"Don't burn them," Valentina said, leaning her lower arms against the edge of the table, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Change the grades and then submit them to the office."

I laughed. "You're evil."

It was Monday again, four days after my unfortunate run-in with Lux, and I was at my weekly lunch session with Valentina. I had told her about the encounter on Thursday, including my pyrotechnical plans for the all-important class certificates.

Why I hadn't thrown them away yet, I didn't know. It wasn't like they were irreplaceable. She would have to go through a lot of trouble to get them signed and stamped again, but what did I care about that? It would be her time that was being wasted.

Valentina pouted. "Well, she deserves it."

I glanced down at the table, feeling my lips curl into a wry smile. "Yeah," I said. "She probably does."

"But you're not going to do it," Valentina sighed, looking at me knowingly. "You're probably even going to look her up to give them back to her."

"What? No way." I wasn't that nice of a person. And Lux was no longer my friend – hadn't been in a long time, through no fault of mine. "I'm not that nice."

"You're nicer than you think you are," Valentina said cryptically. She sat forward and fixed serious blue eyes on me, "You know, you never needed to go meet Nik in the first place. You didn't have to help this Nadine bitch pretend you were all still friends. And you could've just blown off that group outing two weeks ago, if you really wanted to. So why didn't you?"

I frowned down at the surface of the table. I couldn't say that her observation had come as quite the shock, because I had been thinking along the same lines since the night Nik had gotten off that train. I hadn't had to go. Neither had I needed to help Nadine keep her little secret from Nik. Of course, it had turned out not to matter at all, since he had known from the start, but I hadn't had to keep silent on her behalf. I could've blown the truth wide open, and that would've freed me from the tedious group outing that had followed. And Valentina was right – I could have blown Nik off at any time. On that day at Ansel's apartment when it had just been the two of us, I hadn't had to stay for coffee. I hadn't had to agree to the group outing on Sunday. And when he had shown up at my door last week, I could have just slammed the door shut in his face.

My thoughts now crept back to the papers, nestled safely inside my file, deep in my bag. Lux's papers. Over the past four days, I could have thrown them away at any time.

So why hadn't I?

Why was I still so weak?

What had changed, then, over the past three years?

Angered by the mocking voice inside my head, I jerked my bag open and fished out the papers. Then, without a backward glance at Valentina, I pushed my chair back – barely flinching when the legs screeched loudly enough against to floor to be heard over the noise in the cafeteria – and marched over to the nearest recycling bin. Then I crammed all the papers down the dark slit of no return.

Take that, I thought, standing there looking down at the bin for a moment. It stared back accusingly, but I ignored the slight flinch of guilt. To hell with her. To hell with all of them.

When I made my way back to the table, Valentina was staring at me with a shell-shocked expression on her face. Ignoring her reaction, I sat back down in my seat and picked up my fork again. The metal felt cool against my fingers. I realised then that my hand was shaking a little.

"Wow," Valentina said, after a long pause. "I guess I was wrong."

I cracked a smile, even though it felt like the muscles in my cheeks were trembling, too. "Not so nice after all, am I?"

Valentina didn't answer for a while. When she did, it was in a soft, almost inaudible murmur, like it was a secret she was telling herself – a secret that she didn't want me to hear. "Still nice. Just also very, very hurt."

***

"You."

I knew who the voice belonged to, even before I looked up and met Lux's hostile gaze. Who else could manage to sound so victimised yet disdainful, both at once?

But this was ridiculous. This garden at the edge of the campus had been my hangout spot for years, and never once had I run into Lux here. Until last Thursday. And, again, now. All I had wanted was a little time to myself – a little time to think – after my classes for the day. But now, it seemed, she was popping up to haunt me, everywhere I went.

Was this the curse Nik had brought with him upon his return? Was I doomed to keep running into the ghosts of my past?

Would they ever, ever go away?

"Oh," I said, faking an air of surprise. "So you're talking to me now?"

She scowled. "Trust me," she said, in a cold little voice, "I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't have to."

"Uh-huh," I said drily, hoisting the strap of my bag onto one shoulder as I got to my feet. I didn't want to talk to her any more than she did me.

Lux got in my way then, blocking my direct escape route. I swerved around her to step onto the grass so that I could pass without touching her, but she latched onto my bag and pulled me back. I stumbled and had to stop. She was surprisingly strong for someone her size.

"You have my class certs," she said, when I jerked myself back around. She narrowed her eyes at me. "I dropped them that day, but I couldn't find anything when I came back to look for them after."

"Why does it have to be me?" I challenged. "Maybe someone else came along and took them."

She cast me a scornful look. "Right, because they're so worth stealing, especially for some random stranger."

"Fine," I said, my chin going up in conjunction with my temper. "I picked them up, yeah. But I threw them away."

"Give them back," she said, impatiently, dismissively – taking it for granted that I had kept them. "I was supposed to submit them last week."

"I told you," I said, feeling a smug sense of superiority come over me as I delivered this news. She didn't know me as well as she thought she did. "I threw them away."

She stared at me, not unlike the way Valentina had during lunch earlier. "You didn't."

"I did."

Her well-groomed eyebrows were furrowed now. "You didn't," she repeated, sounding disbelieving – like the rug had been pulled out from under her; like everything she'd thought she knew about me had been turned upside down. It was high time she had a taste of this feeling, I thought. "You wouldn't."

"You don't know me anymore," I said in a hard voice. "Don't try to presume you know what I would or wouldn't do."

"Bitch!" she spat at me. "I need those papers to graduate on time!"

I raised an eyebrow. "And that is my problem, how?"

She seethed silently, gritting her teeth as words failed her. She really hadn't expected me to have thrown her papers away. Well – I wasn't so predictable after all, was I now? They all needed to stop thinking I was the same weak, clingy, desperate-to-be-liked Tamy they knew from three years ago.

I was different now. I didn't need anyone anymore – least of all any of them. I had learnt, the hard way, how to be alone. And in the meantime, I had also learnt to put myself first, before anyone else – especially the people who would turn their backs on me at the first sign of hardship.

"Bitch," she repeated, in a low mutter now. She shot me a glare that was piercing enough to have let all the air out of me, had I been a balloon. "I hope Nik stays far away from you this time. You'll ruin him, just like you ruin everything around you."

I let out a laugh at that. How unoriginal. When she ran out of insults to throw at me, she always came back to Nik. "I ruined Nik? Amazing. Nadine has really brainwashed all of you."

"Nadine and Nik." Lux's lip curled a little. "That's all you've always talked about. Nothing's changed in that respect, at least."

"Oh, please," I couldn't stop myself from retorting. "As if it wasn't Nadine who told you all about how Ansel and I betrayed poor, innocent Nik. As if it wasn't you who believed her, even before you heard what I had to say."

"You love that version of what happened, don't you?" Lux was sneering at me now, her blue eyes glittering like some sort of newly polished gemstone. "In that story, you're the poor, misunderstood victim – and all of us big, bad villains are plotting against you, while you go against all odds to piece your life back together. You just love that view of yourself, don't you?"

"No," I denied, offended by both her mocking tone and what she was insinuating. "It's not a 'version' of what happened – it's the truth. And you forget – I'm not the drama queen of the group. You are. Everything always had to be about you."

And then it hit me – what all this hostility from her had been about.

"This isn't about Nik at all, is it?" I stared at her in dawning realisation. "This is about you. Just like it was, three years ago. It always has to be about you."

Lux's lips had taken on a pinched look, like she'd accidentally sucked on a sour Gobstopper. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You hated that you weren't the center of attention anymore, was that it?" I accused. "Just because my attention was on something else – someone else. You couldn't stand that I had other important things to deal with, that I couldn't focus my full attention on you, could you? That's why you started ignoring me. You've always been such a brat – can't you accept that the world doesn't always revolve around you?"

Lux stared at me. "You have no idea," she said in a low, driven tone. Then the volume of her voice started to increase with every word next out of her mouth. "You have no idea! And what right do you have to say that to me?" She jabbed a slender finger in the air, pointing it towards me. "Of course I know the world doesn't revolve around me – because it obviously has to revolve around you!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" She was making no sense. Since when had anything revolved around me? I was the one everyone had abandoned in favour of Nik.

"If I'm a brat, you're fucking self-absorbed!"

I could feel the anger well up inside me. I'd had it with her fucking insults. Ever since we had seen each other again, she had been lobing unfounded insult after insult at me. "What are you talking about? You're the self-absorbed one – everything has to be about you. Even now, you keep telling me to stay away from Nik because you don't want anyone to steal him away from you–"

"Are you blind, Tamy?" she shrieked at me like a vicious harpy. "You think everything is about Nik, because everything is about him for you! But this – this–" she gestured to the space in between us with a sharp, angry flick of her wrist, "this isn't about him, okay? It's you! It was always about you! I thought we were best friends, damn it!" She was so angry, tears had sprung into her eyes, but she still managed to look at me like I was something that had crawled out from under her shoe after she'd already stomped on it repeatedly.

"That should have been my line!" I snapped. "What kind of best friend were you three years ago, when you ditched me the moment Nik and I broke up?"

"I ditched you?" She laughed shrilly. "What about you? Why is everything my fault? What kind of friend were you to me? Have you ever thought about that? Huh?"

I pushed the budding guilt away. So I hadn't been the greatest friend back then, but I'd had an excuse. I'd been struggling with what had happened with Nik – the least she could've done was to be there for me. But she hadn't been. She hadn't been there for me, at all. "Look, you're not the one who lost all your friends in one fell swoop three years ago, okay? Stop making yourself out to be the victim here!"

"Oh," she breathed this word, like she couldn't believe I had the gall to say what I had. "Look who's the pot calling the kettle black!" She propped her hands on her hips and advanced towards me, eyes flashing. "Newsflash, honey – at least you still had Ansel. I lost all my friends three years ago!"

Pure astonishment stopped me short. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about how you abandoned me when I needed you!"

"I abandoned..." I pushed my mind back to the time of my break-up with Nik. I didn't have many memories of that time that weren't steeped in self-pity, but one stood out loud and clear. "Yes, I remember. The day after Nik and I broke up – I went over to look for you and you refused to talk to me!"

"You weren't the only one with problems!" she snarled, baring her teeth at me like a little tigress. "I was dealing with stuff of my own too, okay?"

I blinked. The concept had never occurred to me back then. I had been so sure Nadine had gotten to her before I had and fed her the story of me and Ansel that everyone else seemed to believe. When Lux had refused to speak to me, I had taken it as a sign that she had chosen Nik over me.

"Yeah," Lux scoffed now, seeming to read the thoughts flying through my mind in this instant. "Not everything is about you, you know. I didn't even know about you and Nik until... after."

"Hold up." I took an involuntary step towards her. "What was going on with you?"

"Oh, now you care." She shot me a glare that could have singed ten suns. "You didn't care three years ago, when you were too busy drowning in self-pity and doing that whole us-against-the-world thing with Ansel while Nadine was playing the blame game and Wolf was conveniently MIA... I couldn't even go to Nik – he was halfway across the world. Nadine got to fly over to see him in the summer, but I couldn't afford it." She laughed, and it wasn't a pleasant sound.

"What are you talking about? What happened?"

Lux acted like I hadn't spoken. She wasn't looking at me anymore, but staring at a distant spot somewhere to the side. "I could've used a friend back then. I could've used my best friend." She said this achingly, and in that moment I saw a glimpse of the hurt girl that lay underneath all her angry bravado. Then her mask fell back into place; she sniffed and turned up her nose at me. "But you're three years too late. I have real friends now. I don't need you and your fake concern anymore."

And with this parting shot, she shoved past me and swept away in a whirlwind of dazzling, golden pride.

***

"Do you remember what happened three years ago, when Nik and I broke up?"

The question had burst out of my mouth before I could've thought the better of it. I was sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch that Ansel was sprawled out on. Both our attentions were on the TV screen as we navigated through the race circuit in Mario Kart 8, but my mind was only half-engaged. Lux's accusations that afternoon had been playing through my head all day and, try as I might, I couldn't shake them off. I had come over to Ansel's in an attempt to do so, but even video games weren't enough to keep me from replaying that conversation over and over in my head.

I heard Ansel shift behind me, the fabric of his clothes rustling against the leather seats. Just when I thought he wasn't going to reply, he snorted, "Other than lots of tears and snot on my shirt, you mean?"

He was trying to embarrass me into changing the subject. I didn't take the bait. My mind was still too busy turning over the afternoon's events. "Lux said something to me today."

"Oh?" Ansel didn't sound particularly impressed by that revelation. "Something other than her usual temper tantrums?"

I was worrying at my lower lip with my teeth. "She said something that made me start thinking about what happened back then. You know, from three years ago."

"He's only been back two weeks and already stirring up all that bullshit drama again," Ansel muttered half under his breath.

I knew he was referring to Nik. Since I had just been thinking the same thing not a couple of days ago, I couldn't exactly disagree with his statement. Yet, I was starting to feel that, perhaps, all this 'bullshit drama' had simply been hiding in the wings, quietly waiting for its time to resurface again. Because this was what happened, when you tried to bury something that wasn't completely dead. It always, always came back.

"Do you think, sometimes, that all of this was a long time coming?" I spread my hands a little when I said the word 'this', game controller still in one hand. "I mean..." Then I fell silent, because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to say. That we all needed closure? That Nik's return could be a chance to finally put everything to rest? To uncover everything I had been too preoccupied to notice three years ago?

But what if... What if, in trying to uncover the other truths, I accidentally blew the cover off the biggest lie I had told three years ago?

Ansel was watching me with a dark look on his face. He was still gripping his controller with both hands, but neither of us was paying attention to the game anymore.

"What are you trying to say, Tamy?" he asked, his tone flat, strained. I wasn't the only one emotionally invested in the events of three years past, I realised. For Ansel, this was the one topic that was equally unbearable, equally better left alone.

"Forget it," I said, changing my mind in an instant, waving a hand in the air as if that would help expel the thoughts that had plagued me all afternoon. "Let's talk about something else. How's your girl?"

Ansel looked chagrined at my choice of topic. He took a deep breath, as if still deciding whether to continue our previous line of conversation. Then he let his shoulders fall and relax, almost as if he was physically shrugging off a burden that had settled heavily over him, and followed my lead. "Still running hard, I'm afraid."

I laughed at the disgruntled look on his face. "You've never had so much trouble getting a girl before."

Ansel had recently met his match in the form of a petite, dark-haired fellow intern who wouldn't give him the time of the day. Being a guy to whom rejection didn't normally come, Ansel had naturally taken it to be personal and sworn up and down that he would make her fall for him if it was the last thing he did.

Truth be told, it was quite entertaining to watch the tables turn on Ansel. Girls were usually the ones panting after him. Privately, I thought that this girl would be good for him. She obviously wasn't one of the usual bimbos that fell at his feet just because he was kind of good-looking and a law intern to boot.

"She thinks I'm a playboy," he said, with a look that said, louder than words, how absurd her found this label. "Do you think I am? A playboy?"

"Well... You're not one, exactly, but I can see why she might think you are."

"What?" He sounded a little wounded by my matter-of-fact assessment. "Why? I don't flirt."

"Maybe you don't realise it," I told him, "but you always have a group of girls panting after you. And you're always so nice to them, it gives people the wrong idea."

I knew this to be a fact. Ansel was bizarrely blind to the effect he had on the female population – he never realised that most heads swivelled in his direction whenever he walked into a room. When I walked down the street with him, I'd sometimes amuse myself by counting the number of women who did double-takes at the sight of him. Out of all the guys I knew, Ansel was without question the most attractive one. But I was also one of the few girls who could say that objectively, like admiring a beautiful piece of artwork. Romantically, he did nothing for me.

Nik, on the other hand... Looks-wise, he had nothing on Ansel, but Nik had a type of je-ne-sais-quoi that just drew people in – which explained the spell he had worked on not only Nadine and Lux but also the rest of the group.

"What?" Ansel was genuinely bewildered at my description of his actions. "But that's just common courtesy. It's called being friendly."

"Nope." I emphasised the ending of the word, parting my lips slightly in a popping sound. "The way you smile and touch them lightly on the shoulder when they're batting their eyelashes at you? Other people call that flirting."

He frowned. "Do you think I'm flirting with you when I touch you, then?" he asked suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him. A slightly horrified look had spread across his face.

I rolled my eyes, "We're friends. I don't count."

"But people all start off as strangers, right?" Ansel spread his hands in a gesture of bewilderment. "If I'm not friendly to people I don't know yet, I'm never going to make new friends."

"There's a difference between being friendly and being flirtatious," I said drily.

"What's the difference, then?"

I opened my mouth, but couldn't find the words. Finally, I scrunched up my nose. "You know... Being friendly is just being friendly!"

"You're not making any sense." Ansel frowned at me.

I huffed. "The difference is obvious – it's common sense! It isn't something that can be explained. You'd know, if you weren't such a natural tease."

A dangerous glint came into his eye. "What did you call me?"

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Tease, tease!"

"Take that back!" He leapt up and tackled me to the ground, practically sitting on me while he tickled me silly.

I slapped at his hands feebly, but I was laughing so hard that I couldn't inflict much damage. "Stop it!" I shouted in between gasping breaths of laughter.

"Not until you take it back," Ansel growled.

I could barely breathe by now. He knew exactly where all my ticklish spots were. "Stop it, stop it!" I gasped, feeling tears come into my eyes from all that laughing. I grabbed his hands and tried to push them away from my sides, but only ended up entangling my fingers with his.

Then there was a loud sound, one that echoed throughout the room as something hard slammed against the wall. My laughter died abruptly as Ansel let go of me and turned towards the door.

Standing there, framed in the doorway against the backdrop of the evening sky, watching us with hard blue eyes, was Nik.

We must've gotten so caught up in our horseplay that neither of us had heard him coming in.

I sat up, knowing that my hair was a mess, feeling oddly self-conscious. My heart was hammering in my chest – whether from all that laughing earlier or from his sudden appearance, I couldn't tell – and I was a little short on breath. It took me a moment before I managed to squeak out, "Uh... Hi."

Nik stepped fully into the apartment, slamming the door behind him with an almost violent shove of his hand. "Carry on," he said, in a flat tone that matched the look in his eyes, "don't let me interrupt." Without another word, he swept past us and out of sight down the hallway.

"Damn it," I muttered, scrambling up from where I had been sitting – to do what, exactly, I didn't know. If I had stopped to think, I would've wondered at my own actions. As it were, all I could think of at that moment was that I didn't want him to get the wrong idea. I had just gotten to my feet when a hand closed around my wrist and tugged me back.

"Don't worry about it," Ansel said, his voice hard. The amusement had drained from his features upon Nik's entrance and now he stared coldly in the direction of the hallway. "He's the one who cheated on you. Let him sweat."

My head snapped up and I stared at him in surprise. Other than that one time right after the break-up, when I'd descended upon his door bawling my eyes out, I had never heard Ansel use that tone in reference to Nik.

In that moment, I realised two things. One – that Nik had been speaking the truth when he'd said he and Ansel were no longer best friends. And two...

I closed my eyes and slid back down onto the carpet. "You really do hate him. And it's all my fault. I ruined your friendship," I murmured.

"No," Ansel replied brusquely. "That's something he did all by himself." His tone said that this statement ought to have been self-explanatory.

If there was one thing Ansel hated with a burning passion in the entire world, it was a cheater. And no wonder – with his family background. He had grown up despising both cheaters and the spouses who condoned them. I was realising, now in hindsight, that he had been both the best and worst choice possible to run to that night. Ansel had protected me when I had needed it, but in exchange it had broken something fundamental within the group.

But Ansel didn't know. I hadn't told him the whole truth.

Much of that evening was a blur to me. Mostly, I remembered sitting at my computer, watching numbly as the image of Nik onscreen had said, insistently, "It's not what you think."

I'd gripped the table with both hands and simply focused on breathing.

"We were only drinking. I–"

"Did you sleep with her?" I'd whispered, barely able to get the words past my dry lips and clogged throat.

He'd surged forward, closer to his webcam, as if it could've closed the widening distance between us. "No! Nothing happened, Tamy – I swear it."

Oh, but he could be so convincing when he wanted to be. I'd laughed, bitterly, even though my face had been wet by then. "You were drunk; she was drunk. You were alone in your room together... What else could have happened?"

"I wouldn't have." The expression on his face had darkened at my accusation. If it had been under a different set of circumstances, I would've been amazed at how expressive he was acting. I hadn't seen him wear his heart on his sleeve this much since we'd first gotten together – since he'd started to distance himself from me on purpose. As it was, at that moment, I'd only felt numb. Broken inside. "I wouldn't do that to you," he had said, eyes shining fiercely. "But you have to trust me–"

"T-trust you," I'd repeated mockingly, scornful even in between ragged sobs. "You... you just got drunk, fell asleep with some other girl in your room – a-and you want me to trust you!"

"Nothing happened," he'd said, his voice rising just a bit. "Nothing happened!"

"How can I know you're telling the truth?" I'd choked out, defiantly angry despite the tears that I hadn't been able to stem. "What were you even doing, drinking alone with her in the middle of the night? Sharing tales of your troubles with the wicked girlfriend back home in Europe? Are you so unhappy with me that you had to do that?"

"I..." His hesitation had been answer enough.

Everyone had told me a long-distance relationship would be hard. But they hadn't told me it would make me feel this helpless, this heartbroken. "Since you're so sick of me... fine. You don't have to deal with all my drama anymore." I'd been choking on my tears by then, but I had still managed to pull myself together enough to shout, "We're over!"

He had surged up from his chair. I had heard his chair fall over with a loud clatter as he had bent closer to look straight into the eye of his webcam. "And again – so what's new?" Any guilt he might have been feeling had been gone by now, and he had been glaring at me through the computer screen. His tone had been bitter as he'd gone on, "'It's over'; 'we're over'; 'let's break up'... Every time we get into an argument, that's the only thing you ever say! It would serve you right if I agreed with you one day!"

I'd started crying harder at that. "I... I-I'm serious t-this time!" I'd blubbered. "I'm s-so... so sick of being your stupid b-ball and chain, the... the one pulling you back – the one you... you have to r-run away from! And... and all these other g-girls... They're the ones you run to–"

"I told you," he had interjected, in a level voice that had visibly taken him effort to maintain, "nothing happened between us. I–"

"That's not the point!" I'd screamed then, barely able to see even the outline of his face on the screen through all the tears clogging up my vision. I'd gone from whispering to screaming so quickly that my throat had ached, and not just with tears.

"Then what is the point?" He was really getting angry now. His voice had gotten so icy and stilted, I had almost been surprised that frost hadn't started to form on the monitor. He had always been this way, when it came to arguments with me. The louder I got, the quieter he became. And every single time – the angrier he got, the more he would shut me out.

Shut me out, and then go pour his heart out to some other girl. Back home, it had been Nadine he had always gone to. And now...

"The point," I'd hiccupped, "is that you were u-up... all night... with some girl, probably t-telling her all about us – about how s-shitty of a girlfriend I am... letting some other girl feel sorry for you – letting s-some other girl who doesn't even know me, judge me!" I'd stopped here to draw in a deep- shuddering breath, while he'd watched me out of the screen with glittering blue eyes. "Back here, I had to put up with you and Nadine... Maybe nothing physical happened, but I'll be damned if I have to put up with you emotionally cheating from halfway across the world!"

"Emotional–" he'd started to say, before something else had seemed to register with him. "Nadi?" he had echoed in disbelief. "You think there's something going on with me and Nadi?"

"You tell her everything!" I had also been shouting now. "All your hopes and dreams. All the things you never told me!"

"Because you've never wanted to listen!"

I hadn't been listening to him by then. "And... and now you're telling some random girl you met just a few months ago all about your life story – all about us!" I'd meant to leave it there, but then I'd felt a broken whisper slip out from between my lips, "Is there any part of you that I don't have to share with some other girl?"

On the screen, I had seen him swallow. For a moment, he had looked guilty. "Tamy..."

"Maybe the best thing to do would be to break up. It's obviously not working–"

I had seen the anger flare in his eyes. "Stop threatening me with the break up–"

"Threat?" My laugh had sounded a little too jarring, a little too crazy, even to my own ears. "It should sound more like a reward to you, shouldn't it? You – the guy who had to run halfway across to world to get away from me–"

He had started to bite out, "I did not–"

"–straight into the arms of some other girl!"

"I've told you a million times – nothing happened!"

"But it could have!" I'd screamed finally, so loudly that my voice had cracked. "You were with her, alone, in the middle of the night – anything could have happened! How could you have put yourself in a situation like that?"

"Because I'm miserable, okay?" he had snapped then, all the emotion he had ever kept from me spilling out then. "Everything here is so different, so different," he had repeated, rubbing a hand across his face. "Adjusting to life here hasn't been easy. And you... you're not helping at all! I have to wake up at five in the morning for these video calls with you every day, and still nothing I do is ever enough for you!"

I'd tried holding my breath to stop myself from breaking down into sobs in front of him. His words... He had no idea how badly his words had hurt me. Miserable? He had been having a hard time adjusting to life in Asia? This had been the first I'd ever heard of it. How could I have helped if he hadn't even bothered telling me how he had felt? "And drinking with her made it all miraculously better?"

"You know what," he'd said, with an ugly look in his eyes – those light blue eyes that I loved so much – "yes. It did. Because for once I could relax and talk about my problems without having to worry about yours!"

"If you're so sick of me," I'd meant to sound strong and disdainful, but my words had come out in more of a sob, "then why don't we just break up?"

"You're always throwing that in my teeth–" I had seen the exact moment the expression on his face had settled into a mask of icy rage. "Fine! Let's fucking break up, then!"

And it was then that I had realised – he had been right. I had never truly thought that he would agree to it. His casual agreement, for the first time ever, had sent a painful shaft straight through my heart. And, even after saying that, he had merely sat there, with that terrible, defiant look in his eyes, staring at me like he hadn't just broken my heart.

Unable to stand looking at him any longer, I had jumped up and fumbled around with the mouse to hit the log-out button. It had taken me several tries, because my eyes had filled up and I had been crying in loud, gut-wrenching sobs, and everything had just been one huge blur. Then I had yanked open the door and run out without even stopping to grab my coat.

I had chosen Ansel because he had been the closest. He had been living in the dorms two blocks away from mine, but even those two blocks had been pure torture. By the time I had arrived on his doorstep, I had been a shivering and tearful mess. Ansel had opened the door and I had practically fallen on him.

Looking back later, I would realise that my knocking on his door at two in the morning had probably woken him up. I had been lucky he had even answered the door – he had been dressed in nothing more than a shirt and boxers, and had peered out at me with bleary eyes. But he had taken one look at me and pulled me into the room. "What's wrong?"

I had been crying too badly to answer him. The sense of being wronged by all that Nik had said and done had only grown during the way there. "Nik... He..."

He had made me sit down on his bed, the only surface that hadn't been stacked with piles of books or clothes, and moved across the room to turn up the heat. "God, you're freezing," he had muttered, coming back to rub some warmth into my arms. "What happened?"

"Nik," I had hiccupped, futilely rubbing at my eyes in an attempt to stop the steady descent of tears, "He missed our usual call earlier tonight–"

Ansel had looked relieved. "Is that all? Maybe he fell asleep – you know the time difference–"

I had felt a surge of anger rise within me. Why was everyone always on Nik's side? Even Lux had been growing less and less interested in my complaints about Nik's behaviour lately. "Yes, well, he missed the call because he was busy getting drunk with some other girl!" I had exploded, feeling inappropriately smug when I had seen Ansel freeze.

That had gotten his full attention. A wisp of dread had come into his eyes. "And...?" he had prompted, his voice going as quiet as death.

"And it's over now." I'd looked up into Ansel's face and had seen his face turn to stone. His mind had filled in the blanks for him, and he had come – quite understandably – to the wrong conclusion.

"Are you saying that Nik and this girl..." Ansel's voice had been unbearably silent. "Are you sure?" This last question had ended on an almost-pleading note – the plea hiding the heart-breaking shadow of a boy still wanting to believe in his best friend.

"They were drunk," I'd whispered, the lie of omission a physical lump in my throat.

"But... Are you sure? Nik wouldn't–"

Feeling unreasonably betrayed, I had jumped up and turned to leave. Of course Ansel would take Nik's side over mine. We'd gotten much closer after Nik had left, bonding through our shared loneliness in Nik's absence, but Nik had still been his best friend. Of course Ansel hadn't been going to choose me over Nik. I shouldn't have come to him. "Fine," I'd muttered, my voice hitching in my throat. "Nik never does anything wrong, does he? I'm always the unreasonable one. Everyone is always on his side."

"Wait." Ansel had grabbed my arm as I'd tried to walk away. He had stared at my tear-streaked face for a moment, something looking like pity coming into his eyes. Finally, he had said, quietly, "I believe you."

After this declaration of faith – faith that I hadn't deserved – he had pulled me into a tight hug. I'd clung to him, needing the physical comfort he had wordlessly offered.

And then I had started crying all over again. Broken, ragged sobs that had torn through my throat and left me gasping for breath. Because, even though I hadn't told Ansel the entire truth, even though Nik hadn't exactly cheated on me, he had still broken my heart. Which was worse – physical, or emotional cheating? Because wasn't the latter exactly what he had been doing, when he shut me out but shared his innermost feelings with other girls? And this... all of this had been a long time coming. Even before he had left, he had been pulling away from me. If I was honest with myself, I had been expecting this day to have come much, much earlier – it had been inevitable, when only one of us had been interested in holding on when the other had been trying his best to get as far away as he possibly could.

Eventually, the sobs had petered out. I had sat there, my cheek still pressed into Ansel's chest, just struggling to breathe now. He had continued holding me, rubbing at my back silently. Probably knowing that no words could have helped at this time.

Time had ticked by. I'd learnt how to breathe again. And just as I had been about to pull away from Ansel, there had been a loud rap against the door, before the sound of the hinges creaking had hit my ears. Someone had pushed open the door – Ansel must have had left it unlocked.

"Ansel? Are you–"

It had been Nadine's voice, and she had cut herself off the same moment her footsteps had come to a complete halt.

Ansel had shifted slightly, but his arms hadn't left their position around me.

Of course Nadine was here, I remembered thinking bitterly. Of course – she would have been the first person Nik would call after our break up. What had he told her? Did she – like that nameless, faceless girl – think everything was my fault? That I was, as usual, just being my high-maintenance self – an unreasonable bitch?

I had kept my face buried against Ansel's shirt, my arms still around his neck, not wanting to look up and reveal the vulnerability that had to be streaked all over my face.

There had been a long, suspicious silence before I had heard Nadine speak again. This time, her voice had grown significantly harder – and colder. She had walked in on something she hadn't understood, and, in pure Nadine fashion, had jumped to the wrong conclusion.

"Nik called. He's been trying to reach Tamy for ages," she had paused here, as if waiting for one of us to interject with an excuse. I'd stayed silent and unmoving, my face pressed into the warmth of Ansel's chest. When Nadine had spoken again, it had been with a note of betrayal. "I came to see if Ansel would know where you were, but apparently I shouldn't have bothered."

"Fuck off, Nadi," Ansel had snapped, still holding me to him. "You have no idea what is going on."

"Really?" Nadine's disgust had leaked through in her voice. "Nik sounded like a complete mess on the phone, babbling about you breaking up with him, and I come in here looking... And I find the two of you on a bed, wrapped around each other. I wonder." There had been a pause, then she had demanded rawly, "Don't you even have the decency to look me in the face and explain, Tamy?"

Nik – sounding like a complete mess? Hadn't he been the one who had welcomed the break up? Had he changed his mind?

But even as that thought had flashed through my mind, I'd closed my eyes in defeat. If I had needed more proof that Nik let down his guard around Nadine completely – heck, he let down his guard around everyone else – this would have been it. He had looked me in the eye and told me he wanted the break up. But to Nadine – he had broken down to Nadine.

Babbling, she had said. Never in my life had I known Nik to babble.

Had she known about his troubles in Asia? Then I'd scoffed, silently, to myself. Of course she had. Nik told her everything.

Everything he had never told me.

"Get out," Ansel had said, his voice a low rumble in his chest. I'd closed my eyes and clutched at his shirt more tightly. I hadn't wanted Nadine to see my tear-stained face. She would've reported it to Nik and I would've died before letting him know how much he had hurt me. Ansel, bless him, had somehow known. "She doesn't owe you anything if you're only here as Nik's messenger."

"I can't believe you," Nadine had raged, "you're supposed to be his best friend! How could you – both of you – do this to him?"

"Get out of my room!" Ansel had all but roared then, completely losing his patience and making no effort to correct Nadine's assumptions.

"If you didn't care about him, couldn't you have had the decency to break up with him a long time ago – to set him free for someone else – before jumping his best friend while he's gone? Can you even imagine how heartbroken he sounded on the phone?" Nadine's voice had trembled, whether from tears or fury, I hadn't known. I still didn't know. But I could remember the way she had screamed this last sentence at me – screamed it so loudly that I had been sure she would wake the entire block, "How could you break his heart like that?"

"Get out!" Ansel had matched her decibel for decibel. I had felt the vibrations rumble through his chest, and it had felt like an earthquake against my skin.

"Don't worry," Nadine had said in a choked, snotty tone, "I'll leave you two to it." The disgust had spilt over into her voice then. "I hope all this is worth it." Then quick, angry footsteps, stomping out the way they had come.

Before the door had slammed, rattling the walls on impact, Ansel had snarled after her, "And tell Nik he can go rot in hell!"

***