It was about one in the morning when I finally decided to go to bed. I had done all my homework, but I was struggling to make plans for his special birthday. He was turning nineteen and I wanted to make it as 'normal' as possible. I had to call in a favor.

"Hello?" I could tell that Soph was still half asleep.

"Why are you still up?"

"Why are you calling me at one am, Em? If I was fully awake I'd say that rhymed."

"It didn't."

"I'm not fully awake. So, what's up?"

"I'm trying to plan Austin's birthday party. It should be a surprise, but you know I don't do birthdays." No answer, "Soph?"

"I'm already on it." I heard pages flipping, "So you could do just a normal surprise party with all of his friends and, of course, yours. Or, you could just do cutesy date things. There is also the possibility that you take him to a dinner in the park." She had this all ready.

"He did that for me already."

"That's right. I have a binder full of these ideas so I'll get them to you tomorrow."

"You have a whole binder?" Wow a whole binder! She was obsessed.

"I've been fantasizing about this for years. You know this."

"Okay then. I guess I'll see you tomorrow and thanks?"

"You're welcome. I'm not the creepy friend." Totally not a creepy friend at all, she just knows everything about my boyfriend. I guess that could just make her a very good friend?

"Nope." I hung up. I was about to fall asleep on the table.

....

I woke up the next morning to the alarm clock. I was back in my own bed and Austin was next to me. I didn't remember climbing back in bed last night, but oh well. Austin rolled over and threw the alarm clock at the wall. That shut it up.

"Well good morning sunshine." I said sarcastically. "I hope you didn't just break my alarm clock." I got out from under the covers and gave him a peck on the check before going over to collect the clock.

He sat up slowly. "How the hell do you do this?"

"Do what?" I put the clock back on the nightstand.

"Go to bed at one in the morning and then wake up at six. I got eight hours of sleep and I'm exhausted. I don't think I want to go to school today."

"You said you wanted to be normal. Suck it up." I smiled and went to the bathroom to take my shower. Then Austin followed me. "What are you doing?"

"Brushing my teeth." He wasn't even half awake. He grabbed my toothbrush.

"Go back to bed. You can miss first period. I have to shower."

"A shower sounds lovely." He gave me a half smile.

"Bed. Go."

He laughed. "Fine I'm going, I'm going." Then he yawned. "Goodnight."

This time I laughed. "Night. Now go." He finally left and I hopped in the shower. It woke me up and I could think clearly again. Thousands of birthday plans were running through my head. With Austin gone first period it would make it much easier for me to grab that birthday binder Soph had.

I got out, got dressed, and ate in less than twenty minutes. I was ready with time to spare. I decided to walk to school. It would be a nice hike and we only had one car at the moment. Austin still hadn't grabbed his yet.

I barely made it to class, but it was an easy day so I felt fine. It brought some more attention to me than I would have liked, but it was fine. I had more important things on my mind. At brunch I found Soph and she gave me the binder. It was heavier than my history textbook.

"I think you'll be able to find something you like in here. It's all personalized towards him. Are you sure you don't need my help with anything else? His birthday is in less than a week."

"I think this is the best thing that you could help me with. You are basically doing everything by giving this to me. I can do the rest."

"By the way, where is he?" She had finally noticed that he was gone.

"I let him skip first. He was so tired just from his one day yesterday. He really needs more practice on being normal. He was surprised to find that I could live on only five hours of sleep."

"A teenager's superpower." The bell rang. "Tell me your favorites at lunch." She started to walk away.

"I might not be able to. He's supposed to meet me for second period."

"Okay, go easy, Em." She said under her breath, I don't think I was meant to hear that part.

"What?"

"I mean for his birthday, you don't want it to be too much." I could tell that wasn't what was on her mind, but I chose to ignore it. I walked to class.

....

By the end of the second period he still hadn't shown up. I knew he was tired, but I didn't think he would sleep the whole day. I called him at lunch, but he didn't pick up.

"Man that boy sure can sleep." Soph commented when we met up at lunch.

"Soph, I'm starting to worry about him."

"I'm sure he's fine. He went to high school for the first time. That could traumatize anyone. Maybe he just wasn't ready for it yet. Now, what were your favorite ideas?"

He didn't show up for lunch and that was it for my day. I still had a bad feeling in the back of my mind, but I figured that it was just about everything that had happened in the past year. That being said, I still ran home after school. When I got home, he wasn't there. I decided to check out one place where I thought he could go.

When I finally got to the ranch Star was gone. I went to Peter.

"Hey, do you know where Star went?"

"Yes, Mr. Austin took him out around four hours ago. Why?"

"And they haven't come back yet?" He shook his head. "I need a horse." He brought out a horse named Rover. Without giving his awful name a second though, I hopped on his back and we were off. We took off running. It was very possible that he just went on a four hour horseback ride, but I didn't think so. I really started to worry. I heard something far off.

"Em!" I could barely make out what he said, but I knew it had to be him.

"Austin!" We took off faster. The calls became louder and louder until I was out of breath. I couldn't lose another person. "I'm coming! Hold on!"

"Em! Hurry!" I came to the edge of a cliff. I tied Rover to a tree and got on my hands and knees. I peaked over. "Em!"

"Oh my gosh, Austin!" He was about ten feet down the cliff on a small ledge. He was holding his leg. I could tell it was broken. I looked around, but I didn't see Star anywhere.

"Em, thank God you're here!" He was hardly able to look up at me.

"How long have you been down there?"

"About three and a half hours. This is way worse than school. You gotta get me out." He was covered with dirt from head to toe and he looked like he was in bad shape.

I was looking around for something I could use to get him out, but my eyes landed on something else, "Your leg..." His pants were ripped and blood was running down his leg. I was pretty sure that I could see the bone. I had known it was broken, but I didn't realize it was that bad.

"I don't even want to know. I think I feel bone and I couldn't this morning. I haven't looked and I don't want to know."

"How the hell am I supposed to get you out of there?" I couldn't find anything useful enough to pull him out. A rope would've been really nice at the moment.

"I don't know. I'm just glad you're here and that you found me. I thought I was going to be here for days. I think my phone fell too. I don't think I'll be getting that back anytime soon."

"That's why you didn't pick up."

"Yeah, now can you get me out of here, please?"

"I'll call, I don't know, the fire department?"

"I don't care, just stay where I can see you. The pain hurts so much and I don't feel it as much when I look at you."

"I'm right here."

I called the fire department and the police; I decided it was better to be safe than sorry. Whatever would help him get out, fast. They were both there within fifteen minutes. It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. They tried to send a man down there to get Austin, but the second he set foot on the ledge it started to crumble. He took his foot off and they pulled the man back up.

"We can't get him that way or the whole thing will break and the kid won't survive." I heard one of the men say.

"How about a helicopter? Please, you have to get him out of there. He is badly injured and I don't think he can stand. Please." I was trying to come up with some ideas that could get him out.

The men looked down at me with pity, but one of them got on the intercom and called for a helicopter to come. That took another ten minutes that I didn't think that Austin had. He wrapped a thick vine around his hand just in case the ledge gave out. We were all afraid that if he did something a little as shifting his weight he would fall.

"Emily." Austin started.

"Don't say anything. They are going to get you out of there. Soon I hope."

"I want to say something else, but I would like to tell you alone. Can you get those guys to stand back?" I asked them to move back and they surprisingly did. I guess the thought he wasn't going to make it.

"What is it Austin?"

"I overheard you last night talk about a birthday party for me." Why was he bringing this up now?

"You weren't supposed to hear about that."

"I'm glad I did though, now I can tell you not to do it, if we ever get out of here."

"What?"

"My birthday is exactly a year and seven days after Alex's. Mine is October eighth and his was on the first."

That meant that Alex had died on his birthday; it was paralleled to how my mother had the plug pulled on mine. I squeezed my eyes shut. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know."

"I know. And at first I thought it might be a good idea to celebrate my brother's memory sort of in secret to everyone else and still have everyone else celebrate, if that makes sense, but then it didn't feel right. I mean the person who would have arranged everything and who would have done everything would also be the one who is the reason why he's gone."

I swallowed sand. "Austin, I thought we were past all of this." I was so sick and tired of this coming up. I know we all have to grieve, but I had no more energy for it all. I felt that we just had to put all of our energy into keeping him safe in that moment. I knew Austin was still angry, but I didn't realize it was directed at me.

"If you aren't past your mom thing then I'm not past my murdered brother thing, alright! You may want to believe that I am a strong guy that I'm your protector, but not only did I not protect you from him I also failed to protect him from you and now I'm suffering from it! I didn't want you to know, but I've been trying not to think about it every time I look at you, but it's so, so hard. I've been holding it all in and I wanted to bring it up, but not like this. I guess I've finally cracked. You remind me of the story you told me of your father. He hurt you and maybe it was for his defense in his own self allusion. In your case you threw my brother down the stairs only he wasn't as lucky as you."

Now I was angry, "What I did was in self defense! He was going to kill me and maybe even you and I never ever had the intention of hurting him. I did what I had to do. What my father did... this was nothing like that." I could feel the tears starting to spill from my eyes. It wasn't my idea for Alex to end up with a knife in his back, I was just trying to get him away from me.

"He wasn't going to hurt you! You don't know that for sure!" He shook his head slowly from side to side, his eyes tearing up as well, "I can't hold it in any longer and I don't want to hurt you, but this pain I am in right now is nothing compared to the pain of that event. I haven't screamed and cried this whole time and I didn't know how. Three hours is a lot of time to think and this is all I could think about. It is ruining my life. It's ruining us, secretly, and I can't go around hating you without knowing that I'm hating you."

That last part stung. It stung a lot. It made me feel dizzy and I had to sit away from the edge in order not to fall off. I had made him feel like he was dying inside. I was hurting him by being around him. I'm ruining us without meaning to or realizing that I am. "I can't." I didn't realize that I had said anything.

"Em, are you okay?" Oh sure, now he cared about me.

"I'm just going to say I'm okay, but really mean that I'm dying inside. Isn't that how this works?" He made me so angry. It felt as if something inside of me had snapped. I couldn't look at him.

"Emily..."

"No, the helicopter is here." It had finally shown up.

"This conversation isn't over!" he had to yell just so I could hear him over the beating blades of the helicopter.

"No, but I think we are." It came out as barely a whisper. I just sat there by the edge of the cliff. I had sat there hoping that I was helping my boyfriend, but really I was killing him. I stood up and started to walk away. I couldn't face him now, maybe ever. It wasn't fair for him or for me if he was going to keep bringing it up. I killed a person. A real live human being. Now he doesn't exist because I pushed him and a knife ended up in his back. Every night I would have a nightmare about it, every time I would close my eyes I would see it, and now one of the nightmares seemed to be coming true. I saw Austin being pulled up into the sky right in front of me. He was yelling something, but I didn't hear it. I cared about him and he cared about me, but he also hated me. That's not how it's supposed to work.