https://youtu.be/cSOML9JZbdU

AUDIOBOOK NOTE: DON'T MISS THE EXPLOSIVELY INTENSE AUDIOBOOK PERFORMANCE FOR THIS CHAPTER. REGARDLESS IF YOU'RE A WEEKLY LISTENER OR SOME WHO HAS NEVER LISTENED BEFORE kaelking12 CAPTURED THE EMOTIONAL RAWNESS OF THIS CHAPTER INCREDIBLY WELL. IF YOU LISTEN ALONG YOU ALSO WON'T BREEZE THROUGH THE CHAPTER AS QUICKLY & GET THE FULL EXPERIENCE! KRISTEN PUTS IN HOURS OF WORK & EMOTIONAL PREPARATION TO CAPTURE THE CHARACTERS FOR YOU GUYS, SO WE HOPE YOU TUNE IN!

Elias

Time slows.

Everything shifting from blur to focus.

Swaying.

Detaching me from what's real.

Disconnecting me from the present.

Catching me off guard and cutting the air from my lungs.

I don't know what I'm hearing.

I don't know what Kai's saying.

Or if I heard him right at all.

Sound's phasing in and out from muffled noises to high-pitched deafening quiet.

Ten seconds ago, this entire courtyard was filled with noise. Me screaming, her sprinting, people passing us by living their lives outside of our chaos.

And then everything went quiet.

Everything stopped because of him.

Because of two words.

A lie.

His lie.

His mistake.

His misunderstanding.

It has to be.

I need it to be.

I need him to stop staring at me with pity and shock painted all over his face. I need him to laugh or smile or tell me that he's playing some sick, twisted joke just to get back at me. I need him to break the silence so that I can breathe.

I can't breathe.

I try sucking in a mouthful of air, but it dies in my throat.

My chest's burning, like there's too much oxygen inside it, but nothing feels like enough. The tree-lined courtyard tilts off its axis and takes me with it, so I grab onto Kai to stay on my feet. He throws a hand around my shoulder to keep me steady, leads me over to the nearest bench, and sits me down. But the second I hit the seat, I feel like I'm sinking through the floor.

I drop my head into my hands and dig my nails into my skin until it hurts. The pain pulls me out of my free fall, Kai's voice pulling me back to reality. Back to myself--or whatever's left of me.

He glances over with that same twisted look on his face and says something to me. Something that sounds a lot like the same bullshit the paramedics told me when they found me upside down and bleeding under my Wrangler. It didn't save me then. It won't now.

"Elias, breathe. I need you to try to calm down so that you can breathe, man."

Kai places his hand in the middle of my back like it'll stop the adrenaline that's racing through my veins, but it doesn't. The tension in my chest tightens like a rubber band, and the second he touches me, it snaps. I shrug him off because it's all I can do. Because I hardly have it in me to move anymore much less fight him.

"I don't need--to do anything. The only thing I need is--"

For all of this to stop.

"---for you to take back what you said."

He stares at me like I'm not making any sense when he's the one making up stories and trying to pass them off as truth. If any part of what he's saying is true, she would've told me. She would've fucking told me.

"Elias, I--I'm so sorry, you mentioned the baby. And, I thought--I thought you knew. She promised that she'd--"

"I don't know anything, Kai. I don't know why you're sitting here lying to me. I don't know why you keep showing up when neither of us want you to. And I don't know why you'd say something like that to me. Is this your idea of a joke 'cause it's not fucking funny."

Kai recoils from me like a snake but I don't give a shit. Maybe he's not used to getting called out like this, but it's about time somebody did it. I barely got a word in with this guy the last time we squared off. I let him get a cheap shot in for Jersey's sake, but this time around I'm not holding anything back. No mercy. No filter.

"Look, regardless of what you may think of me, I wouldn't do something like that to you or her."

He wouldn't. He's right. He always has been. The right guy, the right option, Mr. Fan-fucking-tastic. The only person who's ever been the bad guy when it came to Jersey was me. I'm the one who sent her packing in the middle of the night. I'm the one who left her. I'm the one who's been tearing her life apart since the day she met me--but the damage I've done can't be as bad as what he's saying.

It can't be.

Please, God, don't let it be.

"Then what's this about, huh? Her leaving you for me? Me chasing after her because I'm not sorry. I'll never be sorry when it comes to taking her away from you."

The words come out of my mouth all wrong but it's too late for me to swallow them. They twist and bend themselves out of shape to the point where I can't even believe that I said them.

Or that part of me meant them.

Kai's whole body stiffens up as my version of the truth settles into the couple inches of space separating us. I almost beg him to react, to say something or do something explosive so I have an excuse to explode right back, but he just takes it. Or maybe he doesn't. I don't know. I can't read him.

On the outside he looks like the picture of patience, and peace, and perfect calm. Of every single good thing I'm not. And I want to hate him for it. I want to release the pressure building up in my fists by sending them crashing into his pretty-boy jawline, but the truth is, I'm not even angry at him.

I'm angry at me.

I'm angry at the fact that this is what my life has become.

A combination of jealousy, and sadness, and doubt, struggling to get by, while he's just--living.

He's in control.

Maybe that's always been the difference.

He's a man, and I'm a boy.

I'm still the kid with a thousand questions while he has all the answers.

Even the ones I'm not ready to hear.

Kai runs his hands down the length of his face and lets out the kind of sigh that says so much more than I want it to.

"She hasn't--she hasn't talked to you, has she?"

I don't know what it is about how he says it, but the unsteadiness in his voice makes my blood run cold. He's talking the same way the doctors did when they told me and my family that Lacey didn't make it. Some middle-aged redhead guy walked into my hospital room with a chart in his hands and kept tapping his nails against the clipboard.

And I remember wondering why he was so quiet--why he would stand there in a room full of people waiting on an answer and not saying anything to them at all.

For a while, the only sound I was paying attention to was that tap, tap, tapping--even though my heart was hammering a hole through my chest. So when he finally stopped, and all his noise turned into silence, he just looked at me. Through me. The way Kai's looking at me now, and in those couple quiet seconds, I knew.

I knew they couldn't save her before he even said a word.

And here I am again.

Hoping to save something that's already gone.

"There's--nothing for me and her to talk about because--"

My voice starts shaking along with my faith. In me. In her. In everything.

"--because if there was, she would've, she--"

"She had a son, Elias. You--both of you would've had a son."

My head fills with white noise. Just empty static. A mess of sound and chaos until Kai's words finally break through.

Had.

Would've had.

A Son.

My son.

My life.

Our life.

And suddenly I see everything.

Everything we could've been.

Everything he would've been.

Everything he is-- that he was.

And everything he'll never be.

His eyes. My eyes. Hers.

His nose. Her nose. Mine.

His hands.

His beautiful little hands--that I---

--never touched.

I never saw.

I never knew.

I never knew him.

I'll never get to know him.

And now there's nothing left to know.

Kai doesn't have to tell me he's gone, because I know he is.

I feel him missing.

I've felt him missing through her.

This whole time he's been the part of her that I couldn't reach. That I couldn't fix. All of her holes. All of her emptiness. All of her pain in silence. All of it was because she's spent all this time living without him.

Without me.

Without a family.

Without our family.

And somewhere in the middle of those 365 days.

52 weeks.

8,760 hours.

We.

The three of us--became two--

--because we lost our little one.

"Elias, I'm sorry. I honestly thought that you knew."

I stand up and back away from him 'cause I can't handle the conversation anymore.

"I have to go. Sorry, I just--have to go."

The world flies by lightning fast. I don't know how I get to the dorm, or up the stairs, or onto the third floor, because it happens in a blur. A couple people pass me when I get to the hallway but I barely recognize their faces. I feel them staring at me but I don't care. They don't matter because they're not her.

I stumble my way into the quad, still not sure of how my legs are still working when I can't even feel them. I can't feel anything. Or maybe I'm feeling everything. I can't tell the difference right now.

I push myself towards Jersey's door but the closer I get, the tighter the vice grip around my chest feels. There's a loud click and rattle of the metal chain on the other side of her door and suddenly I'm staring at Indigo. She looks frantic. Far from her usual too cool for school vibe. I don't have to ask her whether or not she's seen Jersey. The look on her face says it all.

"Elias, I'm usually all for love and war, but I really don't think it's a good time for you to see her right now."

I don't know when I turned into somebody who doesn't use words, but I don't have any left I can say to her. I don't agree or disagree, or nod, I just try gently pushing past her tiny frame like I haven't heard a word she's said. My heart's not listening to anyone or anything anymore.

"Hello? Earth to Elias, did you hear what I--"

Two steps away from the door my legs stop working and my body just quits. My knees hit the carpet, then my hands, until I'm down on the floor like a child, struggling not to let the weight of what's happening crush me into the ground.

"Indigo, please. Please, let me through. I need to see her, I need to talk to her. You don't know what I did, you don't know what she--"

I let out this sound, and it's so hollow and broken that I don't recognize it.

And then my eyes are stinging, and my throat's doing that thing where it's shrinking to a size that makes breathing impossible, and I'm dizzy because there's just not enough air. Not in my lungs, not in this quad, not anywhere.

Indigo's hand brushes against my shoulder but it doesn't calm me down. She keeps asking me what's wrong but I can't answer. I can't even look her in the eye because I can't see. My eyes are drowning with the kind of hurt I used to hide in highs and late nights with strangers. But now the pain's here to stay. It's here and it's ripping through me like a hurricane.

I gasp in a breath, and force the hollow howling sound that's been spilling out of my mouth to stop for a couple seconds so I can speak.

"She was alone. I left her alone. I left them. Both of them. And I didn't know--God, I didn't know."

I'm crying. And it's loud, and it's awful, and Indigo's staring at me horrified. Like she doesn't know what to do except reach out and hold me. I collapse into the shoulder of her oversized t-shirt because I don't know what else to do.

Indigo's been in this space with me before. Standing in the eye of the storm picking up my broken pieces. And before I know it, she's doing it all over again. Helping me to my feet, opening Jersey's door, and ushering me inside without another word.

She doesn't ask anymore questions. She doesn't follow me.

She lets the door close behind me and stays on the other side of everything, where she's always been, just keeping the balance, like she always has.

I don't get a chance to thank her before she disappears, but even if I could've, this one's bigger than I can say.

***

Jersey's sitting on her bed, crying. Her voice is so soft that you'd miss it if you weren't paying attention, but she has mine.

Complete.

And undivided.

I stand there for a couple seconds, not sure of what to do, and just--watch her. I watch this--beautiful mess of a woman, letting tears silently roll down her cheeks as she stares out the window at nothing.

And, that's when I finally see it. Everything she is. Everything's she's carried. Everything we've kept hidden finally forcing her to let down the guard she's had up for so long. She's a meeting of opposites. A picture of strength held together by all her fragile pieces.

Maybe she's watching memories play out on the glass pane. Or maybe she's just trying to survive it.

Us.

Trying to survive me and my secrets the way I'm trying to survive hers. I fight against the rope tied around my lungs, suck in a breath of air, and say her name. The name her parents gave her before she met me.

Before she was my Jersey.

And I don't do it because I'm letting her nickname go, I do it because I'm scared of seeing the moment when she won't answer to it anymore.

Maybe, after all we've done to each other, this is that moment.

"Alex," I say, and it's almost a whisper.

She startles at the sound of my voice and then wipes the tears away from her eyes before she turns to face me. Her hair's everywhere. Stuck to her face, spilling down her shoulders, brushing the edge of the blanket she's all wrapped up in. She looks so much younger. Barefaced, and raw, and honest.

Finally honest, finally vulnerable.

The state I've been begging her to let me see her in, and now that she's finally hit that point, I regret ever asking to see her like this in the first place. Because I never wanted to see her this hurt, this small, or this broken.

And I never wanted it to be because of me.

"How are you--how are you in here right now? I told Indigo not to let anyone in."

"And I told her that I needed to talk to you."

I say it like I'm almost confident, like we're just having another one of those fights that I know we'll make it through despite how bad things are. But it's all an illusion.

Maybe it's the atmosphere that's makes me slip out of reality for a few seconds. The cinnamon incense in the air, the still half-packed suitcases on the floor, the piles of clothes spilling out of her dresser drawers. Her chaos. Her always crooked sheets. Her smell.

Everything that makes her, her nearly pulls me out of the present and back into past afternoons where I could just climb into bed and hold her.

Back to the days when "I'm sorry" was enough.

But then I remember.

I remember her running away--from Darius, from Tanner, from Caleigh, and from me.

And then I remember him.

And I'm drowning all over again.

I sit down on the edge of her bed, not because I choose to, but because my legs can't hold my weight anymore. I feel Jersey shift on the mattress and move towards me-then retreat back. Like a King on a checkers board. Making mistakes and then taking them back before she loses. But everybody's lost this game.

"Elias, go. I can't do this right now. I don't want to see you or talk to you, so--please just--go. I need you to go."

Her voice is shaking the way it always does when she wants the world to believe that she's stronger than she is. But I don't buy it. I'm not falling for her tough girl act anymore now than I did when she walked off that plane.

She wasn't any different from me then. She isn't now.

I turn around and look at her dead on so she sees everything that's wrong. So she sees that I have no intention of leaving her now--or ever again.

"I'm not going anywhere until you--"

My voice hitches in my throat.

"--until you tell me what happened to you. Everything that happened to you."

"I don't wanna talk about this."

"That isn't fair. You know everything I did, and where I was, and who I was with, but I don't know anything about you. Apparently, I don't know anything about anything because you don't talk to me!"

Jersey bites her bottom lip like she's trying to hold back a tidal wave, and I wish she'd just let go. I wish she'd stop stonewalling me to where I can't even reach her. But she's building a castle a mile high to keep me out. I see it in her eyes before she even says anything.

"Are you really making this about me right now? After what your friend just said out there? What? Am I just supposed to forget the fact that you could've gotten another girl pregnant, forgive you, and just jump right into my history? That's not how this works, Elias."

I'm not taking avoidance for an answer anymore.

"Then how does it work? I have to air out all of my secrets, but you get to keep yours? Sorry, but that's bullshit. You don't get to do that anymore. You don't get to hide things from me anymore--especially when your secrets involve the two of us!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really? 'Cause Kai seems to! Apparently, he knows everything I don't. Care to explain how that happened or should I call him in here to help you communicate?!"

"Get out!"

"No."

She gets up off the bed and points me towards the door. My heart's beating so fast that I feel it pounding in my veins.

"I said, leave. I can't do this, Elias. I can't do any of this with you anymore, okay? I want you to leave me alone!"

Her voice sounds the way my mom's used to on nights when she'd breakdown in front of Tanner. I wasn't supposed to hear her crying. She always tried to keep a brave face on in front of me no matter what Dad was doing, no matter how badly he hurt her, she'd keep on pretending for my sake. But I never wanted her to. I wanted her to be real with me, even if her real was ugly and terrible, I just wanted the truth. And that's all I want now.

But I don't know if she'll give it to me.

"You don't get to quit like that. You don't get to walk away--"

"Why not? You did! You left me alone. You left me stranded on a beach without telling me anything except for what you wrote in that bullshit text! 'I lied?' What the hell was I supposed to do with that, Elias? You disappeared and all I had were those two words. Two stupid words that I read over and over again for months trying to understand. Trying to figure out if everything you said and did was a lie because that's what it felt like. You took my virginity and walked just so you could run back to Mindy!"

I fail to choke back the bitter laugh that comes spilling out of my mouth.

"Is that what you think? That I just up and took off so I could waste nine months of my life trying to be a father to a kid that wasn't even mine?! I thought about you every fucking day but you still think this is about Mindy-- "

"It was always about Mindy! Or Lacey, or your almost daughter. I don't trust you, Elias,-I-I can't trust you! You act like everything you've done should just earn you back our relationship, but that's not how life works! You can't just leave me for another girl, disappear into rehab, and then magically reappear expecting me to understand you!"

I don't understand you. Not at all. Maybe I never have.

"I never wanted to leave you. I never wanted her. Tanner forced me to get on that plane--"

"Did he force you to lie to me too? You could've said something, Elias."

"I didn't have a choice. You know where I would've been if I had."

She stares me down from across the room, which suddenly has turned into a warzone.

"How was I supposed to know that back then? Tell me, what else was I supposed to think! You left me alone. Stranded with my parents, struggling to explain the boy who was there one minute and gone the next. You made me feel completely worthless. As worthless as I'm feeling right now."

"Don't do that. Don't you try to turn everything we are into nothing, because you know that's not what this is. I'm sorry. Even though saying it won't make a fucking difference now, I'm sorry."

"Well, that's a little late, Elias. I needed you to be sorry when you left!"

"But I'm here now! I'm standing right here, Jersey! We should be way past last summer and all of its bullshit, but you won't let it go. That kid wasn't mine. Yes, she could've been and yes, it was a mistake, but that situation doesn't have to change anything between us now."

Jersey shakes her head in that way that she does when she only wants to hear what she wants to hear.

"It changes everything!"

"Only if you want it to. But be honest with yourself for once. Please. You know exactly how I feel about you and that kid doesn't make a difference in that."

She frantically starts wiping tears away from her eyes. Even though she hates hearing the truth at least it's getting under her skin.

"I don't know anything anymore, Elias. I just want you to go--"

She crosses the room in a blur, grabs me by the shirt, and tries to pull me off the bed. I stand up but keep my feet rooted to the floor despite her. She tries forcing me to the door but I don't let it happen.

Instead, I let her lose control. I let her beat her hands against my chest over and over again until she doesn't have it in her to fight me anymore.

"--please just go."

"Not until you tell me the truth."

Sobs sneak up into her throat and nearly choke the words out of her.

"What truth, Elias? That--I was in love with you back then? That I still am now? Is that what you want to hear because there it is. It's always been you. And it's killing me because I wanted so much for us. I- I wanted so many things to be different but it doesn't even matter because all we've done--all you've done is let other people destroy us."

Guilt sucker punches me in the chest but then resentment fills in the space where the air's slipped out.

"It wasn't other people who destroyed us, Jersey."

Shock washes over her face for a split second, and then anger takes its place.

"So, it's my fault that we're here?!"

"I didn't say that."

But some ugly part of me meant it.

"You might as well have. What did I do wrong, Elias? I wasn't the one who left, I wasn't the one who--"

"You hid things from me! You're still hiding things from me now!"

"Who are you to even accuse me of that when I just found out about your situation with Mindy? Me hiding things, Elias? A total stranger had to tell me what you didn't have the balls to!"

I walk away from her because if I don't, I'm gonna break down completely. I start pacing across the couple feet of space in the room but she follows me step for step. Testing me. Pushing me closer to the edge than I want to be.

"I had my reasons, just like you have yours."

She bristles and I wait for her to finally say it. To finally open her maze of a mouth and tell me the truth. But she dodges it. Again.

"What reasons could you possibly have? If you'd just told me about Mindy, we wouldn't be here right now. I could've forced myself to get over you right after you left. I could've saved myself from months of playing out everything we did together and torturing myself with thoughts of you. I could've moved on and had my life back. But instead of doing any of those things, I stopped living. I couldn't contact you, or Caleigh, or Tanner. No one told me where you were. You could've been dead, Elias and I wouldn't have known. You were just gone. Everyone was gone."

"Don't you think I know that?! I've spent everyday since Belmar hating myself for what I did to you, Jersey. How do you not see that? I could spend the rest of my life apologizing to you and it wouldn't be enough. And you're right, I should've called you when I got out of rehab. I should've told you about Mindy after I realized the kid wasn't mine but I was scared--"

"Of what? Me?"

"Of losing you!"

I take her by the shoulders, hoping to God that she'll just look at me--but she keeps her eyes fixed on the floor.

"You would've lost me anyway."

Her words come out cold and sharp like ten-thousand little razor blades, and she stands there watching me waiting to see if I'll run from her. If I'll finally bleed. But I don't. I break out the truth instead.

"Like you lost him?"

Jersey makes this face like she's just stepped out in the cold. Her eyes start fluttering a mile a minute, all the color drains out of her cheeks, and the fire in her spirit flickers out. Her face goes from flushed to grey all of a sudden, every inch of it blank and hollow like her eyes are. And then, in the sliver of a second, I see the spark of a realization light up in her eyes and leave them flooded with tears.

"Who-what are you talking about?"

She asks the question like the answer hasn't been living in her for all this time. Eating away at her the way it's eating away at me. So I give her an answer she can't hide behind anymore.

"Our son."

***

NOTE TO READERS:

(Thank you guys so much for reading & we want to give an especially BIG thank you to those of you who listened to the audiobook for this chapter. It was probably one of the most emotionally jarring and demanding chapters to record out of both books so if you're an audiobook fan/listener took the time to listen to this chapter please feel free to comment on kaelking12's chapter!

She puts in an immense amount of work not only into writing the books but also recording each chapter for the handful of you guys who have been gracious enough to listen! So thank you to each and everyone who has been positive and supportive of her recording work! We <3 you guys!

In other news, we want to also thank all of you readers who are going through this intense rollercoaster ride with us as we are nearing the end of the book! We know we're putting you guys through the ringer but when Kristen and I set out to write this book we wanted to write something that was real, raw, and relatable to people out there who have actually been through these circumstances.

Much of what you guys are reading about in CFTM, LHLH, & FHKH has been inspired by real experiences we have gone through or people we know have experienced. These next few chapters are dealing with some extremely heavy subject matter and circumstances for any couple. These circumstances hit close to home for us, quite a few people out there, and maybe some of you.

Our hearts & prayers go out to both the people we know and don't know who have been through a situation like this. We're here to show you what happens when the strength of a couple is tested and to show you the tragedy and triumph of these characters as they face circumstances that threaten to break them apart. It's amazing what faith, hope, and love will get you through.

So what does all of this mean for Jersey and Elias?

We'll see you at the next chapter to find out ;).

NEXT UPDATE GOES LIVE ON: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23RD! See you then!)

NEW 500 COMMENT CHALLENGE CONTEST:

How it works: If this chapter hits 500+ comments (and it can be emoji's, genuine comments, reactions, responses, tagging friends to come read, etc.) I will CHOOSE 5 people's stories to promote on my profile (that's your book in front of 31,000 people!!

You guys think we can do it?!

Ready, steady, go!

***

#REALTALK QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK:

1. If you and your significant other had lost a child, do you think it would bring you together or tear you apart? What do you think it would take to keep you together?

2. This is one of the ugliest fights Elias and Jersey have had to date. Whose side were you on? Alex's or Elias's? Or did you sympathize with both characters? Why?