A month later:

Autumn POV:

I groan as I load the last box into my trunk, finally the last box. I slam the trunk shut as I can hear footsteps behind me, I turn around, and there stands my mother, failing to hide the sad and painful expression on her face and has a hand placed across her chest.

I knew instantly what she was thinking, so I ran up to me and hugged her as tightly as I possibly could.

"It's just like that first day of college, you packing up and leaving us" My mom tearfully said. "It was so nice having you around for some time"

It really was nice living with my parents again, I felt like a teenager all over again, who didn't have to worry about a super stressed out adult life. As a teenager, you can just live with the comfort of parents, and just have fun and figure out your life as you grow older. I miss that as an adult sometimes.

Time really flies by one says.

Now, I'm slowly starting to move on with my life, for the past two and a half weeks, I've been searching and touring apartments, and in that search, I have found the perfect place, it's close to where I work, good distance from my parents house, so that I can stop by to visit and eat dinner with them, and more importantly, it's nowhere near the apartment that me and Mattew's old apartment is, so I won't run into him any time soon.

If he still lives there.

My dad comes out the front door and walks towards me and mom, and bear hugs us both.

"I really am going to miss you sweetheart" my dad says.

"I'm going to miss both of you guys so much" I said back, hugging them tighter.

After silently squeezing the air out of each other's lungs, my parents are both standing at the door of my car as I start up my car and say my goodbyes.

"Make sure you call after you've arrive to your apartment, and don't forget to call us sometime to check in to see how you're doing, oh and don't forget, you can stop by the house at anytime, you make sure-"

"Honey, no need to stress out, but do make sure you are keeping yourself safe" My father interrupts her as he puts his arm around her, calming her down.

"By the way, I have a present for you" My dad says as he pulls out a wrap up box with a bow on top of this. "The world can be a dangerous place, and living on your own can be scary so carry this around you at all times"

I took the present, and started to tear it open, feeling like Christmas again, I threw the trash in my passenger seat. The present revealed a baby blue taser, I gasp, I've always wanted one, but mom insisted that I would use it irresponsibly.

"Please stay safe" My mother said

"I will, love you guys" I waved as I drove off.

In my apartment, there are just boxes everywhere. My parents suggested they come and help, but I didn't want to disturb their peace, plus I got to learn how to be more independent and survive on my own. I never ever done this before besides having a apartment with Matthew but I'm on my own now.

I've ordered take out to help pass the time, just later in the afternoon, while I was still unpacking, when my phone rings, I pause what I'm doing and answer it.

"You, me and this new restaurant, and celebrating that you got your own apartment!"

Mel screamed, my best friend of ten plus years, we basically knew each other since elementary school, she was the one friend that I can turn to when I'm having a hard time. After the break up was finalized, she was the shoulder I would cry on, we were each other's biggest supporters.

"I don't know, I still have a lot of unpacking to do" I say cringing as I look around my kitchen, tiles of box everywhere staring back at me.

"Come on, this is your first apartment, you deserve to celebrate it, and plus it's Saturday tomorrow, so we both are gonna be off from work so..." Mel said

"So what?" I say, confused by what she's suggesting.

"We can drink and unpack from there"

"You want us to unpack my boxes while we're drinking?" I asked her, "Do you remender what happens when we drink and try to do something productive?"

"It won't happen again, I swear" Mel pleaded.

"Fine, just let me throw on something, then I'll meet you there"

"Yay, love you" She said, blowing a kiss over the phone, I hung up and scrambled in the boxes to find some decent clothes to wear.

After I put together an outfit, consisting of some jeans and just a random shirt, I drive over to the restaurant Mel told me about, and I have to admit, it has the most beautiful interior decoration, whoever designs this place really knows what they're doing.

Mel is already seated as I walk in, so I sit down and she immediately starts talking about what I'm going to do now that I'm single and moved into a new apartment.

"Probably, just live, I mean I would still like to talk about what went wrong, but I think there will be no conversation any time some" I sigh, thinking how things could've really been good between us, "I think I'm going to focus on myself and my career"

"I think that's best, also you don't have to worry about the lack of communication, the biggest problem in relationships these days, people don't know how to communicate their needs and wants" Mel said, looking down as she ate her food, Mel had her fair shares of relationships, most of them has ended due to them not communicating, so she has experience in that field.

"I know, maybe he didn't feel like he couldn't communicate his feelings to me because I might judge him" I questioned.

"Quit blaming yourself for him not putting on his big boy pants, and opening his mouth and saying what his feels" She angrily says, lightly slamming the table "You deserve much more than some man baby"

"Don't judge him, there's plenty of reason we didn't work out"

"Mostly because of him" she mumbled.

The rest of the afternoon, we talked about what we were going to do this weekend, until Mel gets a important call from work, saying that they really need her, she quickly apologizes to me, saying that we can unpack my apartment on a later date which is fine by me.

After she paid her fair share and left, I quickly paid mine as well and walked outside, the fresh air welcoming me to the busy streets and people being in their own world, the different lives so many people are living right now.

I turned to walk down to my car, when I suddenly saw a familiar head of fluffy hair, I squinted my eyes to take a better look, but the more I got closer to them, the realization dawned on me, Damian.

Damian is on his phone, sitting at the entrance of another restaurant, not far from the one I came from, as guests walk right by him, he's not paying attention to anything or anyone, not even looking up at people walking in and out, like he's just in his headspace.

I don't know why, but suddenly, my palms are sweating, and my heart rate is picking up, like my body is excited to see him again.

Deciding to go with what my body wants, I walked up right to him and it was like he knew that a certain someone was coming up to him because he quickly looks up and smiles when he sees me, sending a little bit of heat to my cheeks.

"Hey you" He says after a short while of us just staring at each other.

"Hey, I didn't think I would see you again" I replied.

"How long has it been? A month? Since I stopped you from killing someone" He jokes as he stands up.

To that, I laughed, thinking back to that night I met him, he turned my anger and sadness into a somewhat neutral feeling, which I appreciated very much.

"Very funny" I said as my laughter calmed down. "But what are you doing hanging in front of a restaurant?" I questioned.

"I actually work here, but I'm on my break right now" He looks back inside the restaurant, then back at me, "But you should come back when my shift is over in a few hours"

"Yeah, I can come back later" I smiled.

From there, after he told me when his shift was over. While Damian returned to work, I drove around for a little bit and stopped by to get some snacks for myself. After my little errands, I drove back to the restaurant, and Damian was just walking out of the building, looking burned out.

When I met up with him, the sun was already setting, so we took a walk down to the beach, the same beach where we met.

We didn't talk. We didn't need to. Just silence can do a lot to a person.

After a while, he inhales and exhales deeply.

"I...want to see you more" He says slowly

I continued to look out to the ocean, I'm slowly getting over my ex-fiance, but I'm still scared.

"Okay" I said, without thinking, as I turned to him.

"Give me your planner", holding out his hand.

I reached out into my bag, surprised that he even noticed that I had a planner. He's really observative, so I pulled out my planner and handed it to him. He took it and pulled out a pen from his back pocket, opened it to the very back of the book and wrote something inside it. There, he handed it back to me and proceeded to ask me about my day, and what I've been up to.

I didn't bother looking at what he wrote inside my planner because I was so engaged in our conversation. He makes me feel as if I had known him for basically my whole life, he's so easy to talk to.

After what felt like hours, we decided it was time to end the day for both of us. He Insisted walking me to my car, so that he knew I got there safely. My heart pings at his request, so I let him.

"Good night Autumn" He said as he opened the car door for me, looking down at me as I settled myself in the seat.

I smiled at him, "Good night to you too, Damian", I replied back.

The small corner of his lip rose up and he shut the door, and began to walk away. I stared at him in the rearview mirror until I couldn't see him anymore. I got my planner out and flipped to the last page, and there it was, the thing he quickly wrote down inside.

His number.

We live for a mysterious man.

What do you think about Damian so far?

What do you think is going on with Matthew?

-Summer Roe