I'm..."

Alive.

I never finished the sentence. Sawyer scratched his back and the relief that crossed his face could easily be interpreted as something else. When that was done he pulled me against him, arranging me on his lap in a way that sent flames trickling up my body. I gasped as our bodies connected in a new way that should've scared me, but something in me had unlocked. I threaded my fingers in his hair and tilted his head back so I could kiss him, mouth open and tongue searching for a hot taste. His hands went under my shirt and smoothened the shivers they caused with a caress. Both the illness and the remedy.

At that moment I felt that as long as I remained in Sawyer Logan's arms, everything would work out somehow. I didn't have Rollins, but somehow I had him. It had been unexpected, not something I'd ever considered, let alone sought. And yet it was one of the best things that had happened to me. To have his support, his teasing, his searing looks, the depth of his kisses, made me feel like I'd struck gold too. And if something so amazing had happened without me working for it, maybe it meant that whatever I hadn't sought by getting rejected from my choice school could surprise me too.

I gasped for breath as Sawyer tore his lips from mine to trail open kisses down my throat that traveled lower as his hands worked in opposition, dangerously higher every time.

"Tell me to stop," he said against the base of my throat. "And I'll stop."

It was dark in my room, only lit by the dim lamp beside my bed. There was no reason why I should be seeing stars, and yet that was the effect he had on me.

"I know you will," I said, breathless.

Sawyer lifted his head, as if shocked. "But do you want me to?"

I licked my lips and the motion caught his eyes. They darkened. As if by magic, my skin broke into goosebumps.

"I don't know," I admitted.

His chest expanded as he sucked in a big breath. Then he lowered my t-shirt and gently pushed me off his lap. My eyes widened as I saw the evidence that he hadn't been unaffected by the episode. He didn't make a point of hiding it, instead he ran his hand through his hair.

"Uh." He cleared his throat and I noted that his voice came out as if he'd smoked a whole pack of cigarettes. "I should really go before I back us into a hard corner."

Driven by the pun we both looked down at his lap and burst into giggles. I put one hand against his mouth and the other against my own. He kissed the palm of my hand and I melted.

Even though I knew this wasn't a safe game, I still said, "But I don't really want you to go. I'll start thinking about you know what again."

The problem was that there wasn't much to do that wouldn't alert my family that he was in my room. We sat together, our backs against my bed, his arm around me and my head against his shoulder. Innocent enough. And then I remembered something.

"I could start designing your tattoo," I whispered. "What do you want?"

Sawyer shifted so I could meet his eyes. "Do you want me to stay the night?"

I bit my lip and nodded. He swallowed with difficulty.

"Okay," he finally said. Then as an afterthought he added, "Even though it's gonna hurt."

I knew exactly what he meant. I leaned up to give him a little kiss at the edge of his sharp jaw. "Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, shifting his legs to get more comfortable. It took him a couple of tries to speak normally. "I want a motorbike."

My brain had disconnected its key functions, but after a few seconds I understood he was talking about his future tattoo. He explained that he wanted his bike in black and white, permanently etched on his right side all the way across his ribs to his hip bone. He showed me a picture on his phone and as I studied the lines, a terrible idea occurred to me.

So what if I didn't have a shiny admission letter from Rollins? I had this moment and I was going to make the best of it.

I grabbed a Sharpie and pushed Sawyer on his back. An alarmed question escaped him as I pushed his t-shirt up and all the way off of him. Sawyer was even more freaked out as I straddled him and popped the cap of the marker off.

Eyes wide he asked, "Aurora, what are you doing?"

I savored the fact that he'd always been able to pronounce my name the Spanish way, even better than I did. But more than that, I savored the fact that he'd cheered me up enough that I now looked forward to this, and I'd figure out the rest tomorrow.

Pretending to be an angel, I said, "Why, I'm designing your future tattoo."

He squirmed but didn't put too much of a fight as I pinned his arm above him and bent down to start tracing the lines of his motorbike on his skin, sneaking a few rogue kisses on his side as I went along and a little bite here and there.

At some point Sawyer groaned. "You're killing me."

It would take me a few days to realize just how true that statement was.

don't forget y'all asked me for some cute chapters, mkay?