"So he's going to sue Duke on a case that was resolved two years ago?" Patrice asked me again. I nodded, rubbing my temples with my fingers.

This day felt like a month. It seemed like forever ago that I was sitting in Patrice's office, sipping cinnamon tea, even though that was just this morning. Now I was back. The binder was safe and sound on top of Patrice's desk. She was flipping through it now, making sure there were no missing pages.

"That's absolutely absurd! And this man claims to be a great lawyer?" she said. I nodded again.

"He is a great lawyer. I was reading through the case file. It wasn't resolved; it was just put on hold until further evidence was received. Now he wants to revive it," I said.

"The little bastard..." she muttered. I felt my jaw drop. I had never heard Patrice curse before. I always thought she was too proper to. Patrice glanced up at me and then looked back down at the binder, reading over the case.  "Close you mouth. I'm a normal person. I can curse, too," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. I blinked and sat back.

"What are we going to do?" I asked her. She let out a long breath and took her glasses off, closing the bind shut.

"You said he took this from your apartment?" she asked me.

"Yes," I said, nodding my head.

"Without your knowledge or consent?" she questioned, one of her perfectly made eyebrows twitching up. I nodded once again. "So technically, he stole property," she said. I leaned forward, excitement filling me.

"Technically, all of his evidence and pretty much his entire case was obtained illegally," I said, catching on. She nodded at me, glad that I was on the same page.

"That's where we'll get him," she said, her shoulders relaxing a bit. I smirked. He was going down.

~~~~~~~~~~

"God, you have no idea the stuff I've been through these past few weeks," I said to Denise.

When I had gotten home that night, I had found her sitting on our couch in her pajamas.

"What happened to the vase?" she asked. Her voice was flat and her eyes were staring unblinkingly at the wall across from her.

"Uhh, Neese? Are you all right?" I asked her, setting my bag and keys down and going to join her on the couch. She didn't respond. "Neese?" I prodded.

She blinked and looked at me, mustering up a fake smile. Something was wrong.

"He left," she croaked, her eyes welling up with tears. I felt anger boil up inside of me.

"Oh, Neese..." I mumbled, pulling her into a hug. "I knew that son of a bitch was going to leave again. I knew it. God, I feel so bad for saying I told you so, but I did, Neese. I really did. He's not the kind of person that's ever going to change and you deserve someone better than that. You need to man up and find someone else," I said to her, rubbing her back as she sobbed into my shoulder.

"I'm not going to go back. Never again. This time I promise. This it's for good," she whimpered.

I frowned. She had said that every other time her jerk of a boyfriend left her to go chase a hopeless career in acting. He wasn't any good. All he could really land were commercial jobs or an extra in a movie or TV show. But he thought he was amazing and he would play Denise every time he would get shunned or rejected from a big role. He would come to her, lead her on for a few weeks, and then the next time an opportunity came along, he'd ditch her without telling her. And that always left her heartbroken. I never understood why she kept going back. He was handsome, but he had the personality of a jackass. I just didn't get it.

After a while, Denise calmed down. I made some hot chocolate with marshmellows, since that was her favorite drink when she was upset. I sat across from her, on the other couch. She pointed at the empty coffee table again.

"Where'd the vase go?" she asked.

"I smashed it," I answered coolly. Her face didn't show surprise. I knew I didn't have to tell her that Brandon and I were over. I knew that she knew already. It's why she was my best friend.

"You said these past few weeks have been hell. What happened?" she questioned.

"I don't think we should talk about it right now. You're still upset. We can talk about it in the morning," I replied. She shook her head.

"I want to be distracted now. Tell me what's been going on. How's Duke?" she questioned.

"You haven't heard?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I heard about the news that leaked. What's going on?" she asked. I sighed and set my mug on the table, pulling my legs up on the couch and wrapping my arms around them.

"Remember that binder that had all of Duke's information in it?" I asked her. She nodded. "Brandon stole it and he released all the information to the press and now he's using some of it against Duke to sue him for something that's not really worth making a big deal out of," I explained in one breath. She blinked.

"Oh gosh. That sounds complicated," she said. "And dramatic," she added. I nodded in agreement. I let out a yawn. I was really tired.

"So what's the deal with Duke? How's he holding up?" she questioned. I frowned. I actually had no idea how he was. In the brief moment that we had crashed into each other earlier that day, I didn't get a chance to ask him how he was. But I already knew the answer. He was heartbroken and probably tortured. And it was all my fault.

"Duke and I had a falling out," I said. She leaned forward, intent on listening.

So I explained to her everything that she had missed in the past few weeks. I told her how Duke kissed me again, after showing me his collection of science models and awards and how I ran away and told him it was a mistake. I told her how I hadn't spoken to him since the it happened and I knew that by ignoring him, and him ignoring me, it wasn't solving the problem at all. Then I switched topics and explained to her the whole Brandon drama, about him cheating on me with Olivia, who was cheating on Duke.

At the end of my little speech, Denise let out a low whistle, leaning back against the couch. She looked at me with wide eyes.

"Wow, I've missed a lot," she murmured.

"Yeah you have," I replied. She gave me an apologetic smile.

"Well, the Brandon situation will be dealt with," she said. "But this whole thing with Duke sounds like you have no idea what you're doing," she said, giving me a knowing look. I let out a sigh.

"I screwed up and I think I really hurt him by telling him the kiss was a mistake, because he so obviously didn't think that it was," I said to her.

"You have to talk to him," she advised. I let out a sigh of frustration.

"It's not that easy!" I exclaimed.

"It is. Just call him and say you want to meet and talk," she said in calm voice.

"He won't. He's been trying to avoid talking to me, too," I argued.

"Did you try?" she asked.

"No," I muttered.

"Well, maybe he's waiting for you to show some effort. It sounds like he's been avoiding you, but you haven't made any effort at all to show him you're sorry," she said. I bit my lip and frowned. I hated when she was right.

"So I should call him?" I asked. She nodded.

"But maybe you should wait until the case is over. Deal with one headache at a time," she said.

"Speaking of headaches, I have a huge one now. So if you don't mind, I'm going to go to bed," I said.

"That doesn't sound like such a bad idea. I think I'll go to sleep myself," she agreed, setting her mug down.

"This drama has exhausted me," I said, stretching and yawning.

"Same here," she said. We both got up and made our ways to our separate rooms.

"Oh, and I didn't even tell you about my parents," I brought up, suddenly. She looked at me with interested, curious eyes. Then we both sighed.

"In the morning," we said at the same time. We bid each other good-night and closed our doors, locking ourselves into our rooms, so we'd be alone with our own thoughts.

                                                               ~~~~~~~~~~

"Congratulations on the case!" Patrice said to Duke.

We had just walked out of the courts. Duke won the case. Brandon had to do community service hours for his little theft. He should have gone to jail, but he was an excellent rhetorician and he knew how to smooth talk the judge, who was a female. Lucky for us, though, she also had a daughter that was nuts about Duke, so we slightly had the upper hand in the case, anyway.

Duke smiled weakly at Patrice. In the sunlight, his face looked tired. His eyes were dark and his eyebrows were knotted. He looked sad.

"I'm tired. I think I'm going to go home," he said. Without so much as a glance at me, he turned and walked to a shiny black sedan. A driver opened the door for him and he sat. I saw him look my way briefly before the driver shut the door on him.

"Well, that hell is over with. Now we just have to deal with putting things under control on the publicity front. I'm going to need you to go with Duke to find a new place that he can live, because paparazzi are still swarming his place and he can't possibly expect to live with that. Also, we're going to have to get his numbers changed-" Patrice began listing off things to do.

I blinked at her, my face blank. The sunlight faded a little as clouds hid the sun from the world. As I watched the car disappear into the distance, I felt a realization wash over me. I suddenly knew what I had to.

Well, there were two things actually.

One was that I really needed to talk to Duke and I needed to talk to him soon. If I kept waiting and holding it off, it would be too late. And I didn't want to hurt him any longer. And I missed him. I missed talking to him. I missed making fun of him. I missed him always joking with me. I missed the relaxed feeling I had whenever I was around him. And I needed to get that back before it was lost forever.

The other thing I had to do I was going to do immediately. As in, right this second.

I turned to Patrice, who was still telling me things to do.

"--and we'll need to buy him a new car, too, because no doubt the paparazzi will have recognized his car and his license plate number--" she was saying.

"Patrice," I said, cutting her off. She blinked and looked at me sharply, annoyed that I had cut her off.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I quit," I said simply. She looked at me, her expression shocked and angry.

"You what?" she asked, her voice high and full of incredulity.

"I quit. I'm leaving. I'm taking up my parents' business," I said.

"But you--but you can't!" she exclaimed.

"I have to," I said calmly. I looked at her with a relaxed expression on my face. "I'm really sorry, but this is what's best. I've made a lot of wrong decisions in my life, and I have a feeling that this isn't one of them," I told her.

"I'll help you find a new replacement for me. But right now, I have something else to do," I said. And with that, I walked away, leaving her staring at me in surprise and frustration.

As I walked to my car, I felt elated, like a burden had lifted off my shoulders. I sat in my car and smiled as the clouds moved away and the sun shone brighter in the sky.

_______________________________________________________________________________

A/N: Yay! Brandon got in trouble! Yay! Denise and Jared broke up, for good! Yay! Duke won the case! Yay! Valerie's qutting her job! Yay! Everything's working out!

But what about Duke and Valerie?

I just couldn't resist another update. I wrote this as a message on my profile, as well, but I'll write it here, too.

This story is almost finished. The next update (which will for sure be next week) will be the epilogue.

Worry not, though, fans! I have another idea in my mind. But I need help coming up with a title. I have it narrowed down to two: 'Dear Mom and Dad' or 'Learning to Fall'. Here's a mini summary of the plot:

'Renee Dubois had everything. She was cheer leading captain and student body president in her high school. She was beautiful and smart and popular. She had Jake, her boyfriend of 3 years. Everyone loved her.

But after a freak accident that killed both her parents and her younger brother, Renee loses everything. As she sinks into a depression, she begins to drift away from the people that adore her. Forced to move in with her relatives and attend a boarding school and room with a boy that can't seem to leave her to herself, she decides she's better off alone.'

So which title fits best? Or which title do you like best? I like both of them and I think Dear Mom and Dad goes best with what I have for the layout of the story. But Learning to Fall works excellent with the plot. So I don't know. Which is why I need you guys to help me out. =)

In the meantime, leave me a comment! And VOTE!!!!

XOXO