I got to Pops Soda Ranch around mid-day, the perfect time for a cheeseburger, fries, and the twelve flavors of soda I sampled with my meal. Then I bought a few cases I'd filled with my hand-picked favorite flavors and ones I wanted to bring back home so I could let others try them. I even picked some of Niall's favorites even though I didn't necessarily think he deserved them.

After perusing the gift shop, I sampled even more flavors and ended up with a pretty nasty stomach ache for the next several hours. I found a drug store and bought some Tums, and then I checked into a little mom and pop motel, feeling it might be safer than the one I'd stayed in that first night in St. Louis. It was charming. And it felt like a place where Niall and I would have wanted to stay together.

I slept off my soda hangover til around dinner time and found I had two voice-mails from my mom. I dialed without even moving from under the blankets.

"Hi Mom," I said when she answered. "I'm sorry I haven't been keeping in touch. It's just that there's no news, really. I have no idea where he-"

"He's here, Meg," Mom bluntly interjected.

"Say that again," I said, feeling even more nauseated than before I'd lain down for my nap.

"Niall is here, Meg. At home," she repeated and it sounded like she knew that I'd been hearing from Niall somehow. Something in her delicate tone made me think she knew I was going to be livid to find out he was back in Park City while I was seven hundred miles from home.

She was right.

"I can't believe that motherfucker!" I hissed and my mom gently chided me for my language. But she knew I had a right to be upset. "I don't even...what am I supposed...why did he...." I couldn't get a coherent sentence out of my mouth even though the pressure of all my unspoken anger felt like it was about to burst out of my mouth, my nose, my eyes, my eardrums.

"You have every right to be upset-" She began but I cut her off.

"I'm not upset, Mother. I'm so far beyond upset, I can't even remember what that feels like. I'm infuriated! I'm...I'm outraged. No, no, I'm murderous! Because I'm going to kill that weasel when I get home!"

"I know you don't really want to talk to him, Meg, but you need to hear him out. He explained everything to us and can explain it all to you."

"Are you seriously defending him?" I asked, completely incredulous.

"Not defending him," she said. "I just want you to listen to him. Please."

"I'm flying back tomorrow," I groaned. "I'm going to pay someone to drive my car back. Tell Wellington he's footing the bill. I'm not in the mood for a fucking road trip just to get back to Park City to hear Niall out," I said in a derisive voice. "Then again, he might need a running head-start because when I see him again, I'm going to kill him."

Mom didn't correct my sarcasm, my swearing, or even my death threat. She just listened and then finally said, "I think flying back sounds like a good idea. Just let me know when you book a flight and we'll be there to pick you up. I'm sorry about all this. We were just all so worried because this is so unlike Niall, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," I agreed. "I'll let you know about my flight. And please tell Niall that he'd better answer when I call him, or better yet, he'd better call me as soon as possible. I'm not going to listen to his pathetic excuses over text. And it's definitely in his best interests to talk to me while I'm still two states away from him."

"Okay, honey. Just get some rest and let us know when you have your flight."

"Will do, Mom. Love you."

"Love you, too."

When we hung up, I burst into tears. I hated crying but the frustration of it all just got to me. This was huge. Why? Why did he do this?

When I finished crying, I blew my nose and wiped my face just in time for my phone to actually ring.

It was Niall.

"What?!" I spat.

"Meg," he said softly. "I can explain."

"How, Niall?!" I shouted, leaping out of the hotel bed. "How can you explain the fact that you begged me to come back to Tulsa when I was half-way home, and then you never told me where to find you when I got there? Are you playing some perverted game with my head or what?! Or the note in the treehouse, asking me to come to St. Louis and then you never bothered to contact me while I was there! Three days, Niall, three fucking days I sat there in St. Louis for no other reason than to get drunk and go to the top of the Arch all by myself! Have you gone absolutely insane? Are you getting some twisted sense of enjoyment out of this?!" I stopped then, completely out of breath and words.

"No," he answered. "I know I've screwed up. Monumentally. Really, I know that. I'm so, so sorry. I just need to see you and talk to ya."

"You're talking to me right now," I said, trying to sound bored.

"In person," he added.

"Well, it's your lucky day because I'm going to try to catch a flight home tomorrow. You can talk to me then. And you might want to pray that I cool off before then because as of right now, I'd find it very hard not to cold-cock you!"

I expected him to fight back. Instead I heard him draw in a deep sigh. "I don't really know what happened, Meg. I kind of checked out for a while," he said so softly I almost couldn't hear him.

"What does that mean?" I snapped.

"I don't know." His voice is even softer.

"Are you still going to marry Olivia?" I asked, somewhat softened by his non-defensive stance.

"No."

"Is she okay?"

"I hope so."

I didn't know what else to say.

"Meg, I wanna see ya," he said softly, pleading.

"You will," I relented. "I just have to find a flight and I'm going to pay someone to drive my car back.

"Can I come to you?" He suddenly asked.

"What?"

"What if I get a flight to wherever y'are and then we can drive back together?" He suggested.

"What about Olivia?"

"She's gone. The Wellingtons all left this afternoon. It's over."

"I'm sorry," I said, and I really was. Regardless of how angry I was at him, I knew deep in my gut that he was going through something and he hadn't wanted things to end like this. He hadn't planned on hurting Olivia this way and I knew - or at least I hoped, for his sake - that he hadn't really planned on jerking me around like he just did.

"Yeah, I know," he answered. "So where are ya?"

"Arcadia. I went to Pops today and got sick on all the flavors," I told him, laughing a little. It felt good.

"Okay, well, let me see," Niall said and I could hear him tapping away on his laptop. "I can fly into...let's see...I can get into Oklahoma City by lunch time tomorrow."

"Niall, why don't you just let me fly home? We can talk then, I promise. I think you probably need some rest after all this," I said. And maybe a shrink? I added in my head. "But that doesn't let you off the hook. You'd better have a very good explanation as to why you've made me chase after you for the past six days!"

"I do, I promise. Well, I hope you'll believe me. But no, I want to do this, Meg. I wanna see you. And I want to come there."

"But-" I tried to reason with him only to have him cut me off.

"I want to just see you. No one else. I mean, everyone here is pretty pissed at me anyway. Understandably. I think it's better if I just get out of Dodge for a while."

"Well, yeah, it could be fun," I admitted. "You and me, kind of like old times."

"Yeah, it could," he chuckled. "And Meg, I'm really sorry about everythin'. I promise I'll explain it all when I see ya, okay?"

"I know. I figured you must have gone off the deep end or maybe you had some kind of mental episode to have led me on this wackadoodle chase around the country." 

He laughed softly again and said, "Come on, you're exaggeratin', it wasn't around the whole country, more like the lower middle portion of the Midwest part of the country...ish," drawing a good belly laugh out of me this time.

"Hey!" I snapped suddenly. "No making me laugh. I'm still plenty pissed at you. You're going to owe me years of hard labor for this."

 "Maybe I could just repay you the way we used to," he teased and I knew by his tone of voice that he was referring to our sexual favors.

"That ain't gonna happen, big guy," I laughed. "Just call me when you know your flight details, okay? I can trust you to actually call me, right? And let me know? Because I'm not doing this crap for another day, got it?"

"I got it," he chuckled. "If I don't call you by the end of the night, let's say midnight, then you can do whatever the hell you want and leave me stranded in Oklahoma City."

"Deal."

* * * * *

What's gonna happen next???