A/N: This chapter is a little insight to Millie because I was getting some comments that she was too cold. So here is more of her story. I might be doing a great deal of much-needed updating this week, I'm on spring break from school with nothing to do but write, so you guys are in for a treat. Sorry for the long wait.

Disclaimer: Nope.

Chapter 3

"Some things we don't talk about

better do without

Just hold a smile

We're falling in and out of love

The same damn problem"

—The Fray, "Never Say Never"

Freshman year, age 15, winter

Millie felt like she was suffocating. Even after 3 hours and a hot shower, the air, her skin, even her sheets smelled like him. His voice was all around her, no matter how loud her stereo sang. She could still feel her skin burning where his lips had touched, the feeling lingering on her ear, where he'd pressed his mouth and whispered like he had so many times before, "I love you, my Millie."

She wanted to scream. Rip her hair. Claw her eyes out. Run. Run as fast as she could to a place where there was no such thing as love or Reid Garwin for miles around. She was only fifteen, they had only really been "dating" officially for five months and she already couldn't take it. Her feeling for Reid had scared ever since she'd discovered them that summer. It wasn't a crush or puppy love, like their parents kept saying. It was love. Real love. And passion. She was only a freshman at Spenser Academy and she already had a Son of Ipswich, who was not only amazingly hot, but also her best friend. The love of her life.

And as great as all of that was, she wasn't ready for it. High school isn't about soul mates and hers had come along too young and swept her off her feet into a story most girls only dream about. That was the worst part, spending every moment wondering when she was going to wake up and find that none of it was real.

She couldn't do this anymore. She could go through her life as Reid Garwin's girlfriend. She needed to find out who she was. Even if it meant loosing everything she knew about herself by staying away from the one boy that meant everything to her. Even if it meant breaking his heart.

The knock on the door of her dorm was loud, especially in the dark silence of three in the morning. She was frightened at first, sitting straight up in her bed, and holding the sheets against her. It came again; three loud bangs against her door, proving that it hadn't been a dream, and then his voice, too loud for an empty hallway in the middle of the night.

"Millie, please. Open the door." He begged her. She should've known she couldn't just ignore him. She should have known he'd right there, chasing after her with those piercing blue eyes.

Slipping out of bed, she pulled on her robe and padded across the room, dreading opening the door. He was still dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, a thick hoodie on top. His hair was disheveled and his eyes were bloodshot, he smelled like Nicky's and she instantly knew he was drunk.

"Millie." What she had thought at first was distortion created by the door, was a definite slur in his words as he walked into her room without and invitation. He stumbled over to the bed, falling on it face first. "Oh Millie, I miss you so much."

He was nearly yelling at her, his voice rough with what she was praying to God wasn't tears and even though she closed the door, she was sure most of the floor could hear him; the walls at Spenser were paper-thin. She turned on her desk lamp so she could see him.

"What happened?" He sat up, his eyes sparkling in the light, tears threatening to escape.

"Reid you have to be quiet." She whispered, going over to the bed and sitting next to him. It pained her to see him like this, so sad and pitiful in his lonely, drunken world. He crawled over to her, his head falling to her lap. He looked up at her, one lone tear rolling down his pale cheek. She wiped it away with her thumb and kissed his forehead.

"Why don't you love me anymore? What did I do wrong?" His voice was broken

"Shh," She quieted him, "It's okay now. Just go to sleep."

The next morning found them in each other's arms. Millie knew how easy it would be to just stay like this forever, to always be his and nothing more. It would be nothing to slip back in the old ways.

His eyes slowly peeled opened, wincing against the light pouring in from the window. He blinked at her, once, twice, his mind spinning through the last few weeks the way he suddenly hadn't existed to her anymore, the way none of it had an explanation. The expression he showed her held the weight of all things that had been left unspoken.

"Change of heart?" His voice sounded rough to his ears.

He truthfully didn't have any hope that she had changed her decision to leave him in the dust of wherever she thought she was going. The short, tearful shake of her head was expected, but somehow still hurt just as much. He kissed her cheek softly and slipped off her bed, headed fro the door.

"Reid?" He loved the way she said his name. He turned back to her, one foot in her room, one in the hallway. She opened her mouth, closed it, wiped away the tears that pooled from her eyes and then said it. "I could've really loved you."

He pressed his lips together, willing himself not to run over to her and force her to take him back, to let the Power rush over him and take the both of them over. He wanted to say something, maybe tell her that he would love her for the rest of her life and there was nothing se could do about it, maybe he wanted to tell her what a bitch he thought she was for doing this. But instead, he nodded once and slipped out the door, jogging down the stairs and hitting the double doors on the base level at a sprint. He was barley across the parking lot, just inside the cover of the trees behind Spenser, before his eyes flashed black as night.

Freshman year, age 15, spring

The bathroom floor was cold beneath her bare legs. Her dark hair was a mess, a stringy, sweaty wreck of half curls. She could barley breathe through the sobs that racked her thin body, as skinny arms encircled equally as skinny legs.

"You are a disgrace to this family!" Her mother's voice rang coldly in her ears. "I raised you to be a young lady and instead you're out there at parties and with God-knows-whom till God-knows-when. Your grandmother would be horrified at what I've let you become."

"Millie, really, you're going to eat that? I mean, with all those calories, your dress for Prom probably won't fit anymore. We both know it's already a tight squeeze." Kira's snobby voice was next, she could see her saying the words, nose scrunched up in disgust.

And then the worst, more horrible than her mother scolding, more demeaning than Kira's bitchy self, Reid. Her best friend, the boy she had once thought maybe, just maybe she loved, the boy she given herself to completely over the summer, the boy she had abandoned, it was that thought that made her sob harder, the look in his pale blue eyes when he had sat next to where she had fallen against the lockers, her legs folded under her.

They hadn't spoken in months and he looked as if hadn't slept in twice as long. His uniform was wrinkled and dirty, his voice weaker than she ever remembered it being. She expected questions about why she had left him, about the senior, Carl, who she was currently dating, but he hadn't said any of those things. He had looked her up and down a few times, no doubt noticing how all the pieces were too large for her newly bone-thin body, and then, licking his lips, said the one thing no one else dared to.

"What are you doing to yourself, Millie?"

At the time she had been angry, standing quickly and telling him it was none of his business, she didn't belong to him, purposely drawing a crowd. It was the first time she'd ever made a scene, to show people she wasn't with him, not anymore, not ever. It hurt her, but she couldn't have him looking at her like that, asking her those questions, knowing all her secrets, and her knowing his. They were too close, always had been.

She pulled her legs closer to her flat chest, she'd always been small up top, but recently she'd noticed that her a-cup bra was too large and had dug out the old training bra her mother had bought her when she was twelve, but she barley needed that anymore. Just another thing for her mother, Kira, the whole world, to see, to make fun of. It hurt, all of it hurt so much and she couldn't stand it. The words of all the judgmental people that filled her life swirled around her head until she did what she told herself every time she would never so again. She pulled herself up onto her knees and leaned over the toilet, putting two fingers down her throat until her dinner came back up.

She couldn't look at her face in the mirror anymore because she had to keep up her façade, she couldn't let the world know who she was, she couldn't be herself, she couldn't be Reid's Millie, instead forcing herself to the bitch she'd always hated. The girl she'd always promised herself she'd never be.

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