Greetings, darling readers. I present to you, by popular demand, the sequel of 'Sometimes Heroines Need Heroes'. Thank you all for your encouraging feedback and support. I was on the fence about whether a sequel would be viable but you have assured me it would float and so I'm returning to tell more of Hyacinth's story. I hope we can have another great journey together with this one.

It was one of those scenarios where you knew when you'd arrived at home but you weren't sure how you were able to put one foot in front of the other to get there. Because, while you knew you had to get home, your mind was occupied, completely taken with the task of trying to keep your insides from shattering and falling apart. And trying to find some way to return to the way you were before everything went wrong. More than that, trying to find the point before anything that was a prelude to the situation which then went wrong.

I wasn't sure why it was even happening. Everything was fine. At least I thought everything had been fine. Clearly, it had not been.

Occupying my thoughts as well was the whole scene which was relentlessly playing over and over in my mind. I didn't know if my mind was looking in the whole thing for a sign or if there was something I could have said to change how things went.

After training, I'd done what I usually did. I went to the showers and got changed, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to have Robin take me home as he always did. Perhaps it was because of the promise he'd made to my mom to watch my back or for personal reasons, but he faithfully accompanied me on the way home every night that we had training or missions. Robin had texted me to tell him to meet him in the basement of The Cave, which was really an area in the lowest part of the whole complex which housed the Cave's generator and a lake of sorts which occupied about half of the chamber. I pegged it as him being mischievous. We avoided too much kissing, hugging and seemingly affectionate demeanour while we were there. We had decided to keep our relationship a secret until it got out on its own some way.

When I entered, he had his back to me. I came up behind him and gave his waist a tight squeeze. When I let go, he turned and took both my hands in his. His expression was serious. Perhaps that was when I knew he was going to tell me something I couldn't possibly like.

"You wanted to talk to me?" I forced myself to ask.

"Yeah. I did."

"What is it? You know we can talk about anything."

"We're best friends no matter what, right?"

I pulled my hands from his. "I'm insulted you have to ask—"

"Just answer me, yes or no."

"Well, yeah. We made this promise ages ago."

"Ah. The promise. The promise that if we break up we'd still be friends. Glad to know you remember."

Discomfort caressed my spine. "Of course I remember." My voice came out as a whisper. He turned around and took a few steps away from me and he scratched his head.

"Ah. Let's not do this beat-about-the-bush thing. I know we don't have to because we're cool. Here goes. Hy, I think we should just be friends." He turned to face me after the words had escaped his lips. I couldn't feel my face so I couldn't tell what expression I was wearing. I couldn't feel much period. I just felt...like a draught had passed through the halls. Cold. "Hy?"

"Uh. Yeah. Okay. Fine. Cool." He exhaled and a look of relief came to his face.

"Oh, great. I thought you were going to freak out or something, but I guess, with our agreement, I shouldn't have thought that." I nodded ever so slightly. Robin was usually so in tune with me. He always knew when I was lying. How could he not feel that I was quickly approaching absolute zero on the inside? Where had our bond gone? Did it sever the moment he had decided he didn't want me anymore? "Friends?"

"Friends," I answered. I was vaguely aware of my face trying to be okay. My brain was on auto—my answers and actions were coming from that automatic part of my mind that tried to not inconvenience people by giving the least problematic response that I could. It was like when someone was trying to talk to you while you're on the computer but you're focusing on what you're doing so you end up nodding and agreeing or disagreeing just for the sake of giving an answer that would make the person go away with as little resistance and arguing as possible. My real emotions and all the questions and thoughts in my head about why now and why not and what had gone wrong were tying each other and my active consciousness in a gigantic knot.

The message tone on my phone went off. "Oh, you're on your way out, right?"

"Yeah."

"Batman said he needed me for something. Will you be okay by yourself?"

"Yeah. 'Course." He pulled me into his arms and quickly hugged me. When he let go, I turned and hurried away.

As I crossed the field, as I kept my eyes focused on the green grass whose colour had been eclipsed and reset by the darkness and dim light of the moon and the few visible stars, it started to hit me. The full weight of what had just happened crashed down on me and it hurt.

Robin didn't want me anymore. All he wanted was my friendship. There was nothing I could offer him as a girlfriend anymore and he had become aware of it. He had cut off the things he didn't need to ensure that he was just as serious and efficient as his partner, Batman. Worse off, I couldn't fault him.

From the beginning, I knew that there were certain lines that divided us absolutely. Somewhere, deep inside, I knew that I would have to let him go sooner or later, despite all the optimism I had and the brave show I was prepared to make by working around our issues. In the end, he had decided that there was no need to fight over any issues, no need to work to try to keep our relationship together. In the end, he had decided that calling it quits suited him better.

I was extremely shocked when I saw my mother's face in the open door.

"Hi, honey," she said.

"Hey."

"How was your day?" I searched hard and long for the answer to her question in my brain and felt myself getting lost inside my head, looking for the answer to a question I knew it made no sense to ask myself. Why had he called it quits?

"I thought everything was okay," I mumbled.

My mother frowned and we stopped walking just past the doorway. "Baby, what's wrong?" And, knowing that even I didn't know the answer to that one, that I couldn't tell her what had really gone wrong with us, I shook my head. I headed for my room, dropped my bag on the floor, closed the door and locked it. I sat down on my bed, pulled my knees up, hugged them to my chest and rested my head on them.

A few knocks sounded from my door. "Hyacinth, sweetheart, is it something to do with Robin?" Was it? Had he just decided that he wasn't ready to be in an exclusive relationship and that he needed some more time to mature? He was doing so well before; what had changed? Maybe he had discovered that his interest in me was shallow, extending only up to the point when I eluded his grasp. Perhaps by accepting his advances, seeing him often and letting him know that I was falling in love with him, I had taken all the challenge and thereby the interest out of the relationship. Perhaps, in the end, all the advice you get from movies and other women about never telling a guy your feelings and never making yourself too available was right. Perhaps I had removed everything that would have made him stay. But that wouldn't have really been his fault. That would have been mine because I was the one who had done all that.

Maybe he had just realised that someone like me who was his best friend, on similar levels as Wally, his other best friend, who played videogames with him and was butch and got into fights in the name of justice in school or outside in the larger world, wasn't a good candidate for his girlfriend and didn't deserve to be at his side and hold his hand. Maybe he'd realised that his type was softer than that. Like Megan indeed.

"Honey?" my mom called, pulling me from my deeply knit reverie. I realised that she had asked a question and I had never really answered it.

"Uh, yeah."

"Baby, talk to me. What happened?"

The words came to my head, ramming into me like a brick as they strung together to form the sentence that I had to say to explain it to my mother. I couldn't force them to travel through my windpipe and out of my mouth. I tried once and nothing. Again, just an incoherent syllable. I tried it once more and the syllable stretched.

I lifted my head, shut my eyes and reasoned myself that there was no further damage that admission could cause. The bullet had already shot me so I couldn't bite it. "Robin broke up with me."

I had been wrong. It was as if the admission made the whole thing a stark, ugly reality or added the sting to a wound. Like the sting that waits a second to show itself when some of your skin is ripped off and then pulsates and tortures you. Now, the pain of rejection just hurt more and deeper now that I had admitted it to myself and someone else.

"Oh, honey. I'm so sorry." She tried the door and realised it was locked. "I—I'm so sorry." Her footsteps sounded, going away from the door. She understood that I didn't want anyone with me now. Either that or even she didn't know how to deal with me now. I rested my head back down onto my knees.

My eyes stung as I realised that my heart sought some sort of relief from the pressure and the pain and the unhappiness in the form of tears. My mother had always told me that crying over boys was pointless and I was also of the opinion that crying over a boy was a stupid and pointless thing to do. That was before. But when you were in the situation, when the boy you loved had cut you loose, removed the special binding that kept you and him together exclusively so that you could give him your love and he could accept it and show you that he cared deeply for you in that special way, it was hard to abide by a principle that had never had any real disposition before.

As the cliché expression went, easier said than done. And, while I was thinking of clichéd expressions, there was yet another that applied. It was like insult to injury but it was a rational explanation for why he couldn't be blamed for my splintering, shattering heart: if you make your bed, lie in it. I longed to cry for the pain that was tearing me apart but out of habit, my eyes were dry as the desert, leaving the pain within me to scorch my insides and leave its pulsing, throbbing mark.

I am aware that now you may want to shoot me and I accept that. Please review anyway. Even if it is just to tell me that you want to shoot me. Even that is helpful feedback.