Mom had never taught me that pain was harder to deal with when the person didn't want anything to do with you. I'd called Gordo's phone ten times and there was no answer. I even texted him an hour later, letting him know Miranda got onto her flight okay and she was heading to Southern California as he received the message. There wasn't even a reply to that.

On the way home from the airport, I stopped by the Gordon's house to see if he was packing. I tapped carefully on the door and stepped back to wait. Roberta answered with a feeble smile. "Hello, Elizabeth."

"Mrs. Gordon, is Gor-David home?" I asked quietly, merely above a whisper. Please say yes, please say yes…

"No, I'm afraid he left twenty minutes ago. He said something about you saying some hurtful things to him." She frowned and reached over to pluck something from a box. "I was going to give this to your mom, but I thought maybe you should get it instead. Watch it whenever you're ready."

I looked at the tape and frowned when Gordo's mom closed the door. I didn't know what to say. I stared at the tape for a long time, green eyes watering. Gordo didn't even say goodbye. He didn't even say I'll see you later, or peace or anything like that like he usually did. The tape weighed heavy on my hands.

Twenty minutes passed before I finally arrived home, walking slower than molasses in the winter going uphill. I couldn't bring herself to admit that I'd inadvertently hurt my best friend…again. He never really did forgive me after the mistake we made in Rome, kissing him on the rooftop.

I fell onto my bed and stared at the TV on the dresser. No one else was home, so it was probably a good thing I didn't close my bedroom door. Pushing the tape into the VCR, I waited for it to play. There was a few minutes of static, then finally a video started. I couldn't breathe for a long time when it dawned on me who it was. There I was, dancing through the yard, bottles in hand, dying fabric. There was me, at practice for gymnastics, one of me practicing my speech to be class president. He'd kept all of these.

I fell wearily on the bed and watched my life flash by, image by image. There were frames of me and Miranda doing our music video. A few stills of Gordo, laughing at something Miranda had said when I stole his camera. There were even snippets of graduation from 8th grade in there. If I didn't know any better, I'd say my heart stopped.

Finally, there was five minutes left, and Gordo's somber face showed up on the screen. "Elizabeth," Then I knew it was serious; he'd never called me that. Not once. "I've been documenting your life from childhood to greatness. Since I've been old enough to hold a camera and use it, I've been filming you. N-not in a creepy stalker way, but just, little bits and pieces. I've known you since I was six months old. In fact, I know almost everything about you. I know that your favorite color is purple. Your celebrity crush in middle school was Aaron Carter. You like to sleep in on Saturdays. You can never remember the words to Jingle Bells…" He laughed and quietly continued. "But yet, you never seemed to know me. You never knew anything about me. Like, did you know I could twitch my ears?" He did so for emphasis of his point. "And that my favorite food is curly fries? What I'm saying is that even though we grew up together…we didn't really know each other. We knew what we wanted each other to know. I told you about Schrödinger's cat for a reason. I want you to realize that either way you see this, it's going to hurt. You're the girl I've admired since I was ten…and now that I think about it, that just made it worse." He smiled sadly again, and then reached to turn the camera off. "One day, you'll realize what you've lost when it's too late."

Static.

I took a deep breath and turned the tape off. The phone rang, but I didn't want to answer it right away, figuring it was mom checking on Matt. The machine picked up, and the first thing I heard was Mrs. Gordon's voice. She didn't sound calm, or demanding, like usual. She sounded frightened. "Jo, Sam, if either of you are near your phone, I need to talk to Elizabeth right away. She hasn't been answering her cell phone."

I dug into my pocket and sure enough, five missed calls, all spanning from the time the video started, to now. Did she give me the wrong tape? I dialed the number I had memorized and waited; only to realize the number didn't come from the house. It was from a different number. I dug through my cell phone, finding the one Roberta had called from. 714? Isn't that out of the area? Without thinking, I dialed the number.

Roberta picked up, taking a deep breath to calm her voice. "Elizabeth?"

"Mrs. Gordon, what's wrong? Did you give me the wrong tape or something?" I asked, worry in my voice. That's when I heard her mom and dad come into the background asking if he was okay. He? Who is he?

Roberta held her hand over the receiver to answer, her reply muffled. When she came back onto the line, she was in tears. "Oh, Elizabeth, it's terrible!"

"Did something happen to Mr. Gordon?" I asked stupidly, hoping that was the case. Did that make me a bad person?

She spoke again, her voice cracking. "David was heading for the airport to say sorry to you. When you weren't there, he came home and dropped something off, then decided to leave for New York early. He was on his way to LAX when another car swerved into his lane. It was a head on accident. Elizabeth, he's in bad shape."

Miranda: Does that make Gordo a nobody?

Gordo: One day you'll realize what you've lost when it's too late.

Lizzie: Do you have a crush on me?
Gordo: No…why would I have a crush on you? You're my best friend.

Gordo: Have you ever loved someone who didn't love you back?

Miranda: He saw you, you know. He saw you kissing Ronnie. Do you know how bad that hurt him? He wanted to ask you to be his valentine. He had a card for you and everything. But when he showed up there, you were in a lip-lock with Ronnie.
Lizzie: Like it didn't hurt me to see him with Brooke!
Miranda: Did it? You didn't seem very hurt by it.

Suddenly it all made sense, the video, Miranda…all of it made sense. Gordo was in love with me. And I'd crushed his heart.

Then I began to wonder if he had a video like this. Was his last few moments like mine were now? Did he flash back to every terrible moment in his life and regret it? Did he have a friend that crossed his mind, just before he blacked out?

"I need my mom…" I dropped the phone and started trembling on the floor.

Jo came to pick up Lizzie, but neither of them spoke for some time. Mere moments to get to the hospital turned into an eternity. They arrived just as Gordo was being wheeled out of surgery. Lizzie wanted to scream at him to wake up, but it wouldn't matter. He couldn't hear her. She wrenched herself free of her mother's arms and ran to him anyway. "Gordo, listen please! Don't die on me. There's so much I need to say to you! Pull through for me, please!"

Jo watched helplessly as her daughter tried to follow the doctors. She shook her head and gently placed a hand on Lizzie's shoulder. "I'm sure he'll be fine, he's always been a little tougher than you remember."

She looked down at her feet and backed up, falling into a chair. She could barely breathe. What if he died? Would she be able to keep going? She trembled harder against her mother's reassuring arms. Why did the bad things happen to her? "Mom…whose going to tell Miranda?"

Jo hadn't thought of that. No one wanted to touch on the topic of how he got into the accident in the first place. "Lizzie, we'll worry about that when the time comes, but for now, you need to calm down and look at this reasonably. Gordo is tough, he'll survive just fine. And if you doubt him, who are you to call him a friend?"

The young blonde stared blankly at her shoes and wiped away her tears. "Mom…I think…I love him."

"Of course you do, honey, he's a friend." Jo comforted, brushing her hand softly through Lizzie's hair. "Get some sleep. It's going to be a long night. I promise I won't leave your side."

And just like that, she fell asleep.

She didn't even wake up when the doctors told the Gordon's that Gordo wouldn't be waking up for a long time.

It switches point of view a couple times in the story. It's always obvious whose it is though. Read and review. =)