My eyes widen with shock, and instinctively, I fall back a few steps, but that doesn't remit me of Claire, who's coming at me like a choleric cat, her claws ready to puncture some eternal scars into my skin. Unluckily, I don't even get to evade her, tripping as I walk back, and she takes advantage of my disarmed state, bringing me down by my hair. I hiss at the prickly pain that shoots to my scalp, trying to free my hair from her hold, but she doesn't let it go. "How dare you? How dare you, you fucking slut?" She spouts, her eyes ferocious with wild fire.

"Claire!" I hear Dylan shouting, but the pain in my head reprobates my attempt to open my eyes, the loud yelling in the classroom chaotic enough to make me want to bang my head against the wall, just to get rid of that agony. Eventually, I get to push her off me, along with the help of Trent, who drags her away from me, his arms around her in a hermetic hold.

Here's the thing: I have always imagined myself in a cat fight. I'm a vexatious troublemaker like that. However, I always imagined myself fighting back, but now I feel so pathetic standing here holding my head, while she's immured, ready to rip me limb from limb. "Fucking let me go! Let me teach that bitch a lesson." She struggles against his hold, her teeth gritted and primed to butcher me.

"Settle the fuck down, Claire! Have you lost your mind?" Dylan reprimands her through gnashed teeth, his eyes wild with what looks like spleen, before he turns to me, his gaze softening a bit. "Are you okay?" He asks, his countenance revealing a hint of concern.

"Are you okay?" Claire blusters, looking affronted. "Are you serious, Dylan? Haven't you seen the goddamn video?"

It's my turn to parade toward her, ignoring my throbbing head. "After what you just did, I'm tempted to let the other video out too. You know, the one in which your mom was trying to seduce my grandpa. But alas, that would be confused with porn." It's just a lie to instigate her anger and humiliation even more.

I hear a series of gasps and snickers, but my attention stays fixated on Claire, whose expression deforms from horrified to malicious and riley. "I'll fucking ruin you!"

"Oh, really?" I heft one eyebrow up. "Because you've spouted that before, yet everything you do to me backfires. I wouldn't fuck with me again, if I were you."

"Enough!" Dylan yells, casting his attention to me. "Enough, Candice!" He hisses, his tone laced with pique and impatience.

My eyes flicker to his, before I allow myself to scrutinize him, my bearing a bit patronizing. Strutting close to him, I step onto the front of my sneakers, brushing my lips against his ear. He tenses up, and it spawns a sense of elation inside of me. "You can shove that order up your lying ass. I'm the one who decides when enough is enough." I counter. "I just keep wondering; why do people make promises that they can't keep?"

I don't wait to see his reaction, partly because all I want to do, is cry my eyes out and shove painkillers down my throat until the sun goes down. Stepping back, I survey the room, not really seeing or thinking about anything, except for that night.

The night we bonded. The night he promised to never leave. The night I aviated with my blue angel amongst the delicate, nocturnal stars, with tearful eyes and a rapturous heart. That night, I was with someone different from the guy who stands in front of me, the one who watched me unfold in his arms, yet he still left. I don't wait for him to provide me with an answer, because I already understand.

Such beautiful promises are always made after long, enrapturing moments. They beguile and embosom you, but when morning comes and the light spreads, the sun flashes reality at you, and only the blind wouldn't be able to see it.

And I was blinded by his love.

I take the silence in the room as my cue to leave, hoisting my bag from the ground, where it fell earlier when Claire lunged at me, before I saunter out.

I don't get to walk for long, before I hear footsteps following me. "Wait, Candice." I don't understand the vault my heart makes when I hear him calling after me. I don't understand the weighty things I still feel for him, even after every anguish he caused me.

I stop in my tracks, turning around to face him, making sure I replace the dejected expression on my face with a catatonic one, but the moment I perceive his dolorous countenance, my vizard wavers, betraying a hint of how wretched and angry I feel. "What?" I snap.

He flinches slightly, which catches me off-guard, before he looks away, his eyes looking detached. "I want to talk."

"About?" I ask sharply, not missing a beat.

He sighs. "About what happen last time." He carefully says, finally meeting my roiled gaze with his sorrowful one.

I nod, letting out a humorless laugh. "You mean when you left me a goodbye note directly after I opened my heart and trusted you with everything I have?"

He briefly closes his eyes, and though I see the struggle, it doesn't alleviate the pain and fury I feel. "He wasn't going to let it go, Candice. He wasn't going to let us be."

My eyebrows shoot up, accentuating my disbelief. "Oh yeah?" I question, advancing closer to him. "Do you think I'm that big of a fool? I mean, yeah, I believed and trusted you, but you don't really expect me to believe that lame excuse, do you?"

"Candice-

"You didn't want him to let it go, Dylan." I rave, prodding him in the chest. "It's her—Linda, you didn't want to let her go. You didn't want to move on and have a new life with me."

He drags a hand down his face, suspiring. "It's not like that, Candice. I do want a life with you, but I don't deserve one."

I snort. "Oh, please don't pull that you-deserve-better talk with me."

His face hardens. "Yes, Candice, you deserve better than me, and I deserve to drown in guilt and self-loathing for what I did to her. I don't deserve to move on and feel those things I felt with you." He takes one hesitant step closer. "It's for the best."

I nod repeatedly, plastering a sardonic smile on my face, because I know very well that if I don't wear that nonchalant camouflage on, my tears will betray me. "And you just realized that now?"

He swallows. "Listen-

"Answer me!" I demand, my voice rising. "I fell in love with you, and you realized how you don't deserve me just now? How remarkable!"

He stays silent for a moment, staring right into my eyes with his woeful gaze, before he opens his mouth and voices exactly what I expected him to say. "I'm sorry."

I tilt my head to the side, placing one hand against my chest where my heart is located. "Well, guess what? That sorry of yours didn't heal anything." I shrug apologetically. "Don't worry, though. I won't get clingy and follow you around. I've never been needy, and just like I got over him, I'll get over you too. I mean, no one is unforgettable."

With that I swerve and stride away from him, and though I try to stop them, they trickle down anyway.

My tears.

____________________________________

"How could you be so irresponsible, stirring trouble on campus like that?" My grandma paces in front of me, her infirmity appearing not to be prompting any complications when it comes to heels, whilst I still find it hard to steadily walk in them. She's been jittery ever since the principal called her, since she's my guardian, and though I hate resorting to her, I can't be expelled.

I admit that I didn't perpend the consequences before I decided to publicize the video, all along fantasizing about Claire's disgrace, but I also have to admit that what happened didn't disintegrate one bit of the euphoria I felt after that scandal, considering the way she humiliated me and my mother's name. "How many times do I have to repeat this? She lunged at me!" I exclaim, letting out a loud sigh.

"Well, you broadcasted a video of her father kissing your grandfather's feet!" She bleats, throwing her arms.

"Hello! You gave me the video! Don't you remember?" I cross my arms, my patience running out.

"Yes, I do, but only for you to twist her arm if she gives you trouble, not to propagate it everywhere!" She reasons.

"And I thank you for your considerate gesture, giving me that video, which I never planned to propagate anywhere, but then she had to humiliate me in front of her family, along with the other elite families, calling my mom a low-end whore, before she broadcasted what she knew about my mom on campus too." I deadpan, shrugging. "I bet everyone contemplated why the mother of such a rich girl would go and become a prostitute. Care to go and enlighten them with the whole story?" I lift my eyebrows, watching her face as it reddens, her expression turning contrite.

"Don't be so cruel, Candice." She simply says, her eyes showing penitence.

I roll my eyes. "Then stop reprimanding me! You might be my guardian, but that's all. I will never consider you my grandmother, let alone forgive you." A feeling of guilt pricks me, but I ignore it. "It's cute of you showing concern, but that doesn't change the way I feel about you, and it definitely doesn't change the fact that everything that's happening in my life is because of you."

She gapes at me for long, her face displaying an amount of hurt that makes me want to retract what I said. But I don't, because it's nothing but the truth. What she did to us is beyond forgiveness, and it doesn't matter that I have ruminated over the possibility of forgiving her many times. I always go back to those dark memories of me losing my family, all because of her.

Seeming like a sanguine child who has just lost his hope of seeing Santa Claus, she nods. "Alright, Candice. I will do my role as your guardian and take care of the whole thing, and then I'll go back to Tacoma without bothering you again." She declares, her voice brittle, before she fixes her turban and heads to the front door.

My impulse and guilt urge me to say something. Maybe apologize or take the words back, but instead, I enshroud my qualms. "Sorry for the inconvenience." I say, my voice stolid.

She says nothing in return, twisting the door knob, before she leaves, slamming the door behind her, and leaving me with my worst enemy.

Guilt.

But instead of relinquishing myself to it, I pick up my jacket and bag, on a mission to drink my pain away, just like I've been doing for a few days now. Leaving my joyless apartment, I rivet my mind on Nights, a place I despise, but I can't go to Emerald. Even though both have a lot of indelible moments, the vile moments I spent at Nights still exceed the beautiful ones.

However, the moment I step my foot into the place, a strong feeling of nostalgia hits me, enswathing me in a ball that seems to smother me. A ball filled with moments from my nineteenth birthday. The day he refused to leave me alone. Memories of us dancing, laughing, drinking. Memories of me standing in his car, my hair drifting as the cool, refreshing air hit me. All of those memories strike me repeatedly, and I become aware of the tattoo he permanently pierced into my skin that day.

Blue Nineteen.

I walk into the place, a part of me coveting his presence, waiting for him to parade into the place and ridicule me for being so bleak. To guzzle tequila with me, and then pull me to the dance floor and dance with me.

And like the universe has decided to fulfill my wish, along with some modifications, I luck into no one but Dylan Evans, beholding him sitting in a booth facing the entry. He has a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, reminding me of the first few times I hung out with him and his friends. My heart churns a bit, my feet feeling like they were planted into the ground.

But before I get to rejoice, a girl approaches him, and just as I think he's going to blow her off, she climbs onto his lap. And he does nothing to stop her.

But that's not what shocks the life out of me and propels my feet to shamble toward them. It's the girl who's sitting on his lap. That hair. That body. That laugh. They all push me to go closer, so close they both notice an intruder, and just as I inwardly plead that I'm mistaken, the universe astonishes me again with yet another impingement.

This time it's not something that I wished for.

The smile on the girl's face freezes, her eyes widening like two small globes. She looks at Dylan for a moment, before she slowly moves her attention back to me, looking dumbstruck, but her shock has nothing on mine. I stand lodged in my place, stupefied and unable to breathe, before I open my mouth and whisper the question my brain keeps reechoing.

"Melody?"