[hey, guys! i'm almost done writing this story. this chapter pretty much serves as the penultimate chapter (second to the last) of this story. i say "pretty much" because there are actually 2 more chapters left after this, but the last one will be really short so it's more of an epilogue of some sort.

i m p o r t a n t:

reading through the comments on the last chapter compelled me to point out that

1.) nope, the kid on the picture (the one who proposed to reed) wasn't austin. after all, he grew up in michigan, so there's no way he and reed could have met before. if there's anything you guys should pretty much know about me, it's that i actually shy away from elaborate backstories.

2.) every person is different. some of you have implied that reed acting out on her father was bordering on unrealistic, pointing out that while it's normal to harbor a negative feelings for a parent who left, it's not normal for reed to act and speak like that to her father, or for her to "hate him that much." first off, read between the lines. 

this story is written in first person, which means the narrator is bound to say things that may not be true because she is blind to some things in her life. when she says she wants her father to disappear, it doesn't mean she really wants that. she only says she does. as for this story, reed, by nature, is a stubborn character, and she's often in denial about her feelings because she hates letting other people see her emotions, so she may be saying these things, completely unaware that it might only be her trying to convince herself.

more importantly, i would beg to disagree on the assumption that someone can't just suddenly act like reed did with her father. all my stories tend to have characters whose family situation is problematic, but reed's is probably the one closest to my own. my dad left around the same time for the same reason in the same manner. the argument she had with him (over the phone) largely resembles the one i had with my father 2 years ago before i completely cut off all contact with him.

you can't call reed's reactions "unrealistic" simply because you wouldn't have reacted that way. i apologize if her actions had made you uncomfortable in any way, but there are a lot of factors that could affect the way a person acts, and i'd like to think that reed's actions were well within the framework of her character.

sorry for that block of text, but in any case, thank you so, so much following reed's story until this chapter. i can't possibly tell you how much your support has constantly given me the push i needed to even get this far. love you guys!

sam xo]

Chapter 30

The car slowed to a stop in front of the all-too-familiar driveway.

I looked through the windshield at the house standing before me, debating on whether or not I should go through with this. I could easily back out. Drive away and pretend that I never even bothered.

But I had to do this.

Taking a deep breath, I let go of the steering wheel and straightened in my seat. If I wanted answers, then there was no turning back.

I turned the engine off and got out of the car, taking as much time as possible so that I could collect my thoughts, which suddenly seemed to go haywire the moment Tyler's house came to view. The fact that I went here willingly was surprising, even to me, but the conversation I had with my dad last night only seemed to bring about more questions than answers.

For the longest time, I'd always been cynical about love, but then a week ago, Tyler said something that made me question just how sturdy the walls I'd put up around myself were.

So here I am, I thought, ringing the doorbell before I could change my mind and sprint the other way around.

I was prepared for all kinds of awkwardness to ensue. In fact, after how things had gone down with Tyler and me, I wouldn't even be surprised if he slammed the door in my face.

When it opened, however, it wasn't Tyler who greeted me.

"Can I help you?"

It was a boy around thirteen years old. He wore glasses that seemed too large on his face, but the resemblance between him and Tyler was striking.

"Hi," I said. "Is, uh, Tyler home?"

He looked up at me with wide eyes before saying, "One second." Then, before I could even stammer out a reply, he ducked back behind the door and shouted, "Ty-ty!"

I blinked, somewhat taken aback, and then a few seconds later, I heard Tyler's voice growing louder as he, I assumed, got closer. "I told you, Simon, if there's someone selling stuff to us, politely decline and close the door. Unless they're selling girl scout cookies, in which case, you can—"

The door swung open. Tyler's expression shifted from annoyed to surprised. I cleared my throat.

"Hi," I squeaked out.

Simon immediately scurried off to leave us alone. For a moment, Tyler seemed to be at a loss for words, effectively making me feel terrible for having the guts to show up at his doorstep after everything else.

I was positive my face was flaming from shame when I said, "Is it okay if we, uh, talk?"

"Oh." He bristled, prompting me to lift my gaze to his. He cleared his throat, but just when I thought he'd send me off with a hostile glare, he gave me a slightly dampened grin. "Well, last time we talked, you did kind of break my heart so..."

"I'm sorry," I gushed out. "Really, I don't know how I can even face you like this when—"

"Hey, hey, no." He placed his hands on my shoulders. "I'm just kidding, Reed. Come on in."

He stepped aside and opened the door wider, allowing me to go in before following suit and shutting the door behind us. Simon and another, even younger boy was seated on the carpet in the living room, busily tapping away on some joystick controllers as zombies continued to appear on the TV screen.

When they heard us come in, however, they paused the game and looked up at us.

"My brothers," Tyler said, seemingly embarrassed. "The one with the glasses is Simon, and that one is Denver."

"Hi," I said.

The youngest one gave Tyler a horrified look. "Ty-ty, you're going to get cooties all over the house!"

Tyler's face burst into flames and he quickly grabbed a throw pillow to chuck it at his little brother. "Just go back to playing." Then, to me, he said, "Let's head out back."

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Denver bellowed as we left the living room, his voice taking on a somewhat ominous tone.

Tyler duck his head and shot me an apologetic look. "Sorry."

"Oh, no, Ty-ty, it's all right."

He gave me a flat look upon hearing the nickname, but he didn't say anything even when he led me to the garden in the backyard. His backyard was barely recognizable without the crowd of drunk high schoolers littering the area.

"So," he said, gesturing for me to take a seat on the black, metal chair a little ways off the pool. "What brought you here?"

Ignoring the other chairs entirely, he took a seat on the round table and faced me.

Despite the way things had turned out between us, Tyler regarded me with a slight grin on his face. This, however, didn't make me feel any better. If anything, his kindness only made me feel even guiltier for turning him down.

Pushing past the guilt, I clasped my hands together and cleared my throat. "Well." I dared to look up at him. "There was, uh, something I've been meaning to ask you."

"All right," he said. "Shoot."

"A few days ago, you, uh—there was something you said about me telling you that I, um—that I want to fall in love." I nearly choked on the words, and even when I got them out, I felt as though they left a bitter aftertaste on my mouth.

"Right," he said, his brows knitting together. "What about it?"

"When I said I don't ever want to fall in love ever," I began, "I was being honest. For the longest time, I'd decided that I was never going to fall in love, and I just don't understand how, or why, exactly, I'd told you otherwise."

Tyler's face smoothed out into a look of understanding, but a hint of confusion stayed behind. "You were drunk," he said, as though this explained everything.

And maybe it did. Maybe it should have been enough, but for some reason, I found myself saying, "Still. I just—I can't help but wonder how exactly it came to that." I took a deep breath. "What really happened that night, Tyler?"

The question didn't seem to take him off guard, and even though it must have bordered on insensitive, he simply considered it with a calm expression on his face. A few seconds passed, leaving me in anticipation while I waited for his response.

Tyler looked at me for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face, and then he let out a small sigh and shifted in his seat.

"You were already drunk when I found you. You were throwing up right over"—he pointed at the porch—"there."

I grimaced, quickly shooting him an apologetic look. There was no way that could have been a pleasant memory.

"I kind of held your hair back," he told me, "and I pretty much stayed with you for the rest of the night."

"Thank you," I murmured, wishing he'd sense my sincerity. I couldn't hold my liquor well—not at all—but I'd never really been much of a drinker anyway, so it never really bothered me. Part of this is because I never really liked getting drunk for the sake of getting drunk and another, much larger part of it is because I knew I couldn't get drunk since I needed to watch over Tori and make sure she wouldn't do anything stupid.

That night, however, with the little disappearing act my father pulled on me, it finally felt like I had a reason to get drunk, and since Tori wasn't there for me to worry about her, I pretty much just let loose, barely thinking about the consequences of my actions, and to be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure how I would have fared if no one was there to take care of me.

"It's fine," Tyler told me now, probably unaware of the gravity of my gratitude. "Besides, how could I leave you alone when you were like that?"

"Which is exactly why I'm really grateful that it was you who found me."

His lips tugged into a small smile. "It's really nothing big," he said. "Anyway, you immediately fell asleep shortly after that, so I brought you to one of the rooms upstairs and stayed with you for a while. But I didn't take advantage of you or anything," he added hastily, a blush spreading across his cheeks. "I just stayed since I knew that leaving you alone completely defenseless wouldn't be the greatest idea in the world."

"Right," I said, clearing my throat and fighting the urge to blush as well.

"You, uh, woke up around half an hour later," he told me. "I think you were feeling a little better, and when you saw me sitting by the window, you got up and joined me."

I could vaguely remember this part. The dim light from the lampshade. The small loveseat by the window. Tyler, playing a game or something on his phone.

But all the details were hazy. I knew we'd talked, but I didn't have the slightest idea as to what we'd talked about.

"I asked you if everything was all right," Tyler told me now. "I'd never seen you drunk, and I kind of had the feeling that there was no way in hell you'd get drunk if there wasn't anything bothering you, so I asked." He turned to give me an almost sympathetic look. "You told me about your father, Reed."

Had I been sober, I never would have told anyone about Dad. It was a topic I kept close to my heart, and Tyler must have known this. Otherwise, he never would have thought that that one night stand was anything more than just that.

"You told me about him not showing up at the grad ceremony, and about it not being the first time he stood you up when he promised he'd be there. You told me you missed him."

I looked down at the hands on my lap.

"You kept telling me about all the reasons you say you hate him." Tyler's voice was soothing, calming. I had no doubt that he knew how sensitive this topic was for me because he was speaking in a manner that made it clear he didn't want to inflict any pain whatsoever to me. "Then you said something about believing that everyone else is just as bad he is. That everyone has the capacity to leave without warning."

"See?" I said. "I can't see how I could have told you that I wanted to fall in love."

"But you did," he told me. "You did tell me."

I looked at him.

"I told you I believed otherwise," he explained. "I told you that I believed not everyone's out to get you, and then you told me that that would be nice, because you really want to fall in love and there's no way you could do that if everyone's only going to betray you."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "No, no, no, no, no. There's no way I could have said anything like that."

He didn't say anything, just looked at me as if to say that I should believe what I want to believe.

I got to my feet. "Are you sure I really said something like that?"

"And I'm fairly certain you meant it."

I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could even begin to talk, he was already cutting me off.

"Think about it." He looked me in the eye, not once averting his scalding gaze. "Everyone always says that people are more honest when they're drunk. Especially to themselves. I dunno, Reed. Maybe you just need to be more honest with yourself."

"What makes you think I'm not?" I said.

"Because if you were," he replied, "you wouldn't be here second-guessing your own beliefs."

* * *

I've lost count of how many times I'd been told that I was stubborn. I knew it too, though I usually preferred the term strong-willed or decisive.

Maybe they were right though. Maybe I really am stubborn, even when it comes to things that I shouldn't even be stubborn about.

And maybe Tyler was also right about me not being honest to myself, because these two seem to go hand-in-hand when it comes to me. If I wasn't so stubborn, I would probably find it easier to admit the things that I usually hate to admit, even to myself.

It was only now, though, that I began to realize it isn't always good to be so stubborn when there are already so many indicators that I'm going the wrong way, farther and farther from the finish line.

Even now that I can't help but wonder if maybe I'd been wrong all this time, especially now that I'd realized just how much it didn't make sense for me to reject my own subconscious thoughts.

I'd always believed that love didn't exist, or that if it did, then it wasn't for me. I'd been adamant about this. Too adamant, perhaps, that even when I myself started to have doubts about what I really want, I refused to acknowledge it.

Just like how I'd refused to acknowledge the fact that there were problems I needed to resolve as soon as possible.

If I were to be really, really honest with myself, being able to talk it out with dad had really lightened the load off my shoulders, because truth be told? I still love my dad. Or, at least, I still want to learn how to love him, despite everything, especially now that we'd finally communicated with each other. And this is something that I'd never let myself admit to anyone else ever before.

Much like how I'd been denying the fact that I missed Tori—a lot. I missed her annoying quirks and frustrating choices and even her rom-com marathons and optimistic vibrancy. I missed her, even though I wasn't sure that she was feeling the same, and maybe that was the reason why I'd been avoiding the thought of confronting her in the first place.

I might only be afraid to find out that I was the only one who valued our friendship enough to still care even after all the words we'd thrown at each other.

I'd been terrified of facing my problems because I knew doing so would force me to confront my own emotions.

But all my problems have done nothing but weigh me down these days. I could keep ignoring them until I leave for college, I could keep pretending they didn't exist for the rest of my life, but that wouldn't magically make them disappear.

So maybe it was time for me to stop running away.

Maybe, I figured, it was time for me to face my emotions and admit, after denying it for so, so long, that my heart is just as fragile as everyone else's.

* * *

I needed to talk to Tori.

What I was going to say, I had no fucking idea, but all I knew was that I needed to talk to her.

Case in point, I was upset and Tori was drunk when we fought. Perhaps it would be better for me to see how our conversation would pan out if both of us were calm, sober and perfectly well within reason.

So before I could change my mind, I headed over to her house, all the while wondering what to say to her the moment she opened the door to find me standing there on the doorway, holding up her favorite treat and drink from Coffee Overdose.

You could say it was an impulsive decision, but the shop was along the way anyway, and once I drove past it, I figured it wouldn't hurt for me to get her something, if only for old time's sake.

But once I got there, I was surprised to find that I didn't even have the luxury of ringing the doorbell and anxiously waiting for the door to open because there she was, sitting cross-legged on the wooden swing on their front porch.

She looked up as soon as the car came into view, immediately catching my gaze and erasing all my chances at collecting my thoughts.

There was no turning back.

I grabbed the brown paper bag and the slightly warm cup before getting out of the car. Then, fully aware of her gaze on me, I made my way to the porch, trudging through the gravel pathway that led to their house.

I paused when I reached the porch steps. This close, there was no mistaking that she was surprised to see me, and I figured she was probably even more surprised when I said, "I brought you coffee."

Before I even had time to wonder if that was the best way to start this or not, she got to her feet and launched herself at me, throwing her arms around me so abruptly that I had to stumble back a few steps to keep myself from falling.

"Oh, Reed, I'm so, so, so sorry. I don't know what came over me."

It was my turn to be surprised. For a moment, there was nothing I could do but stand there, unmoving, struggling to understand what exactly was happening.

Tori stepped back, still holding onto my shoulders. "I thought for sure that you hated me," she said, tears already flooding her eyes.

"How could I?" I asked her, feeling any semblance of anger evaporate completely. "I mean, okay, for a moment there, I did kind of hate you, but, come on, Tori. I can hardly even remember what we'd argued about."

"Me, too," she replied. "Then again, I was drunk, so..."

I let out a small laugh, relieved to find that we could still fall into a conversation like this. She must have felt the same because when our eyes met, the two of us immediately sunk into another hug. It was hard to embrace her with the coffee and the paper bag I was holding, but I managed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "For what I said. For what I did. For basically everything."

"I am, too," I murmured, trying my best not to choke on the words. "I'm so, so sorry. For walking away and saying we're done when—"

"Stop," she cut me off, pulling away to give me a small smile. "Seeing an emotional Reed is kind of creeping me out."

I rolled my eyes, fighting the urge to smile. "Shut up."

"Come on," she said. "There are so, so, so many things we really need to talk about."

"We still have all summer," I reminded her.

She shot me a meaningful grin.

"I think," she said, "we still have a whole lifetime."