(Lulu’s POV)

“Lulu…” Angel greeted me in a trailing voice. I was in Archer’s room while he showered. And from all Angel’s drinking last night, I was surprised that she was up so early.

“Hey, what’s up?” I smiled. What’s up is that she probably has a nasty hangover… I was surprised she crossed and walked down the hotel’s hall with her hair a mess and still in her colorful club dress from last night. She had a depressing look on her face, rather than a painful one from a headache or something.

“I think I had sex with Zac last night,” she expressed. Even though I was sure of otherwise, I replied with a confident answer because I knew what happened.

“You didn’t.”

*Last night*

I unlocked my hotel room and, like every other night, I was making out with Archer.When I expected him to place me against the nearest wall, I was pressed into another body. I pulled away from both it and Archer to see Zac. He was pushing us out of the room.

“What the h3ll are you doing in my room?” I asked him, already angry.

“Some perv was trying to hook up with Angel and I had to get her away from him—”

“‘Some perv’? Yeah right. You’re just jealous that she wasn’t with you,” I accused, narrowing my eyes at him. He sighed, stressfully and looked into my eyes.

“I’m serious, Lulu. She didn’t know what she was doing and when she realized that, he didn’t want her to,” he explained.

“What were you doing there in the first place?” I asked, sizing him up with my arms crossed. I didn’t see him at all at the club, which made it all the more creepy that he was watching Angel. I didn’t even see her when she ditched us for the smoking hot Australian guy.

“I’m gonna go back to my room,” Archer said, obviously feeling the tension as Zac just looked straight at me. He kissed my cheek and then left me. That’s when Zac invited me into the room and I saw Angel laying on the bed with a hickie on the base of her neck and a brace around her ankle.

“What the h3ll happened?!” I freaked, which made him shush me as Angel shifted in her sleep above the sheets.

“The hickie is from the jerk and she fell when she was hopping off of his hips and also when she was standing with me outside…oh, and several times on our way to the cab,” he explained. I examined her body and that’s all that seemed to be wrong. “Lucky for me that her brace was in her suitcase.”

“Because she has a weak ankle,” I reminded. I looked over to Zac as he was gazing down at Angel like she was truly an Angel in his possession. I saw his love for her in the same look he had given her back in high school. He still cared about her. It’s just his fault that he was too late because she had moved on years ago. But that was his fault.

“Ever since that Ice Maker falling on her, right?” he asked me in a quiet voice, like trying to confirm it was his fault that ice maker fell on him when there was a fire happening around the whole school. No.

“Yeah…” I replied. He still looked down at her. He didn’t look lovey-dovey with a perfect smile—nor did he have a frown from the unfortunate accident tonight, but he showed compassion with a neutral look. “You really care about her.”

That’s when his gaze averted to me.

“I always will,” he confessed. All this time of everyone not knowing what the h3ll happened to the old Zac Tyler was forgotten at this moment. Because, at this moment, I was seeing the normal Zac Tyler; the one who still cared about Angel, even though she no longer returned the feeling. “I’ll leave you your room…”

“No! Stay!” I objected, but then was shushed again. Zac’s eyebrows twitched into a frown.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “Just yesterday you were yelling at me about how I was still the unchanged a$$hole and now you’re, what? Wanting me to stay in your room?”

“Look, truth is, I know your secret, Zac,” I said, sounding more serious than I wanted. “And so does anyone else with a working brain, other than you. You love Angel. I can tell because even though you’ve hurt her countless times, you’re always there when she’s at her worst without complaining.”

His eyes lightened in a way for only a second before darkening.

“Although I’ll try and accept that compliment from you, I’d like to keep that discussion between Angel and myself,” he replied as if he was classy all of a sudden. It was just like he was two years ago in Rhode Island; soft spoken and nothing like he’d been from kindergarten to eleventh (his twelfth) year of school. “And plus, it’s her birthday. I don’t want some a$$ fu**ing her and her not remember it.”

“Why? It’s her life and her mistakes,” I responded, just because I wanted to know his answer to it.

“I know that, but it’s not really worth it,” he shrugged. “Her virginity isn’t something that should be given up to some random guy at any given time—especially when she’s too drunk to remember anything.”

“And what if it wasn’t her virginity?” I asked, wanting a reaction from him. Instead of freaking out about my imply that she wasn’t a virgin—which she still is—he only sat down my bed and pressed his hands together.

“I just don’t want her getting hurt or making a mistake,” he said. That was the best answer he could give in my Best-Friend Handbook. “And in the drunken state she’s in, everything’s a mistake to her.”

Now I wanted to get even more personal.

“And what if she woke up, still drunk, and decided that she wanted you instead of the Australian guy?” I asked, nosily.

“Well I just said I didn’t want her making mistakes, didn’t I?” he asked.

“I guess so.”

*Present*

“Wow,” Angel commented when I told her what I gathered from last night about confronting Zac.

“So where is he now?” I asked.

“Asleep in the room,” she answered.

“Well what are you going to do when he wakes up?” I asked her, but it was too late because she was busy staring down at the ugly bedspread in her own little world before standing up and leaving. I just hoped that she’d do the right thing with Zac. But as I see it, Zac was impulsive as she was and that could rarely happen.

(Angel’s POV)

When I got back to the room, Zac was just now waking up. I was still amazed at how he could possibly be various different people right now. No. He wasn’t multiple different people. He was one person. He just had two personalities. His back was facing me and I saw a medium sized tattoo on his shoulder with a symbol I couldn’t quite make out from here. When he looked back at me after stretching his back, I just wondered which personality would be evident right now.

As I saw it, he didn’t want to be friends with me. But friends would be the only people in my life to help me out if I was injured or even drunk, right? Not when it came to Zac. He treated me as if I was more than a friend. He even told me that to my face two days ago. Even though I wasn’t offering him anything but friendship, he still treated me better. I didn’t deserve that and neither did he.

And if he wanted to be, quote, “more than a friend”, he needed to act like he had when I was the one that wanted him to be more than a friend—high school. Specifically junior year. He didn’t see that. I knew what he was thinking. He came to Rhode Island two years ago, quiet and humble, but whenever there was a fight or some sh!t, he still managed to obey whatever I said, which made me think as to how I dug myself into all of this. I told him to stay away from me when I didn’t want him to. I told him to not apologize at all until he was going to accept all that he’d done, when I could easily accept one apology. I was the one being ridiculous in that situation.

Whereas, in junior year, I was just now getting over hating him. The thing about hating someone is that you still have respect for them in a way because you care about what they think about you and vice versa. But in that sense, I was able to be myself around him. I expected him to tease me. I expected the arrogant, son of b!tch that he was. But still, throughout the year with breakups, Drugs, and who knows what else, we started a friendship. That’s when I started to expect him to open up to me, because I was doing the same towards him. And then we started to fall for each other. And in his words, that’s when our friendship started to be fu**ed up…with other people, our feelings, and his early graduation in the way, I had to agree.

But that was three years ago and I thought I had moved on by now. Key word: thought.

“Morning,” he greeted with a morning voice.

“Hi,” I waved. He spun to face me on the bed and I sat down on my own. We didn’t say anything so I guess he pretty much expected me to know what happened last night—no. He probably assumed that I had already asked Lulu. At least he was right and I wouldn’t have to live through the in-my-head scenarios of how he should really be acting right now (Which was along the lines of him repeatedly yelling “How the h3ll could you be so d4mn stupid!?” at me).

“Do you feel better?” he asked me.

“What?” He glanced at the table with the missing pill. “Oh, uh, yeah. Thanks.”

“No problem…” he said. Why were things awkward? From what Lulu told me, he cared about me last night. It was enough to make me want to oblige him of his “other chance for the opportunity to kiss me again”. Snap out of it, Angel.

He stood and reached over to where his clothes were folded on the chair besides Lulu’s bed. Instead of putting on a shirt on, he stood up and started walking near me with something that he pulled out of his jacket pocket. He sat down on the floor in front of me and I was thinking two things: one, what was in the box? And two, why was he teasing me with his perfectly sculpted chest?

“I know that it’s late, but happy birthday,” he said, holding the box out to me.

“Why’d you get me a present?” I asked. Only friends give their friends presents on their birthday.

“I owed you one from a couple years back, remember?” he stated. I gulped. Yeah. I remembered his letter about wanting to get me a present. “You’re not going to be impressed though…”

I was still just impressed how we could go from screaming at each other to…this.

I opened the newspaper-wrapped box and saw the familiar necklace. The Dragon. It was still a shiny silver, clearly never worn, and I just stared down at it. The last time this was in my possession, I was sending it back to Zac’s mom. I didn’t understand why she gave it to me in the first place. Of course, she gave it to me because she was hinting that she knew about Zac’s powers, but there was something else. Something that I didn’t know based off of the look Vanessa gave me when she saw it in my possession when I had trotted down her stairs, seconds after her mother had given it to me.

“Something wrong with it?” Zac asked.

“It’s just…”

“Why’d you send it back to my mom?” he asked suddenly, causing me to look over at him in question.

“What?” I breathed.

“I saw it in your drawer in Rhode Island when I was helping you look for your keys,” he said, keeping his eyes on the necklace box that had dropped to the floor next to him. He looked up at me. “Why’d you send it back to her?”

“I didn’t see a reason to keep it or why she gave it to me in the first place,” I answered, honestly.

“It’s a symbol,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“It’s a symbol,” he said in a louder voice.

“I know that. A symbol that your mom knew about your fire powers,” I said. Duh.

“Although that seems like a valid reason, it’s wrong,” he stated. Then what? “There’s a story behind this necklace, but it’s quiet personal.”

“I want to know,” I said instantly. His gaze had slid past mine and he looked as though he wanted to smirk about the whole thing but I knew he was hurt about it all. Maybe this would uncover the reason why the great Zac Tyler had pledged his life to helping and saving people.

“She made this because a long time ago, my father was killed in a house fire. Ironic right? Assistant Fire Chief was killed in a simple house fire?” he started.  “Well I was little back then and I thought that Vanessa and my mom were fighting…or that they were screaming at some TV show they were watching. I was grounded, so I just stayed in my room. Little did I know that someone left the stupid stove running nearly the whole kitchen was lit on fire before the fire alarm in my room started to go off…

“I had somehow made it outside with my mother and then my dad was just now showing up from work and then my mom remembered that Paige was asleep in her crib upstairs. Immediately, my dad rushed in, but I felt like it was my fault for walking right past her room without taking her with me while the house was freaking burning down. So, without thinking, I ran right back into the house to save her.”

“That was—” he silenced me when he held up a hand.

“I got to her room and she was still there, just barely awake and already crying. Although I was glad she was alright, I also worried because my dad had rushed in here minutes before me. Where could he possibly be right now? When I got downstairs, it was covered in flames and I saw him through the wall putting out flames in the kitchen with the extinguisher. Before I could call out to him that I had Paige, he was going up the other set of stairs in the kitchen to probably go to Paige’s room, but then…”

I didn’t need him to finish it to know what happened. I know his dad died in a fire, but I didn’t know it was a house fire and I didn’t know that Zac was blaming himself for his father’s death.

“That wasn’t your fault,” I choked out.

“Yes it was. He went up those stairs because I was standing there, watching him, instead of shouting out to him ‘oh hey, I have Paige, even though I wasn’t supposed to come back in here’,” he countered. “I was the last one to see my father and it was my fault he died up there.”

I could only stare at him in silence. It all made sense now.

“Happy now?” he tried to forge a smile that didn’t last long. “That’s why I acted out all the time and tried life-threatening things because there was no point in my life if someone like my dad died all because of me. It was my fault.”

“It was your fault for saving Paige’s life and even though you acted somewhat suicidal, you still cared about rescuing people,” I said to him as he still sat on the floor. I was witnessing him without his walls up. I finally understood why he acted the way he did back then. “Your father’s death was not your fault.”

“Says who?” he whispered. “No one knows that except for me and I say it is. I’m also to blame for my mother being depressed and drinking to get wasted nearly every night. Which brings me to the necklace. She made it herself and explained to me that it was her sign of the fire that changed us, the warmth that my father had towards her and our family, and also the strength and how the dragon was as sacred as their love for each other.”

“So then why are you giving it to me?” I asked. I already basically told him that I didn’t deserve it.

“I don’t know,” he lied. I climbed down from the bed and sat on my knees, like he did and put my hands on his shoulders. He looked into my eyes and I saw a tear leak out from his. I wiped it away for him. “My mom also believed in fate. Especially when I got my powers and they were centered obviously on fire.”

“She said ‘fate with link you’,” I recalled, but Zac seemed to ignore it.

“She was sending me a message when she gave that to you, knowing that I’d somehow see you with it,” he started. “You were with me in a fire. You changed me. You make warmth spread through me by just touching me or saying my name. And she made the necklace because she had lost my father. I don’t ever want to lose you.”

“Obviously,” I snorted, dropping my touch on him. “Or else you would’ve left me in that school fire.”

He looked like he wanted to laugh, but then the corners of his lips dropped again.

“Exactly.”

“You missed one thing about its comparison to me, though,” I said. He looked up at me with dull brown eyes of the strongest boy I knew.

“What’s that?”

“Their sacred love.” I was teasing him now. I wanted to see if he was serious about anything he confessed to me. Because I was pretty serious with believing him. All he did was reach into my hand and take the necklace, only to place it around my neck. He stared it as it rested perfectly in place on my chest for probably a minute in silence. When his eyes flashed up to mine, they were dancing with all colors it seemed like.

“You’re right about their sacred love, but no. I don’t want to compare you to theirs because my mom lost her love,” he confessed. “I don’t want to lose you, Angel.”

I believed him because if he wanted to lose me, he certainly had many options when that could’ve happened. I don’t want to lose you either, I found myself thinking, even though not even an hour ago, I was dead set on being over him. I could be over him but still not want to completely lose him, right?

“I love you Angel. I always have and I always will.”

Nope. I don’t see that happening.