A/N--You better all LOVE me after this you guys, just saying :) Not only did it just take me two days to write this, it's also pretty long I think so....you're welcome!  And just a heads up, please don't be upset with Naomi after this chapter, alright?  She's just a girl who is in love with a boy...don't be mad at her for not being super rational.

ANYWAYS...I hope you all enjoy! Please vote/comment/whatever makes you awesome :)

"Naomi," Zara says to me the next night as she watches me make a fool out of myself eating cookie dough like a half-starved barbarian. I'm tearing into the raw roll of food like nobody's business and I don't even care. I already made a complete ass out of myself today; why not just add fuel to the fire? Today's my looking-like-an-ass day. All I have left to do is go to some sporting event and run across the field naked. 

I don't look up at her, too embarrassed to see the grossed-out expression in her eyes, but I stop attacking the cookie dough like a crazed-person. I move the half-gone roll away from my mouth and say hesitantly, "Yes?" 

She says, "First of all, that cookie dough can kill you. Ever hear of salmonella?" 

I say wryly, "Dying wouldn't be too bad after the month I've had." 

In response she slaps me across the back of my head and when I go to cry out in pain, she says, "Naomi, I know you've had a terrible month, but that gives you no excuse to talk about dying that way. Acting like it's some kind of savior...what the hell is wrong with you?" 

"Today? A lot," I mumble, discreetly moving my hand to the back of my head to rub against the place she hit me. Zara may be a calm little thing, but good God does she pack a punch. 

She says, "Which brings me to my second point. What happened today? You disappeared right after lunch, come back an hour later with tears running down your face, and then take a two-hour bubble bath. When you come out, you magically have a thing of cookie dough and look like a corpse." 

I go to take another bite of the cookie dough, but before I can even place its deliciousness on my lips, I feel Zara rip it out of my grasp. I gasp, not able to believe that she's done something so mean to me when I've had such a day, and then turn around and yell, "Give it back!" 

"No, you eating raw cookie dough is disgusting," she says before turning over her shoulder and then dropping my half-eaten roll of cookie of dough in to the garbage can. Right as feel my insides start to weep at the sadness of the loss, she sits on the back of the sofa and says, "Naomi, you've known me for a while, and I never ask you to tell me anything. But for some reason, I feel as if you've done something wrong today and I want to know what it is. What did you do?" 

"I didn't do anything," I mumble, turning away from her and planting my gaze onto the blank TV in front of me. 

I feel her hand on my shoulder and hear her say, "Really? That's why Lucas is outside wanting to talk to you?" 

"What?!" I demand, whirling around and glaring at the front door as if it's some evil witch demon. He's not here, is he? I never heard the door bell, never heard a knock at the front door. I mean, maybe I was so busy tearing into my food...but still! I would have heard someone at the front door, I think. 

She says, "He came earlier actually, right when you disappeared into the bathroom, and when an hour passed he got this awful expression on his face and then left, saying he'd come back. He's back now." 

My insides are flipping over themselves right now, so many emotions running rampant through my head that it's almost making me dizzy. What the hell am I supposed to do? I told him not to talk to me, not to contact me, because in doing so it would make getting over him so much easier. And I know that that tip was completely correct, because his being here and wanting to talk to me is making me feel for him and that is something that is not okay. I don't want to feel anything for him; I want him to be like a complete stranger.  

That's all I want. 

Is that so hard? 

"Well you can tell him I don't want to see him," I say completely devoid of any emotion, which is completely crazy considering all of the shit running rampant through my body right now. 

Pissing me off like you would not believe, she says, "I don't think I can do that, hon. I talked to him, okay? And he's extremely upset and I'm sorry, but I've developed a soft spot for the boy since he's been at the shop. I can't just let you treat him like this." 

"Treat him?!" I practically shout at her, whirling back around and glaring at her pretty face. "How I treat him?! Have you not seen the way that he treats me? Huh, Zara? He treats me like utter shit and you go and give him a job! I treat him like shit for maybe twenty minutes and you give me a lecture? What the hell?" 

"First off," she says just a bit more stern than I've ever heard her, "Don't talk to me like that, alright? I am giving you a place to stay and am somewhat acting as your guardian. Respect me. And second of all, I didn't know him when he treated you badly so I was not able to lecture him like I am you. But I know deep down that he's a wonderful guy and he's a great friend to you. You're going to regret just letting him go." 

"He's not a great friend to me at all!" I argue, but all the while making sure my voice is not as rude as it was seconds ago. While she's right in the fact that I do need to respect her, I still don't at all agree with what she is saying and what she stands for right now. Zara is usually as level-headed and down-to-earth as they come, but for some reason she's being extremely out of character and I need to help her see that. "He ditched me for some bitch and then ignored me for years; how do I forgive that?" 

She says softly, "Did you completely forget how great he was to you when your dad passed?" 

At her words, images of him cuddling next to me and kissing me on the forehead dance throughout my head, softening my hatred towards him just a little bit. He was truly great to me, I'm aware of this. There aren't many people out there who are so willing to stay in bed with an emotionally unstable teenage girl. I get that.  

But he also kissed me when he had a girlfriend, made me believe that he had true feelings for me when he really didn't. He pulled shit on me that is just not forgivable. I'm done having such a strong soft spot for the boy. I'm through with it. 

He hurts me too much. 

"No...I didn't," I tell her truly, "But there's other stuff he did that you don't know about. And I'm done treating him so well when he doesn't return the favor." 

She reaches out and runs her fingers through my hair, probably one of the most maternal gestures I've had in a while. She says, "I still think you should talk to him. He looked heartbroken." 

"At least he knows how it feels," I say wryly, but deep down that stupid soft spot I have for him is throbbing because I've made him so sad. I want to be okay with him suffering, I truly do, but I'm not. For some awful reason, I'm wired to feel terrible when he does. 

It just sucks that he's not wired the same way. 

As if reading my ever-loving mind, she says, "I really don't think you mean that. Deep down, you want to go out there and talk to him." 

And with that lovely piece of fortune-cookie advice, she gives my hair a final tug and then disappears out of the room. Seconds later, I hear the door to her bedroom close.  

I mean, should I go out there and let Lucas explain? I did give him and his girlfriend an awful piece of my mind and then disappear before they could speak their peace. Well, Lucas anyways. Destiny pretty much told me that she thought nothing of my feelings by saying what she did.  

You're achieving nothing by being here. 

I'm a bit embarrassed by that statement, I'm not going to lie. I thought that by my going there, the two of them would magically realize how terribly they treat other people and, I don't know, maybe stop? But I guess I really just watched too many Disney Channel movies when I was younger; real life doesn't have those kind of hit-with-an-awesome-new-personality moments like those movies do. 

I guess I'd just hoped for too much. 

Or did I? 

Lucas is sitting out on the porch, waiting and wanting to talk to me. If he's here to ream me out for disrespecting him and his girlfriend like that, then today was just a wasted effort and I'm going to go to bed and bawl myself to sleep. But really, I was planning on doing that anyways. But...what if he's here to apologize for treating me so terribly? What if he's here because my rant did actually mean something to him?  

What if...? 

There's this huge part of me, that part that's scared of rejection, that is just telling me that he wasn't at all moved by my rant and that I should just go upstairs and go to sleep to save myself the embarrassment. But then there's another part of me, not quite so large but maybe just as strong, that is telling me to just go out and talk to him, to give him a chance to explain himself. 

But what if his explanation does nothing but hurt me? I really don't think that I can take anymore hurt coming from him, not when I haven't exactly had time to get over being in love with him yet. So going outside can possibly make that little sore on my heart get even worse. It hasn't even had time to scab over yet. 

So really, I have no idea what the fuck to do. 

I really don't. 

There's a knock on the front door moment later, when I'm leaning forward, my elbows rested on my knees and supporting my head because I just don't know what to do with myself anymore. That knock causes my heart to leap to new heights inside of my chest, stunning me just a little bit. Am I really still that affected by him? That's so pathetic. 

"Naomi," I hear, Lucas' muffled voice somehow traveling through the door and landing right inside of my head. 

Awesome. 

Now that I've heard that voice of his, there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to ignore him. Lord knows I'm nowhere near that strong. So completely abandoning all the thinking that I'd just been doing, I get off of the couch, the blanket she'd lent me dropping to the floor, and then head over to the front door. 

I can see his muffled outline through the glass of the door, and the feeling that my body gets just seeing him there is beyond indescribable. Taking a deep breath to steady all of my crazed emotions, I reach out and then pull the door open, letting the late night air and Lucas' presence hit the house. 

He's been crying, I realize with a newly heavy heart. Those gorgeous blue eyes of his are rimmed in red, and I see little red dots right around his cheekbones as well. This boy has been crying and I feel so, so terrible that I've been the one to cause it. I lean closer to him and go to reach up and touch the red tear dots, but his voice stops me. 

"Nay..." he says, his voice heavy and emotion-ridden.  

I immediately drop my hand, feeling so silly because he's obviously just called me out on going to touch him. I shouldn't be doing that; I shouldn't be having physical contact with a boy who has a girlfriend. I've already done that once and it didn't turn out well. "Sorry," I mumble, breaking eye contact with him and instead looking at the floor. 

I hear an almost chuckle escape his lips and before I can look up and demand what the hell is so funny, I feel his fingers slide underneath my chin and then peer my face up so that I have to look up at him. In an aw-she's-so-cute voice that grandparents use on little children, Lucas cracks a grin and says to me, "You're really stupid, you know that?" 

"Bitch!" I cry out, forgetting about how good his fingers feel touching my skin and reach out to swat his shoulder. Does he not realize the emotionally draining day that I've had? I've been scarred for life today, and he's going to make jokes about it? 

He laughs, the sadness that had been in his eyes the moment I opened the door disappearing. He says, "Sorry," and then, with the same hand that was just holding my head up, he grabs my hand and intertwines my fingers with his.  

Feeling my heart give an unsteady beat at his action, I am totally and completely lost for words. I honestly thought he came here to yell at me or berate me for showing up and ruining his anniversary. I thought he hated me too and wanted to give me my own little reaming session? So why is he here holding my hand like couples do? Why is he treating me like this morning didn't even happen? 

He says, "We need to talk, Nay. Seriously. No jokes or anything." 

"I know," I say truthfully, knowing that everything would go seriously awkward if we just ignored this morning. It needs to be brought up, I know it does. I just don't want it to be brought up right now. I want him to keep on holding my hand truthfully. 

He looks into the house, his eyes coming off of my face for just a moment, and then comes back to me. He asks, "Outside?" 

"Yeah," I nod, "Just let me grab a blanket," and with that I regretfully drop his grip on my hand and then head back into the den. After grabbing the blanket that I shed the moment Lucas showed up, I head back to the door and then follow him out onto the porch. 

He takes a seat on the steps, looking out at the empty road, so I go and sit next to him and immediately snuggle up in my blanket. I don't sit too close to him, though, knowing that nothing good will be able to come of it. If we're going to have a serious talk about our relationship, than I need to concentrate on that and only that, not on how good how is body heat is or how good he smells. 

We're both silent for a while, me too anxious about our talk to say anything and him just looking out at the road and up at the dark night sky. I don't know if he's as worried about the outcome of this conversation as I am, seeing as how he's pretty much the only one with power in it, but I know that I'm pretty terrified. 

He clears his throat a minute later, snapping me back to the fact that words need to be actually spoken for a conversation to occur, and then he says quietly, "This morning was probably the worst thing that's ever happened to me." 

Even though I told myself that I wouldn't feel guilty about my words this morning, that the two of them should have been told worse, I still feel really, really bad. I know that those tears that had so easily been reflected on his face were caused by me, judging just by how he had looked at me. And even though he had deserved what I told him, I still felt bad. 

Fucking soft spot. 

I go to say, "I'm really sorry," but he cuts me off before I can even get to the really part.  

He looks over at me and, with the most serious eyes he's probably ever given me, says, "I deserved it though. We both did." 

Too shocked to even come up with words, I just nod. Because, as sad as it may sound, that's really the only thing that I can do.  

He cracks a grin at my honesty, but doesn't really say anything. Instead he just looks back out at the road, doing that go-silent-for-a-while-and-freak-her-out thing he loves to do so much. Reacting to how frustrated his going silent makes me, I gather part of the blanket into my hands and then bury my face in it.  

This is what I hate about intense conversations like this. I hate how uncomfortable everything feels. 

It's a few minutes later, but when I hear Lucas muffled voice through my blanket I can't help but look over at him, because when he says it, I almost hear tears in his voice. He's still looking out at the street, but he says so distinctly and so clearly, "I've been so awful to you, Nay." 

I want to say something to comfort him because it's so clearly evident in his voice how much this is eating at him, but I can't find words. But that's okay, because then he looks away from the empty road and down at me and gives me one of his sad smiles before saying, "And you're the one person who doesn't deserve it." 

I give him a comforting smile, so that he knows I don't completely hate him, but I still can't find the words to say to make him feel any better. Because even though I know that he hates that he's done stuff to have to apologize for, he likes that he is apologizing. I know that doing this is going to be cathartic for him, so I just will him to keep going. 

"I was so scared when I came here...scared that I'd finally done something to make you hate me. I took you for granted, and I'm so fucking sorry for that. I don't deserve to have you in my life...I really don't, so if you want me to leave, just...I'll completely understand, okay? And if this morning was you trying to get rid of me, then I'll go, I will...I just...I wanted to explain things to you...because I love you, Nay, and I really don't want to have to not be friends anymore because not being able to be around you is really fucking awful and I hate it..." 

His face just looks so sad and miserable that I can't help myself. I scoot closer to him and lean against him, lending him the bodily comfort that I know he gives me, and then I sneak my hand out from underneath my blanket and twine my fingers within his own. I don't care that I'm supposed to be getting over him, that I should hate him with every fiber in my body, and that he has a girlfriend who, for some reason, he isn't spending their anniversary with. 

I don't care about any of those. All I know is that he looks like he wants to beat himself up and I, I can't have that. I don't want him to hate himself like I know he does right now. 

It's then that he finally looks over at me and I can see the tears pooling in the bottom of his eyes. He says, "I broke up with her, Nay...last night I did...and when I saw that Facebook post this morning I called her and told her to come over and made sure that she understood that we were through...that's when you walked in. She was so mad at me, Nay, so mad...and I'm sorry if you thought that I would kiss you for no reason whatsoever because, come on, you know that's just not how I roll and....Destiny and me haven't been a couple for a while now, not on my side of things...she's just always so controlling and clingy and I can't stand it, but I think I understand why she did it, because that's how I want to be with you..." 

I can't help myself at this point, because he's just saying all of the things that I've wanted him to hear for so long now. So I cut him off simply by reaching out with my other hand, grabbing the back of his neck, and leading his lips to mine. 

He starts to kiss me back almost immediately, his lips curving into a grin against my own before he really starts to kiss me. His hand curves around to the back of my head and he threads it into my crazy curly hair, hair that hasn't been dealt with in far too long. But I don't care that I probably look like some kind of under bridge hobo, because, well, the dude that I can't help but be in love with is kissing the breath out of me. 

When his other hand starts to sneak inside of my blanket so that it can wrap around my waist and pull me in against him, this warm feeling starts to grow inside the pit of my stomach, eventually settling in to be this amazing glow all around me.  

He breaks away moments later and when I see him giving me the same look I know that I give him all of the damn time, I know that his rants earlier were true. Although I find it so difficult to comprehend that he's picked me, that he actually picked me over Destiny, I can still read him like an open book and I know that his feelings for me are true. That he actually loves me like he says he does. 

He reaches forward and grabs at a piece of my flyaway hair, giving it a gentle tug before he places it behind my ear. His eyes don't ever leave mine and, I'm not going to lie, I'm finding it extremely difficult not to just pounce on him. But I know that this situation is going to be quite the tricky one, and that I'm going to need to be careful at first. 

He may love me and I may believe him, but he did just get out of a two-year relationship with a girl that he once picked over me. 

It's going to take me a while to fully trust that he won't ditch me again. 

But with the way he's looking at me, that time might not take too long.