A/N:I feel like an apology is in order, yes? I never expected to be gone so long, I'm really sorry! I could spout a hundred excuses right now, but I know you guys don't want to hear it. Lol. I wrote four or five different versions of this chapter because I wasn't sure how I wanted to go about continuing. While it's not really special, this was the best option, in my opinion.

This is kind of a slow chapter, and I'm really sorry for that. It's all of the pieces from various versions shoved together into some semblance of a chapter. I read it through to make sure it made sense together, and I'm pretty positive it does. If there's any discrepancies, just tell me! I may have skipped over something. (That whole author's neglect thing? You skipped things you know you've written? Your brain paraphrases? No? No one else?) I sincerely hope you're not too disappointed!

Anyway! I hope you guys like this and I am so happy that I have people who actually read this! I really appreciated all of your reviews and if I could, I'd bake you all cookies.

I promise chapter three will be here very very very very very soon! I'm going to try to update this more often to make up for its 49 day hiatus!

Thanks again!

Love, love, love,

Kristi xx.

He awoke Sunday morning with the heaviest weight he'd ever felt resting in the pit of his stomach. His alarm clock blared into his ear, Justin cursed from the other side of the room. He couldn't move. The weight was like a thumbtack, pinning him to the pillowed mattress. The lead spread through his arms and legs and head and all the way down into his toes. He couldn't move. Or maybe he didn't want to. He couldn't be sure.

Groggy and fuming, his brother stumbled across the bedroom, closing the space between their beds. "Hey Prince Campbell, I know you tend to forget, but there's more than just you in this room and not everyone likes to get up at seven o'clock in the morning." His fist came down on the power button so hard Cam thought for sure it was going to shatter beneath his hand. He didn't even make eye contact; he just laid there, unable to do anything but stare at the dirty glue remnants left by the sticky glow-in-the-dark stars he had pasted to the ceiling years ago.

Now stumbling back to his bed, Justin grumbled something incoherent under his breath. They hadn't had a proper conversation in days. He was tired of walking on eggshells around Justin, worrying and waiting for the next oh-so conspicuous comment he'd drop by their parents. It was no secret that he thought Cam would crack within a week of his relocation.

The room fell silent, the only source of noise stemming from Justin's tossing. He roughly fluffed his pillow and flipped on to his side, decided he wasn't comfortable, flipped onto his other side, couldn't fall back asleep, so resolved to huffing and puffing about Campbell waking him up. All the while, Cam kept his eyes trained on the little glue stains, straining his memory to remember where the stars had gone.

"So that's it? You set your alarm to wake everyone and their mother up and you don't even get out of bed? Are you waiting for a formal invitation?" Justin continued. He could feel his eyes burning little holes in his cheek. He remained stuck to the sheets. Any movement he tried to make was met with such harsh retaliation that he didn't want to try anymore. Before he opened his mouth, he carefully planned his retort, practicing concealing the edge. If it bothers you, find a new room. Childish, but it would do.

Shame his tongue didn't feel much like cooperating.

"Do you think everyone is going to forget about me when I leave?" He shocked himself as the words chased each other out through his teeth, colliding and breaking as they went. He didn't have to look at his older brother to picture the look resting on his face; wide eyes, lips slightly parted, just as he always looked when Cam came out with something crazy.

For a moment, a hush fell between them. Still, he refused to face Justin. His gaze locked itself on the glue. If he squinted hard enough, he could make out the faint outline of half-stars here and there. Perhaps it was all in his head, because when he blinked, he lost the vague silhouettes and random blobs took their spots.

"Where did that come from?" His voice was no longer tainted with sleep; Cam couldn't decide whether or not that was a good or bad thing. He didn't even know where his question came from; it was so out of the blue, dug up from the graveyard of his mind. Once again, he didn't have to look at Justin to feel him analyzing his every word, movement, sound, no matter how trivial. He wished he had just kept his mouth shut. He knew better than to trust himself to speak predetermined thoughts; it never worked out as planned.

After what felt like hours of sitting under a microscope, he couldn't take it anymore. Desperate to scramble out from underneath his brother's empowering, scrutinizing glare, he rolled off the edge of the bed, biting his lip to suppress the whimpers clawing up his throat. The lead turned into a pounding headache, his limbs hung like dead weight. Unfortunately, the blankets came with him, entrapping him in a sort of cocoon. Their continuous, strands of fabric clawed at him as he fought to disentangle himself. His cheeks burned as he found himself rolling around on the floor of his bedroom, his legs flailing to propel his body out of the knot. Had Justin not insisted their bedroom be negative forty-five degrees all year round, he would not have been in this predicament and he resented him for it.

Above him, Justin was doubled over in laughter. Ha ha, Cam thought bitterly, keep it up. Had he been able to focus on anything past the sharp ring in his temples or the mass of his throbbing limbs, he may have stood a fighting chance against the throng of blankets. Through torrents of giggles, his older brother unraveled the cloth chains. "I can't speak for anyone else, but I am most definitely not going to forget this!" He exclaimed, pulling him to his feet by his arms.

"Shut up Justin." He growled, shaking the hair out of his eyes.

"What are you going to do without me? You best sleep on a bare mattress when you get to the city… no one is going to be there to rescue you from the evil blanket monster." His hysterical guffaws increased by the second, as if the more he thought about it, the funnier it became. His cheeks permanently scarlet, he shoved past him, fighting the urge to crawl back into bed. Behind him, Justin spat a few more incident related jokes he must have thought were clever to an otherworldly extent.

Across the hall, Samantha's door glared at him, the cheesy Princess plaque framed and hanging precariously by a nail she had fought with their father to hammer in. She argued with her boyfriend all night; for hours she went back and forth with him, going on and on about something that may have been long since forgotten had they not fallen into such combative slots. His sister was a force to be reckoned with when she was happy. Anything less and she was intimidation-station. Their midnight bantering grew louder and louder to the point where Justin had had enough, barged in, taken her phone, chewed Peter out himself, and hung up. And that had gone over just as well.

Deserting the renovated attic quarters, he slid his feet down the stairs, tip-toeing as he went to avoid the screaming floorboards. He felt guilty disrupting the silent house, as if he owed it the pleasure of complete muteness before he left. The walls had heard far too much noise in the last eighteen years.

Much to his surprise, his mother occupied the kitchen, pots and pans and half-mixed this and that littered the countertops. She was hunched over the stove, a frying pan sizzling away before her. Absorbed in her own little world, she hummed a tune he recognized immediately. The first few bars of Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles wafted through the air, accompanying the whole palette of smells as they fought for dominance in the small room; Cam took a deep breath, inhaling each distinct flavor.

"Oh," She jumped, her eyes widening as she spun to face him. "I didn't even hear you come down! What are you doing up so early?" The look of initial surprise had been wiped away by a plastered smile. She held the patterned oven mitts in one hand, drying her other on the Chef Mommy apron tied around her waist, her hair pinned neatly on top of her hair. Her tired eyes had long since lost the excitement of the kitchen. In her day, she had been one of the top culinary students at Reddington, an aspiring pastry chef going places quickly. Before she could climb to the top, Justin came along, soon followed by Samantha and Campbell, and just when she thought she'd get back into it with all three kids in school, Riley was born. By the time her youngest had entered kindergarten the year before, she had lost all desire to return to the grueling hours of a bakery, resolutely deciding to bake for those who asked, as opposed to jumping back into the business. And that had made her happy enough.

"I figured I'd get a head start on packing the last minute stuff," he shrugged, his fingers knotting themselves together as he took another look around the countertops. "What's all this for?" He nodded in the direction of the heaps of what were soon to be finger foods. For some reason, he felt an odd pang in his chest.

"The party tonight. Don't you remember? The caterer couldn't reschedule." Instantly, the weight dropped back into his stomach. He had to brace the lip of the granite to stop himself from sinking to the hardwood floor. How had he forgotten? He'd been dreading the so-called "going away party" since the day his mother came home with a box of invitations. They'd rescheduled twice already and he was to leave tomorrow; it was now or never. If his father had gotten his way, the party would have been two weeks ago on its original date, even if he had to tie his son to a chair to get him to stay.

He wasn't nervous, per say, not about the party. He just didn't want to be fishbowl'ed by half of the small town. Part of the reason he had agreed to sign the Ice Hounds contract was to get away from everyone. He needed to escape his classmates and the that's-the-kid looks and the whispers behind his back. It'd been a year and then some since The Bad Day, and he still couldn't seem to shake the less-than-desirable reputation. In his opinion, his parents should have called the whole party off. He was leaving in the morning. At that point, it looked like a sloppy last minute decision.

That one little reminder sent him into the all-too-familiar haze. He swallowed hard; stressing to hold himself together in front of her. He managed a snipped response, forcing a half-smile onto his lips.

The hours ticked on like seconds and the fog clouding his entire being showed no signs of letting up. For no other reason than to appear okay, he followed his father around like a puppy, doing everything he was told. Clean this up. Vacuum here. Did you remember to pack this? How about this? Is everything together? We're not hunting for things tomorrow morning. Are you sure this isn't going to get broken? Your medication is packed up, right? Don't forget to take it tomorrow before we leave. His face flushed deeper and deeper as the day wore on.

By the time he had finally begun to process the first few steps of his day, he found himself slapping a whole slew of more fake smiles onto his face and welcoming partial strangers into their living room. The brightness of the day had been blanketed by the haze; he had been blanketed by the haze. His stomach felt sick, his head spun uncomfortably. Soon the "party" was in full-swing and his options abandoned him.

"Dude, this is like your dream come true. You excited?" His best friend's eyes shown with the smile donning his face. Ryan had been more ecstatic about Campbell's decision to play for the Ice Hounds than anyone else. He had almost forgotten he was there. The house buzzed around them. Family, friends, teachers, teammates; they all mingled with each other, those who knew him best undoubtedly placing bets on how long he'd last. Streamers and balloons of red, black, and white hung from the ceiling; a banner spread across the far wall of their living room: GOODLUCK CAMPBELL!Accompanied by several Ice Hounds logos and little pictures his sister had drawn around the letters of his name.

He stalled in answering. What was he feeling? What he was feeling, he couldn't describe it, not really. It was too complex to explain in detail, to strong not to try. Like sandpaper behind his eyelids, rocks in his stomach, fireworks in his chest, ants in his shoes, his skin crawling and sprawling over his muscles. Whatever it was, he didn't like it, and it certainly was not excitement.

Nevertheless, he jerked his head in a kind of nod, hoping it would suffice. Ryan was not nearly as objective as Justin or his mother or even his sister. Lying to him was easy; he'd been doing it for years. He allowed the steady baseline of the faint music to fill his head, chasing away all other thoughts. He'd been so on edge, his anxiety always at bay, since Friday, and it was starting to make his skin crawl. If he was this nervous before he even arrived in Toronto, how would he be able to function when the season actually started? His thoughts began to reel with endless possibilities as he struggled to keep his frantic heart in check.

The music wasn't working.

He scanned the room, scoping the positions of his family members. Was anyone watching him? Of course not. This party was no more for Campbell than it was for his excitable friend beside him. It was more of a statement: the Saunders family has recovered and is doing fine. In fact, we're sending the whack to Toronto to play hockey—as if it wasn't hard enough to rejoin his peers at school the year before. If his mother had told him once, she'd told him a million times: Think of this as a new start, Cammy, and he'd cringe at her use of the infantile nickname. This was not a new start, just a long distance continuation.

Assuring that every eye was blind to him, he murmured an I'll be right back to Ryan and broke toward the staircase. His legs felt numb, like he'd been sitting on them for hours. He took the steps two at a time, desperate to get to his bedroom before anyone noticed him retreating upstairs. His parents would never let him hear the end of it if they caught him—his father, rather, his mother would just embarrass him to the point of mortification.

As quietly as possible, he closed the bedroom door, wincing as the hinges squealed. For good measure, he leaned against it, his head rolling back and forth across it. He yanked on the hem of his sleeves, pulling them down further and further in an attempt to distract himself. He told his parents a Farewell Party wasn't a good idea, he told them he didn't want one. After his incredibly rough school year, the gathering of the entire town in order to see him off to a place everyone knew he'd suffer in was hardly his definition of a great time. Perhaps he was being pessimistic; perhaps he was just being realistic.

Once he was sure he wasn't going to have a full-blown meltdown, he moseyed over to his bed and slid onto the covers. The last few days had sucked the life out of him; exhaustion plagued his every movement, thought, and action. He needed to rest if he was to even make it to Toronto. Pulling his pillow over his head, he decided the party wouldn't miss him much if he stayed up there for the rest of the evening; he didn't exactly play a large role anyway.

Downstairs, he could hear his sister's incessant laughter, infectious as always. It rang up the stairs and underneath his bedroom door and all the way to his ears and it helped. He tried to speculate what they were talking about, what kinds of stories they were telling, whether or not Justin had mentioned his squabble with his comforter this morning. Every path he lead himself down brought him back to the same ground: soon he'd be only stories, at least at home.

Out of nowhere, he remembered where the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars had gone. When Justin was thirteen and he was ten, Justin had scraped them off the ceiling with a butter knife, complaining that they let off too much light while he tried to sleep. He wasn't sure if Justin even remembered it, and that's what scared him.

A/N: Next chapter will be better, promise!