Chapter One

~ Endings ~

Then came the screaming

And the crying

It was the sound of

Both of us fighting

I was stumbling down the street, not paying any attention to where I was going in the dark. I felt sick; my palms were clammy and my breathing irregular. The roots of my hair were drenched in sweat. I kept almost tripping over uneven paving stones and nearly falling, but managing to regain my balance just in time. The last thing I needed was a physical wound on top of the hole in my heart.

"Fine then! Leave!" A feminine shriek reached my ears from down the street. Looking through blurry eyes I saw the lights in one house in the row come on, and I grimaced. I had just left a domestic fight; I didn't want to walk right into the middle of another one. But I couldn't turn around – he might think I had changed my mind.

"See if I care! You're the one who's going to disappoint his father when you cancel the wedding! You're the one who's going to lose his inheritance!" The same voice continued its rant, and I couldn't help but feel a little bit glad that my own mess hadn't involved anything as serious as marriage. If Dawn were here she would probably tell me that that was the bright side to my misery – at least he was only my boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend, and not my ex-fiancé.

A male voice took over as I drew closer to the house of the fight, which stood out like a sore thumb in the otherwise dark, quiet neighbourhood. I was mildly surprised that the sounds of their row hadn't disturbed any neighbours – but then, it was about 2:30am. Most people were probably ignoring it. Just like the fight I had was ignored.

"You think you know everything, don't you? You think I need you – but you know nothing! I never needed you, I just needed a wife! I would have made you happy, I would have given you everything you've ever wanted, but you just had to screw it up!" He sounded like a dam that had reached its breaking point and was finally collapsing to let all the water it had held inside for too long flood out. He sounds just like I did.

I walked into a lamp post. It didn't hurt much, I hadn't been walking fast, but tears began to fall from my eyes. As if I hadn't cried enough already.

"I screwed it up, did I? You're the one who-"

"We could go over and over and over this all night, but you know what? I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of screaming my head off at someone who NEVER even deserved to call herself my girlfriend, let alone my FIANCÉ! I'm DONE, Brianna! I'm just…done."

I inhaled slowly at the tiredness in his tone. He wasn't shouting anymore. He might have said something else that I couldn't hear, but shortly after, when I was only a couple of metres away from the house, the front door was flung open. I stopped, uncertain. Should I continue walking and hope they didn't notice that I had overheard their fight? Or should I hang back in the shadows until the coast was clear? I barely had time to think about it – a second later, a man stormed out of the house in front of me.

"Wait!" The woman called after him – one last, desperate plea. "Drew… can't we try to work things out? I… I don't want you to leave."

The heartbreak in her voice brought a lump to my throat. I couldn't see her from where I was standing, but I knew her eyes were red and filled with tears. I knew her hair was a mess and her hands were trembling. She looks just like he did.

The man had stopped on the edge of the pavement, and now he turned slowly around to look at her icily. He didn't say anything, and she took this as an invitation to keep trying to persuade him not to leave.

"I know what I did was wrong, but you're not perfect either… Can't we just come back inside and sit down to talk this out like adults? You only proposed to me because your father was putting pressure on you – surely you didn't expect me to just accept that I was always only going to be business to you, and never fun? Do you really blame me for trying to have some fun by myself before the big day, before I got stuck with you for life?"

I winced. 'Stuck with you for life'… That was harsh. Is she trying to win him back or push him even further away?

The man's jaw tightened. In the weak glare of the street lamp I could see his eyes harden – probably along with his heart.

The woman was still going, unaware of his worsening demeanor. "What I'm trying to say is, I don't want you to leave. I honestly don't. I – I love you Drew, and I know I don't deserve you but-"

"No." Drew had stayed quiet during the whole of her small speech, listening to every word carefully. But it seemed he had finally had enough of her sniveling. "No, Brianna, you don't deserve me. I think that's the first thing you've ever gotten right in your entire life – that, and deciding to become a trophy wife instead of pursuing a real career, since you simply don't have the brains to strike out on your own. Oh, wait, you didn't even manage to become a trophy wife because your idiocy clouded your judgement. Goodbye Brianna – I hope you find someone someday whose actually stupid enough to love you." He turned around again as Brianna began to sob loudly and hysterically.

I wished I hadn't decided to linger in the shadows. I should have walked the other way; I should have faced my fear of seeing him again. Because the fight I had just witnessed was way too personal to have had an onlooker.

Brianna grabbed wildly at the last thing she could think of in a desperate attempt to change his mind. "You'll really give up your inheritance just because we had one fight? I'm not the stupid one here, you are – if you don't marry me, then you're nothing as far as your family, and the entire world, are concerned. You won't even be able to fall back on coordinating. You know I have connections, and because of that I have the power to make sure that in five years no-one on earth will remember your name." As she reached the end her tone lifted triumphantly. She thought she had won.

But Drew didn't look like a man who had been defeated by an ultimatum. Instead, he turned around and looked me straight in the eye. A shocked squeak escaped my lips. Had he known I was there the whole time? I felt my ghostly-pale face flush red with embarrassment. I began to stammer that I was sorry to have stumbled into their argument, that I hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but Drew silenced me by suddenly dropping down onto one knee.

I heard a gasp, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a woman – Brianna – stepping out onto the street so she could see what was happening. But I was too preoccupied with what the stranger in front of me was doing to take a proper look at his ex-fiancé.

"Hello, person on the street whom I have just met. Will you marry me?" Drew asked in a voice hoarse and scratchy from shouting. He gazed up at me with large, vulnerable green eyes. His hair was green too, and he had a fringe which had fallen across one eye. He flicked it back in one smooth motion. Underneath his eyes I noticed dark bags, as if he hadn't been getting much sleep. Just like me. His skin was pale, too. Just like mine. And behind the emotionless façade shining through his emerald stare I recognized the familiar pain of a broken heart.

I realised something: I didn't know this man. I didn't know his story. I didn't know what had happened between him and the woman standing in the doorway with a glare frostier than a lake in winter directed at me. I didn't know if his proposal was real or if he was just making a point. But what I did know was that he was going through the same hell I was right now – and if agreeing to marry him in front of the woman he had just broken off an engagement with would help even a tiny amount to ease his pain, I wasn't about to say no.

"Yes," I said, staring directly into his eyes. "Person on the street whom I have just met, I will marry you."

Surprise flickered across his face in the widening of his eyes and the slight parting of his lips. But he took one look at the expression on Brianna's face – part shock, part outrage, and part heartbreak – and he seemed to decide to roll with it. "Of course you will, I've not met a single girl who would ever say no," he boasted, flicking his fringe out of his eyes.

At any other time, the arrogance in his tone would have made me want to punch him, but there was a hollowness to his words that struck a chord within me. I briefly considered just turning and leaving – I don't think he would have blamed me if I had – but a picture of him flashed in the forefront of my mind and I made myself a promise, then and there: I'm going to marry this man I just met, and I'm going to have a massive, over-the-top wedding followed by a honeymoon to make the happiest of girls jealous, and then I'm going to come home and flaunt my successful relationship until he feels the way I feel right now – until he regrets the day he ever pushed me away.

I forced a smile to lift the corners of my mouth. "So, since we're going to get married, do you think we should introduce ourselves? Or at least, I should tell you my name, since I heard your ex call you Drew. That is your name, isn't it?"

Drew nodded. "It is. May I have the pleasure of knowing yours, then?"

An inappropriate fit of giggles struggled to burst out of me at his unintentional choice of words. He saw me struggling to swallow my mirth and quirked an eyebrow. "My name is May," I explained, calming down. It had felt good to forget about everything that had happened that evening and just laugh, even if only for a moment. But somber reality set back in all too fast, and suddenly I wanted to cry. As if sensing the change in my mood – or maybe a similar feeling had overcome him, too – he stood up and reached for my hand. I let him take it.

"Okay, May, how about you come back to my place and we start talking about the wedding?" he suggested, and the seriousness of his tone made me want to laugh again. I was such a mess.

I nodded my agreement, not really taking anything in anymore and just going the way the wind blew.

Finally, Brianna seemed to find her voice. "Drew!" she screeched, causing the both of us to grit our teeth. "You – you can't seriously marry a girl you just met!"

We both looked at her at the same time, and I hid a smile. We'd barely known each other five seconds and already we were doing everything together!

Drew just smirked – it was the first genuine expression I had seen him wear all night. "I'd rather marry a girl I just met than you – even if she turns out to be a psychotic serial killer, she won't be worse than you."

Brianna was lost for words; we heard nothing more from her until she slammed the door as loudly as the strength in her stick-thin arms would allow.

Drew and I took our first steps hand-in-hand away from Brianna and her house, and we kept walking for a good twenty minutes in complete silence. Strangely, it wasn't the awkward kind of silence where you're both searching for words and coming up blank, or the kind of silence that feels forced. It was peaceful. We had both had rough nights, and both of us had done a fair amount of screaming. In the twenty minutes that we walked without talking, our throats had a chance to recover and our thoughts had a chance to slow down after the whirlwind which I was sure had occupied both our minds.

All I could feel was his hand in mine. Not even the biting coldness of December could pierce the numbness shrouding me. I didn't need to look at him to know he felt the same way. His hand was warm, and solid, and the only anchor I had to keep me on the ground. I was afraid that if I let go, the wind would whisk me away to a place where my feelings would continue to bleed until there was nothing left of me.

We wandered through several streets, some that I recognised and some that I didn't, until we ended up at the park. It looked ghostly in the moonlight – a sight which calmed me. I didn't know what was going to happen next. I couldn't go back to my house, because he was there. I couldn't pick up any of my things, and I no longer had a place to sleep. I was effectively homeless. But that thought didn't terrify me as much as knowing my whole life had changed in a matter of hours.

From beside me, Drew gently raised his free arm to point at the stars sparkling above us. He didn't say anything; he didn't need to. Both of our lives were going to be very different from now on, but the world hadn't ended – the stars were still shining. Drew didn't need Brianna, and I didn't need him. We both had no-one now… and yet we had each other.

Somehow, as we made our way over to a bench and sat down, still holding hands, I felt our hearts begin the healing process – if only by a tiny little bit.

Author's Note: This story is a little different to all my others, and I feel like it's better written too (though you guys will be the judges of that!), and it feels more special to me than any others. I'm actually really happy with the way it's turning out and I've been so inspired to write it that I've already completed the first three chapters in four days (a first for me!) and if my motivation continues at this level then I might actually finish a story with regular updates and no long hiatus! Yay! I hope to update every week, on either Friday or Saturday (another first - I NEVER have an update schedule because I know I won't manage to stick to it!).

For these reasons I won't be doing my usual author's notes every chapter (wow, yet another first! I'm just full of surprises today!) because I don't want to interrupt the flow of the story, unless absolutely necessarily. Therefore, I'll reply to every review by PM - and unfortunately it means I won't be able to reply to guest reviews unless they get an account, UNLESS I really need to reply to them, in which case I will add in an author's note to do so. But:

I'm really grateful for any reviews I get, they inspire me so much. I just hope you all enjoy reading the story, and review/PM me with any questions!

Oh and I know May and Drew might seem a little OOC in the first few chapters but that's only because they've both just been through rough break-ups. They'll become more of their usual selves by about chapter four or five, I promise!

And if you're wondering, this story focuses mainly on Contestshipping but will include a bit of Ikarishipping and Oldrivalshipping (or whatever LeafxGary is called), and maybe some others but I'm not sure yet.

Also, I highly recommend listening to 'On Purpose' by Sabrina Carpenter - the lyrics fit this story PERFECTLY - I was so surprised when I first heard them!

Lastly, the words in italics at the beginning of every chapter are from a (sort of) song I wrote which (sort of) fits this plot and the characters, but they're not specific to the chapter they are at the beginning of (though the lyrics at the beginning of this chapter actually do kinda fit it).

Thank you so much for reading!

~Jay