Chapter One

I look at him as if nothing ever happened but we both know it did. How could anyone do that to someone, let alone someone you've known two years of your life? The guilt and the regret inside me just doesn't go away. Most nights I cry myself to sleep knowing that if I tell her our friendship would be over and I don't want that. But how can you be someone's best friend when the truth is hidden under something you never want to dig up? It's there everyday wanting to come out and I know someday it will. We've always been there for each other, through the good and bad, the thick and the thin, the sadness and jealousy, but somehow we pulled through it all or for right now we have. How could I have let this happen? I'm usually the responsible one, the one who thinks before doing something. I look at the pictures of me with friends, smiling and having fun and wonder what happened? How did I become something I told my self I would never be?

Along this long road through life I guess you have to learn. Learn from the mistakes you made along the way and make sure it doesn't happen again. But what would happen if the truth made you lose everything you had? Would that be a so called life lesson, because if it does I don't know if I could live with what I'm holding back? People say to tell the truth and when the truth speaks it will all be better in the end. I don't believe that, because people also say that the truth hurts. So why do we tell the truth when we know it hurts someone? It just doesn't make sense. The world is full of questions that make no sense and we just have to deal with it. I tell myself that it will be okay but deep down I know it won't because I need someone else to tell me that it will, and the one person that can is the one person that truly can't.

I think to myself and wonder if this could have been prevented. If I would have said no, would have just left, or for once got home on time for curfew. Instead I stayed and partied with my best friend's boyfriend while she was on vacation with her family. It didn't go as far as you're thinking but it could have if Mason's friend Cooper didn't knock and come in. Mason and I go all the way back to junior year when we were dating. It was more like friends with benefits if you ask me. We were never meant for each other, we fought all the time and never did anything couples ever did. We stopped seeing each other when Sophie transferred to our school and Mason started seeing her. I hated her at first because she took him away from me. When we got put on the same volleyball team that year we became inseparable. Mason and I agreed not to tell Sophie about our past because she really didn't need to know, besides it made me believe that Mason and I were still linked by something and it gave me hope that one day he would realize that what we had was all we'd ever need.

I didn't know if both of us were too drunk to realize what we were doing but I remember all of it. Him pulling me away from my friends, bringing me to the bedroom, laying me down, linking his fingers with mine, looking me straight in the eye and kissing me. The hardest part of all of this is that I didn't stop him at all but linked my fingers with his, looked back at him, and me kissing him back.



I look out the window as both of us drive to the airport to pick up Sophie. We haven't spoken a word since he picked me up. What do you say to someone you know you did something terrible with? The only problem with this is that I miss him so much and I miss what we used to be and nobody knows it but me.

The car slows down as we approach a red light and he changes the volume to mute. I look down at my silver chain bracelet that is filled with charms, most of them from Sophie. I twirl it around my wrist and hold back the tears welling up in my eyes. I don't know if I have the emotion strength to get through this.

"Rachel," he chokes out. I turn my head to look at him and wonder what he has to say. I mean what is there to say?

"I'm sorry, I," he tries to get out before I cut him off.

"Mason, don't. We were drunk and we weren't thinking and it was a mistake. If you're worried about Sophie I won't tell her."

"I'm not worried about Sophie. I'm worried about you."

"Don't start worrying about me now Mason, when you never have before," I said and put on my sunglasses as the light changes from red to green.

"Don't you dare say that," he said as the car started moving forward towards the airport.

"What, the truth?" I replied coldly.

"You know I cared about you Rae."

"Really, because the last time I checked you walked out on us."

"We didn't have anything going on." He said annoyed.



"And that's exactly why you didn't care," I told him as I blasted the radio back up. Like I told you before the truth hurts, I realized it the hard way. It hurts when the one person you want doesn't want you back.

"There was never an us Rachel," he said calmly when he turned down the radio and pulled up to where Sophie was waiting.

"And that's my fault, how?" I said to him before I hopped out of the car to give Sophie a hug. We got her bags and we're driving in the car on our way home. I was sitting in the back seat and was watching the white stripes on the road pass by. I closed my eyes and remembered something that always stayed with me.

"We can't do this anymore," he told me as he grabbed his sweatshirt off my bed.

"Mason," I said and grabbed his arm, pleading for him not to go.

"You have to remember the rules Rachel." I remembered the rules we made clearly. When we got ourselves into this we promised we wouldn't fall in love with each other, but that was before I knew I wasn't going too.

"Forget the rules Mason," I asked him.

"We made a deal Rachel." He said. That's when he walked out on me and never looked back.

"Rachel?"

"RACHEL," I heard Sophie say and snapped out of the trance I was in. I looked at her and she gave me a box. I smiled and opened it. It was a necklace with a picture of us on the front and our names on the back.

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome," she smiled and I put the necklace on. Mason dropped off Sophie first and we were back at my house. I was sitting in the front when I took off one of the charms he gave me a year ago.



"Here," I said handing it to him.

"I gave that to you," he said and pushed my hand back.

"I don't want it. Mason you know that I can't live this world without you, but I cant live in this

world where you don't love me. This charm is supposed to represent that and it doesn't. It never represented us." I said and put it in the ash tray in the middle of his car.

Once I shut the door I walked to the front of my house and he drove off. I didn't feel like going to school the next three days because I didn't want to face Sophie. At the party who knows if anyone saw us and I'm scared that someone did and told Sophie. I was sitting by the window in my room looking down at the swings tied to the tree.

"Are you sure?" he asked scared.

"No. I mean I've been late before but not this late." I said holding my hands.

"Have you taken a test," he asked. I shook my head no and he got up and grabbed my hands. "Come on, we'll go get one."

My eyes faded from the swings to Mason's car in my driveway. He stepped out and I went down the stairs to open the door when he knocked.

"Hi," I said.

"I just came by to give you you're homework," he said handing my books to me. I grabbed them and set them on the table by the door.

"Thanks," I said. He started walking away and I was shutting the door when he turned around and asked, "Are you okay?"

I followed him out to where he was sitting on the swings and said, "I'm scared that Sophie is going to find out. I'm scared to face her."

"Rachel, it was just a kiss."

"But it meant everything me," I told him.

"What?" he asked confused.

"Mason I," I said looking at him but the words couldn't come out. They were at the tip of my tongue yet somehow they were stuck there. "Never mind." I got up and walked away after I said that.

"Rachel, what were you going to say." He asked.

"Nothing," I said and kept walking towards the house.

"Rachel, will you stop and look at me please," he yelled.

"What do you want Mason? Why are you here?" I yelled back.

"I wanted to see if you're okay," he sincerely said.

"I'm fine," I lied.

"I don't believe you," he said coming closer. "You want to know why, because ever since we no longer are together you're different. You put on a great act but I can see right through it." I stared at him because he was right but what did it matter.

"I've changed Mason; you need to learn to accept that."

"But you changed for the worse. You're not outgoing anymore, you hide behind volleyball and don't show how you really feel. I mean what happened to Megan and Becca and the life you used to live?"

"You don't see it do you," I asked him holding back the tears.

"See what? Rachel I'm trying here, but you've got to give me something to work with," he said holding my shoulders. I looked at his eyes and tears fell down mine.

"Everything I had before was because we shared it together, but when you left those things always reminded me of you and I had to get rid of them somehow and the easiest way to do that was to forget them like the way you forgot me. I've changed Mason, because you changed me."

"Rachel," he exhaled.

"No Mason, I miss you so much. I never wanted you to leave. It hurt, it did when you walked out

that door that last time. You've changed me so much because now I hold a wall up against my heart because I don't ever want to get hurt the way you hurt me." I cried.

"What about the rules we had, that we promised each other?" He tried to say.

"It was never about the rules for me Mason," I told him.

"It was for me," he said back.

"And I understand that, but was there ever a time that it wasn't?" I asked him. I could feel the wind against my skin and it gave me goose bumps waiting for his answer.

"No," he replied looking at the ground. I turned back towards the house and went in. He stood there while I watched from the window. "No" a simple word, two letters, then why was it a word that hurt so much? After all that we've been through, when I asked him if he ever loved me he said no. I leaned against the door and cried harder than I have ever cried before.