"Hey, Mitch."

Josh poked his head into his friend's dorm room and found her sitting at her computer, feet resting on the desk. She wore short, pink shorts and a white tank top. Her brown hair was pulled into a loose ponytail. "A bunch of us are going to the club. Are you in? I need my dancing partner…"

"Yeah, definitely," she nodded enthusiastically. "What time are you leaving?"

"In about an hour. Will you be ready?"

Mitchie smirked and hit the 'Save' button on the document she had been working on. "I was born ready."

Josh laughed. "Of course you were. I'll see you in an hour, I'm gonna go take a shower."

She waved to him as he disappeared into the hallway. She crossed the small room to her closet and rummaged through the hangers. Her eyes fell on a short, red, halter dress – she always got compliments when she wore it. She slid it on and examined herself in the mirror, making sure that it fit nicely. When she decided that it had, she put on some eye make-up and warmed up her hair straightener.

Almost exactly an hour later, she heard a knock at the door. She grabbed her purse and opened the door quickly, greeting Josh as she closed it behind her. She followed him downstairs to the lobby, where the rest of their friends were waiting.

"Looking hot," Kevin, Josh's roommate, grinned. He kissed Mitchie on the cheek.

All of their friends rolled their eyes – it was no secret that he had been crushing on Mitchie since she came to Northwestern last fall. She was a sophomore now, and he was a junior.

"You've been locked in your room all day. Big paper?" he asked.

"Yeah, organic chem," she replied, waving to her best friends Stacy and Jenna. "Are we waiting for anyone else?"

"Nope. Chris and Elise decide not to come," Stacy told her. She lowered her voice to a sarcastic whisper. "They're fighting again."

They all laughed. No surprise there.

Josh looked at his watch. "We better get going. A couple concerts just got out so it's going to get really busy soon."

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Hey," Kevin said, approaching Mitchie where she sat at their table.

She looked up at him and smiled, breaking away from the conversation she had been having with Josh. She really does look beautiful tonight, he thought. Though, he always thought she looked amazing.

He didn't get it. He was a good-looking guy. Smart, funny, sweet, and talented; he sang and played the guitar in a band that was pretty popular on campus. He had exhausted himself for the past year-and-a-half trying to impress her, but she had always treated him like a big brother figure.

"Do you want to dance?"

"Oh my God, you guys won't believe who's here," Jenna interrupted, motioning for them to follow him. "Come on, hurry up!"

They all glanced at each other, confused, but interested. Kevin sighed, reluctantly following his friend towards the other side of the club.

Jenna led them towards a tall, dark haired man with his back turned to them. He was signing an autograph for a woman about their age. She tapped him on the shoulder eagerly. "Shane? Hi…I'm a huge fan…"

"Oh my God," Stacy squealed excitedly, recognizing the rock star in front of them.

"Oh my God," Mitchie gasped, shocked. Her eyes widened. She tried to move, but her body was rigid.

"I know, right? Shane Gray…" Jenna grinned.

Shane's eyes shifted to Mitchie for the first time. He caught his breath in his throat, his shoulders tensing. "Oh my God…Mitchie…"

"What are you doing here?" she asked harshly.

"Hold on…" Jenna butted in, looking at her friend with disbelief. "You know him?"

Mitchie swallowed hard, thinking over her words carefully. "We went to camp together."

Shane heaved a heavy sigh, momentarily breaking eye contact for the first time since he had noticed her. When he looked back at her, he was glaring bitterly. "We were together for three-and-a-half years. I asked you to marry me. And all you give me is, 'we went to camp together'?"

"Oh my God! Mitch, why didn't you ever tell me? What did you say?" Stacy spoke up, grabbing Mitchie's arm excitedly.

"Yeah, Mitch, what did you say?" Shane repeated. He tilted his head questioningly, waiting for her answer. She stared fiercely into his eyes and pursed her lips together, not at all amused. "It's a little fuzzy…but I do believe it was something like, 'I don't love you anymore.' Is that pretty close?"

"I was telling the truth. I didn't love you, I couldn't marry you." She ran her fingers through her hair and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Bullshit. You were scared." He took a step towards her, staring her down. "You were scared because I was leaving."

"I had plans, Shane. I want to go to med school. I couldn't just forget all my plans to follow you around the country and be your fucking groupie."

"You wouldn't have been a groupie! You would have been my wife!" Shane shouted, no longer trying to control his anger. "I never asked you to give up your plans. I love how ambitious you are. You know that I would have supported you in anything you decided to do. We could have made it work! We had something amazing. You were afraid that I was going to cheat on you, weren't you? I would never do that to you, and you know that. Even if you weren't ready to get married…we could have had a long engagement…we didn't even have to be engaged. We could still be together. You could have just said no, you didn't have to break up with me."

"I don't need to listen to this," Mitchie whispered, holding back tears. "I'm out of here. Leave me alone."

She turned and made her way hurriedly to the door. Kevin began to follow her, but Stacy put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "I think this is more of a girl thing," she told him before pushing through the crowd of people to catch up with her friend.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Hey," Kevin opened the door to Mitchie's dorm room slowly, leaning against the doorframe. "Are you okay?"

Mitchie had changed into a pair of large gray sweatpants and a black tank top. She was curled up into a ball in her bed, covered by several blankets. Her iTunes was on shuffle mode, as usual, currently playing a pop song that Kevin didn't recognize.

She pulled the blankets off of her head and looked up at him blankly. She had obviously been crying.

He bit his lip nervously, not wanting to be the one to deliver the news he carried. "He's here. He's waiting outside."

She sighed heavily, rolling onto her back. She dabbed her eyes with the tissue in her hand. "What should I do?"

Kevin entered the room completely, closing the door behind him, and sat next to her on the bed. He took her hand in his, felling her soft skin and knowing that he would regret what he was about to say for the rest of his life. "Mitchie…you know how I feel about you. I've never tried to hide that. So I don't know that I can really tell you what I think. But, I just sat down at the bar and had Shane Gray pour his heart out to me for two hours, so I'll tell you what I know. He's really hurting. He wants to know what went wrong. The Mitchie I know would at least give him that." He choked with emotion, averting his eyes from hers. "He still loves you."

"He does?" she asked, stunned, sitting up.

Kevin nodded. Mitchie kicked the blankets off of her body quickly and jumped out of bed. She grabbed her coat off of the chair near her computer and threw it on quickly.

"Can I ask you something?" Kevin asked, and she nodded. "He and I are a lot alike, aren't we?"

She nodded again.

"That's why you would never go out with me. I reminded you of him."

She looked at him sadly and nodded.

He used all the energy he had to hold back his sadness. "So what does he have that I don't?"

Mitchie gave him a sympathetic smile. "My heart."

Kevin hung his head and stared at the floor. After it sunk in, he stood up and moved towards her. He looked into her eyes sadly. "Okay. I guess if I had to lose you to someone, I guess I'm glad it's a rock star. I just want you to be happy."

He kissed her on the cheek and walked towards the door. She followed him, turning the opposite way down the hall, towards the exit.

She pushed the door open and entered the cold January night, shoving her hands into her pockets. Shane saw her and jogged towards her, a nervous look painted across his face.

"I'm sorry I yelled earlier," he started, blowing warm air into his cold hands. "But you have to realize…you broke up with me so suddenly and I never saw you again. I tried to find you…I asked everyone you knew and nobody would tell me where you were. For two years I've been wondering, praying to God that you'd turn up while we were on tour, and then you did. And it didn't go how I had imagined it…" He stopped, waiting for her to respond, but she didn't. Unsure if that was a good or bad sign, he continued. "Why weren't you in New York? Like we always talked about? I was so sure you would be there…I searched every inch of that damn city. Why didn't you go there?"

She smiled. "I knew that would be the first place you would look."

He smiled, mostly because he had smiled. He missed that smile. He took a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. After a moment of silence, he quietly asked the question that had been torturing him for so long. "Why did you leave me?"

"I guess I was afraid that when you saw everything else that was out there, you would realize that you could have anything, or anyone, you wanted. And I guess I didn't believe that I had found the love of my life so early…that my first boyfriend would be my only. I needed to prove to myself that I could live without you."

"And?"

"I can't," she admitted. "Or at least, I don't want to anymore."

A wide grin spread across Shane's face. He wanted to kiss her, but he stopped himself. There was something more important he had to do first.

"Mitchie, I've seen everything else that's out there, and none of it meant anything without you. Your ring is in LA…" he started, lowering himself to his knee and looking up at her lovingly. "But…will you marry me?"

She nodded excitedly as tears welled up in her eyes. "Yes."

He stood up quickly and pulled her body close to his, kissing her passionately. She wrapped his arms around her neck, never wanting to break away.

And this time, she wouldn't.

A/N: Thanks for reading. Review! And, reading it over, I realized that people might see "Kevin" and think that I was using a real person in my story, so here is my disclaimer now: Kevin does not equal Kevin Jonas, or any other real Kevin, it is just the name I happened to choose for that character. So don't report me or anything. REVIEW!!!