Breathing heavily, Theresa simply couldn't believe what was happening. She had worked so hard, had sacrificed so much and yet here she was. Nothing had changed.

"Theresa! I can't believe that you would do this…" Ethan's icy voice continued with its continuous lines of accusations as Gwen and Rebecca looked on uneasily.

Theresa had tried to explain to him what had truly occurred, but he simply refused to let her speak. Whenever she opened her mouth, he would cut her off and coldly tell her to save her excuses.

"Well, what are you going to say now?"

As she looked at him, she couldn't for the life of her remember why she had fought so hard. She looked down and the clutched diskette in her hand. Swallowing the frustrated cry that begged to escape, she looked Ethan in the eye.

"Do you know what this is, Ethan?" Her voice was heartbreakingly soft.

He let out an exasperated sigh and motioned for her to continue.

She knew that he was waiting for another one of her so called excuses. He was just waiting for her to speak so that he could brand her as irrational, illogical, or immoral.

Blinking back the tears that threatened to fall, she took another shaky breath. Sparing a glance at the other two occupants in the room, she noticed how they were holding their breath in fear of being exposed for what they had done…for what they had set up Theresa to take the fall for.

But, she had made her decision. As the day after day had passed by, she noticed that she had always been on defensive: defending her words, defending her actions, defending her choices. 'It's not how it's supposed to be…' She felt shattered beyond repair.

"It's the one thing that would guarantee our future, Ethan." Clutching the flimsy plastic in her hand, she began to shiver from the pain. "It's the one thing that would bring us together forever."

She had caught his attention. She knew it. But as he stepped towards her in curiosity, she held out a hand for him to stop.

"But Gwen was right, Ethan," a choked sob released against her efforts to keep it back, "you never loved me." She dared him to refute her statement, dared him to declare his love for her in front of Gwen. But he didn't…and it only gave her the little encouragement that she needed to go on.

"Because if you loved me," her voice quivered, but she refused to meet anyone's eyes, "if you truly, loved me…you wouldn't need proof to believe me."

With the quick flick of her wrist, she sent the disk into the fireplace and painfully watched it melt away quickly.

Shocked, Ethan rapidly moved towards the flames, but didn't know quite what to do. He simply looked back and forth between the bright, burning flames and a stoned face Theresa.

Gwen and Rebecca, who were frozen in astonishment, couldn't find the strength to utter a single word. They simply could not believe their eyes.

Moving toward Theresa, Ethan halted in mid-step as she took a step back…away from him.

They stared at each other in silence.

"Goodbye Ethan."

And with a spin on her heel, she walked out the door without another word.

Hm…I wonder if anyone reads these. :) I used to watch Passions back in the old days and just got a chance to read some updates and I got sooooo maddddddd. This is how it should be, grr. Anyways, please comment and review so that I know that this section of FFnet isn't dead. Then I'll update more, promise!