The blaring alarm clock on my nightstand literally ripped through the silence in my head, producing the most painful feeling I'd ever felt before. My overly exposed ear seemed to have gone deaf as I forced my eyelids back and unsuccessfully made to knock the damned thing off the stand, wanting the demonic sound to stop. When I finally managed to hit the snooze button, I sat up in bed and in less than a minute, another wave of pain washed through me along with a bit of nausea. Dragging my ass out of bed, I carefully walked over to my closet to grab one of the striped hoodies Oliver had forgotten at our place, loving the feel of the smooth, worn out cotton.

The apartment was quite as I stepped out into the main room, not making a single sound in case Miley was up and about. The last thing I wanted was to run into her and be forced to communicate with her; the argument from last night was fresh in my mind, along with other not so pleasant memories, and regardless of what she'd said, she'd still lied to me and allowed me to spend all my time in distress.

"Morning."

Clenching my jaw shut, I raised my eyes over to where the voice had come from but held back the urge to burst into tears as the sight before my eyes confirmed what his voice had insinuated. Nick was sitting at the kitchen's island, sipping on some coffee while Miley stood awkwardly beside the fridge, a bottle of water and an icepack in hand. Sadly, seeing as how there was no way around it, I was going to have to tolerate the fact that the two most atrocious human beings alive were currently residing in the kitchen I had the unfortunate luck to be sharing with Miley; as long as she said it was okay for him to be here, he'd be here.

"I'm guessing you're heads throbbing," Miley spoke up, trying to divert my attention. "Here."

She slung the icepack over to me, hoping I'd catch it which thankfully I did, before holding up the bottle of water and rummaging through the medicine cabinet for something. Throughout the seven minutes it took for me to finally approach the kitchen area and Miley to hand over the Advil and the water, Nick's eyes had travelled back to me about half a dozen times. He seemed to be torn, part of him wanting to speak to me but another wanting to give me space. So far, giving me space wasn't working.

"I hope this is okay," he began unsurely, catching my eye again, "me spending the night."

"Why wouldn't it be?" I asked, looking over at Miley. "I'm assuming you two planned this, right?"

"Taylor, I--"

"Headache," I touched my head briefly, signaling for Miley to shut up. "We can talk later."

"Taylor, listen to me," she snapped, causing me to wince. "I asked Nick to stay over so you two can talk."

"And what makes you think I want to?" I asked, grimacing as I uncapped the Advil.

"Stop being so thick-headed," Miley groaned as Nick looked down at his coffee. "Just hear him out. Please."

Meeting his eyes again, I showed no emotion whatsoever, something that both of them had realized long before the conversation had even started. I took a sea across from him and brought a knee up to my chest as the other swung lazily from the stool, my Advil and water on the counter in front of me. Miley had yet to sit down but considering this was going to be hard enough without her stupid ass getting involved, which she had already done, I didn't say anything.

"No," I replied simply.

"I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think it would help," she persisted.

"You've done enough, thanks," I shrugged before popping a couple pills into my mouth and taking a sip of water. "I don't want to fight with you, Miley," I added, looking at her with a sigh threatening to escape my lips. "I don't care that you lied anymore, Miles, or that you just left," I looked at Nick, making him shift uncomfortably in his stool. "I just want you to drop it and let things go back to normal." Grabbing my bottled water, I made to head back to my room but Nick's voice stopped me.

"Don't leave, Taylor."

"I need to be somewhere," I replied casually.

"We need to talk," he asserted himself.

"About what?"

"About us," Nick stood up, walking around the counter towards me.

Again, his proximity had me spinning, his smell intoxicating me; it'd been a while since I'd felt like this and to be honest, I had missed it, more than I'd thought. But considering the circumstances we found ourselves under, I cleared my mind and took a couple steps back, my eyes saying all that I couldn't.

"What about us?" I shot back.

"We can't leave things like this," he shook his head. "It's not healthy for either of us."

The string of profanities that piled up in my throat hurt. How could he possibly stand there and say something like that to me? How could he be cynical enough to start caring after two years of damage had already been caused? It hadn't been healthy from the beginning, even before he and his brothers had left and just now he was starting to realize that? The thought of letting my lips run wild and inflicting the pain he'd inflicted on me crossed my mind, but the look in his eyes told me he already knew what I wanted to say; he'd always known.

"Read my lips, Jonas," I forced the words out. "I'm not interested."

---

The rest of the day was pretty much as vague as that morning, with the exception that my headache had gotten slightly better, no thanks to the two morons sitting in the living room. Nothing was important enough to leave my room for, much to my dismay, so I literally spent the next four hours after my brief interaction with Nick locked away behind closed doors, not giving either him or Miley even the slightest indication that I was still breathing.

A knock on the door interrupted my train of thought.

"Taylor," Nick called my name, hoping I'd change my mind. "Just talk to me."

"I'm busy," came my robotic response.

"Don't lie to me, Tay," he snapped, irritation evident in his voice. "I know you well enough to tell."

"Apparently I don't know either of you well enough," I shot back, running a hand through my hair as I studied the outfit I'd picked out for myself in the body-length mirror, "considering all I've been getting are lies." The plaid shirt I wore was comfortable, yet fashionable and it went perfectly with the white shorts I'd slipped into after locking myself in my room. Now, slipping on my black, lace-up Vans, I realized I'd have to walk out there eventually and deal with that pesticide.

"It's not Miley's fault, or the guys'," Nick took full responsibility. "It's mine. So if you're going to hate anyone, it should be me, not them."

This was starting to bother me, I decided as I crossed the room and pulled open the door. Raising my chin, I watched as his eyes went from depressed to mildly stunned in the time span of a second before I rolled my own and crossed my arms.

"I don't hate you," I admitted. "Just give me a few days."

"Would it help if I explained myself?" He looked hopeful.

"Actually," I cocked my head to the side in dismay, letting my arms fall, "it wouldn't." His frown only grew as I stared at the wooden floorboards and took a deep breath. "In the past 24 hours, not only did I find out that Miley's been talking to you three for the past two years, but you showed up out of nowhere. I need time to digest everything before I can even think about talking to either one of you about anything."

"Joe and Kevin want to talk to you, too," he told me.

"Don't push it," I raised an eyebrow, grabbing my bag as I walked out of my room and shut the door.

I hated this, all of it. Nick and I had never been on such bad terms before and t start now, two years after seeing each other last wasn't the best way to start, especially since this wasn't one of those stupid fights that friends just got over eventually; this was a legit argument that would take more than a while to disappear. And now Joe and Kevin were a part of it, no doubt one of Miley not-so-subtle suggestions.

"Where are you going?" Miley's voice filled the air behind me.

"Out."

"Where?" she asked again.

"Why do you care?" I asked, clearly disapprovingly.

"You're my roommate," she shrugged. "And my best friend."

"If you're going to start playing the best friend card," I tried to keep the scowl off my face for her sake, "you might want to figure out how to be one first because your definition compared to the rest of the world's is completely different in comparison."

Talk about taking forever. I need to update all my stories faster.