When we arrived at the restaurant they told me about, I could see them on the long table near the middle. They were talking amongst themselves and while I knew they didn't mean to be rude or annoying, the accumulation of their voices created a noise.

"You mean all of them are here?" Adam questioned once he saw the big group and I nodded. Not one of us turns down an adventure and it was reminiscent to the ones we used to do when we were back home – they just took it to another country.

I gave his hand a small squeeze before plastering a grin on my face and walking up to them, "Hey guys."

They looked up from their conversations and I was greeted with a bunch of smiles and hellos. I held onto Adam's arm and gestured towards him, "I'd like you to meet Adam, he's the guy I've been talking to you about."

Majority stood up to shake his hand or give a friendly hug and this did not bode well with the other diners. We were already obnoxiously loud but pair it up with our various scraping of chairs and moving around, we were just asking to be kicked out.

So I tried to act as the mediator by urging them all to take their seat again, "Calm down, he'll be here the whole time."

While they all shuffled around back to their chairs, I introduced them one by one as we took our own seats, "Then that's Justin and this girl right here is Gracie."

"It's actually Grace but no one ever calls me that," she laughed, "It's so nice to finally meet you in person, Sienna has told me a lot about you."

Just not the latest happenings.

"Good things, I hope," he chuckled playfully and I internally cringed at myself because we all knew the answer to that.

The way they were conversing made it appear as if I wasn't sat smack in the middle of them. While I knew Adam wouldn't expose me, I wasn't so sure about Gracie because we all knew that as my best friend, it was her job to embarrass me.

I quickly glanced around the table to observe my other friends and my eyes suddenly met Justin's, who I failed to notice was sitting right in front of me. I gripped onto the edge of the table when I saw his concerned expression.

I'm okay, I wanted to tell him. I had to convey that I wasn't forcing myself, that I no longer felt like I wanted to crawl my way back to bed at any given moment, that I didn't want to hide from the world anymore.

And that Adam wasn't the cause of worry anymore. In fact, I've been too drowned with what happened so recently that it completely slipped my mind that Adam was first of all my comfort. He had been my escape and while he did admit that I was the one that saved him, both of us discredit how much he helped me.

Now we were back to being like that again. He could have easily denied my request since I basically broke his heart and it was wicked of me to keep on lying to my friends. Instead, he accepted with no hesitation.

"Sienna, your order?" Gracie called my attention and I snapped right out of my trance. I tore my gaze away from Justin and turned to my best friend as she looked at me expectantly. I looked up and the waiter was also waiting for my words.

"Uh," I stammered, frantically looking around for my menu and guess what, it remained untouched on the table.

Can you believe in my frenzy, I almost dropped the damn thing? Why was their menu so offensively large? I almost elbowed Gracie when I practically tore it open.

"She'll have the special burger with the side of sweet potato fries," Adam jumped in and I could have hugged him right there when he rescued me from future embarrassment, "Did you want the dip with that?"

"Sure," I nodded violently, anything to get me out of this situation.

Guess convincing Justin that everything was a-okay was out of the window.

Apparently, I was the last person the waiter was waiting on so after he jotted down my order, he left. I turned to Adam and mouthed, "Thank you."

He squeezed my wrist for a quick second before turning to my friend seated on the other side of him after his name was called. Gracie winked at me with a proud smile, "He's nice."

"Very," I agreed and she laughed.

"And you seem to be doing well, it looks like I've been worried for nothing."

That made me freeze in my chair because all this time, I've just been hiding everything from her. Everything appeared fine and dandy, when in fact, everything was over for a while now. It was easy to lie when there's a barrier of a computer screen between us. But now, seeing those blue eyes eternally trusting my words, I couldn't help it anymore.

"Gracie, can I talk to you..." I trailed off, scanning around the room, "Alone?"

Like a flip of a switch, her smile slipped off of her face. She nodded slowly and carefully stood up, ignoring all the questions fired her way. I also got up on my feet but before I walked out with her, I shot Adam an assuring smile when he reached out and touched my wrist with the tip of his fingers.

"Are you going to be alright?"

Perceptive as always.

"I'll be fine," I said, patting his hand lightly.

We got outside of the restaurant and out into the streets. It was quite busy considering it was the start to the weekend but even though this was a city, busy equates to a number of relaxed people strolling along.

Again, the peaceful opposite to New York.

We stopped right in front of the restaurant since it would be useless to walk farther. I twiddled my fingers first, trying to string across my words into a coherent explanation inside my head.

Though with her, I rarely have to do that, "Is this the part where you tell me that it's over between you and Adam?"

"You knew?"

She then lifted her hands and slapped them on my cheeks. I screeched at how cold her skin was and I tried to pull them away, but she was far stronger than I was, "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"I do but it would be nice if you tell me in what particular way this time," I muttered, still trying to get away from her freezing palms.

"Because I warned you over and over again that you're going to get hurt. News flash, I'm your best friend so I know when you're acting differently and you've refused to talk about Adam to me the same way you never even uttered Justin's name when you two broke up."

When I meant that none of our friends were involved with the development of Justin and I's relationship, I meant it. Yes, they were always there because we did have the same friend group but like I said before, they never knew anything was going on until we made it official.

The same thing was when we broke up.

We mutually decided not to make a big deal out of it because we never wanted it to be the source of tension in our group so we just continued on as if everything was normal. Apparently, we weren't that good at hiding it because Gracie eventually decided to confront me about it.

I was actually surprised that she took this long before she said anything about it.

She released me with a deep sigh, "But I still stand with my judgement earlier – he's nice. If not, he wouldn't put up with this pretense."

"Actually, there's a lot more to this story," I frowned, "But I have no idea where to start."

"Well, I'm going to read about it eventually," she shrugged, already pertaining to my book, "Congrats on finishing it."

"Okay, the thing with Adam I can understand how you could find out, but how the heck do you know about the book?"

She raised a finger and tsked, "As if our moms don't enjoy a weekly lunch out together."

"They sure are close," I commented with an exasperated look. My mother was very cold to strangers, it was one of the reason why she was so respected – everybody was afraid to let her down. All that was different to Gracie's mother and she was an exception to everything. Even some people in her team didn't know about my book yet and somehow, she already managed to blab to her best friend.

Gracie's gaze softened, her corners of her lips turned down slightly, "I wonder when we weren't, Lili."

Being left alone with your own thoughts was scary, but what was more terrifying for me was to see Gracie's disappointed face. Contrary to what many may think, she was the more levelheaded one between us. Not only was she one of the top in class, but she was editor-in-chief for the school's newspaper.

I adored creative writing just as much as she loved journalism, which explains her observant nature.

Don't label her as a serious student though, but did she have skill. She was the type of person to show up to class with a nasty hangover and still manage to deliver a satisfactory report.

But she always took care of me and I've lost count of how many times she rolled her eyes at me after I sheepishly deliver some not-so-good news towards her way.

Now how could I possibly say to her that not only did I break my own heart, but also another guy's, after she had warned me multiple times?

Then again, I've messed up more times than I could count and she never left me before.

"I don't know where to begin," I breathed out, hugging my body tighter, "I've never been so out of myself before and trying to figure my way around is so exhausting."

"Did I at least get it right?" she questioned, her eyebrows knitting together, "About you and Justin."

I groaned, stomping my foot lightly on the sidewalk, "You know I hate it when I have to admit that you were right."

"Does Adam know though?"

About the fact that I somehow broke up with him partly because I was still madly in love with my ex?

"I gave him a small hint," was all that I could reply.

"Actually, I do."

Both of us froze before slowly looking over our shoulders. There stood the said man, his hands stuffed inside his jean pockets, looking intently right at us.

Oh crap.

While I didn't want to be left alone with him right now, I knew that it was the right thing to have this kind of conversation with him. Gracie thought of the same thing, so she gently touched my shoulder and gave me an encouraging nod, "I'll see you in there."

She flashed him a tightlipped smile – one that might have conveyed a some sort of apology because I know she felt like she was partly responsible for this whole falling out – then walked right back inside the restaurant.

I remained on my spot while he walked forward, stopping right where Gracie once stood.

"I'm sorry," the words flew right out of my mouth before I could stop it.

"I know," he assured, his voice as gentle and caring as always, "You said it yourself, we can't choose who our hearts fall for."

My gaze turned to him, how his hair slightly moved to the direction of the wind and how his brown eyes stared straight in front.

"I wonder what would have happened if I did fall for you the way I wanted to," I mused out loud.

He chuckled lightly under his breath, shaking his head, "I don't want to even think about it."

With one step forward, he looked at me expectantly, urging me to follow. I quickly glanced towards the restaurant then to him. He didn't move, not even a tug of my arm or anything, just patiently waiting until I made my own decision.

The corners of my lips tugged into a smile, my feet driving my body to follow him. I wrapped my arms around one of his and settled right by his side, our pace was slow and leisurely.

There was the high, and this was the low.

"You're right, he's nice," he spoke and I hummed in agreement.

"Told you so," I laughed.

When I meant by low, I didn't mean that we were in an argument and everything was crumbling down. That already happened.

What I meant was that we finally slowed down. We fell into this comfortable friendship, knowing fully well that whatever happened was finally behind us.

He was Adam and I was Sienna. We had our own lives to live, our own loves to pursue, and maybe for most, it may be viewed that we were unfortunate that we had to go through all the 'what ifs' before settling into this realization that we weren't right for each other.

But I think I am fortunate that I've met him and went through this journey with him. Yes, I did like him and he liked me in return.

Though sometimes, we just have to accept that those are not enough.

And besides, I have a book that hid his name but yelled our story. From those small moments we shared to the inside jokes we laughed about. It may have not been as heart stopping and tumultuous as the one I shared with Justin, but it was still our little magical story.

Through that, I can relive just how much he made my heart race, just how much he made me smile when I thought everything was going bleak.

We write to taste life twice. Writing allows us that second taste, to once again have that sense of what it was like to live in that specific moment.

And Adam, I'm beyond grateful for that small portion of my life that you weaseled yourself into.

-----------------------------

While this is not the official 'end chapter', I've managed to basically wrap it up already. Now why did I make you guys go through all that turns to just end up almost exactly where we started? Because that's life. This story wasn't meant to be overly dramatic with so many fights and heartbreaks or a happily ever after. But it's about a writer who found her footing again. She was lost and the people she had met brought her back to where she's supposed to be.

To be honest, when I was conceptualizing this, I wanted it to be a perfect ending with Sienna and Adam together. Then I realized while writing this that the moment I made the concept to Justin's character, I was a goner. This eventually became my second letter to a certain somebody (first one was my other book, Resetting Our Love and the A/N there showed that we did not end in happy terms. Mind you, I wrote that when I was a freshman in college and now I'm in med school). I eventually realize how amazingly bitter I was because I kept thinking of all the mistakes only to come into the conclusion that I still liked him. And I would count this as my farewell letter to him because now, we are in friendlier terms. We did manage to chat again and it's time to say goodbye to whatever memories I have of him, but in a friendly way instead of ripping him away.

What about Adam? If you've read either Hollywood's Princess or Their Christmas Arc then you will know that he will eventually get married. And if you've read the epilogue of the published version of Hollywood's Princess (which I also put up on my extras page) then you've managed to get little hints of who she is and you would know that you, the readers of Writing's Second Taste, have already met her.

Question: Do you want me to write an extremely short extra on Adam and his eventual wife after I've wrapped up this story? Like a quick run-through of their relationship from how they will meet and so on? It will span about 3-5 chapters only and will be published after the last chapter. 

Last chapter is the next one! I'd do the sappy speech there. Thank you so much for reading and I shall see you next chapter.