A.N. I am going to try to update every day, only because I know I write small chapters. I am sorry for that but I just like that suspense I think it brings. Enjoy!

I looked at him. He knew. Or at least he thinks he does. "Callie?" He pleads. I don't know how to approach this topic. How to you tell your best friend something you know will crush them? How do I tell him that while he was smiling I was crying? "Brandon…" I start "Don't". I want to leave. I start to get up. He grabs my arm, gently pulling me back down. I look at his hand still on my arm. "Please, Callie tell me that you aren't." I can see his heart breaking right in front of me. I can see everything he used to be, everything we used to be. His eyes tell me that everything we were can never be. "Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?" Just then, his eyes shift from lost to confusion. I close my eyes to hear what I think will be a repercussion of all this. Instead, I feel his embrace around me and I give in. I fall into his arms like a kid in the hands of their mother. This is everything I need. This, this right here. This company. Snap out of it. He knows! He's never going to look at you the same way. He's always going to ask you the same question. 'Did you stop?' and I'll give you the same answer 'Yes' but we will lie to each other both knowing those are lies. He doesn't care if I've stopped and I know I haven't. I just want to stay here forever and never think about the outside world. The world that isn't in this embrace seems so uninviting to me.

"Is it because of me?" Brandon pulls away and looks at me in the eyes. Oh no. Don't look at me like that. Don't. Not those eyes. Please. My eyes go to the tile floor. The floor always seems to be my happy place. It helps me think, it helps me avoid questions like this one. No and yes, is the answer he wants. I can't give it to him. It comes with too many explanations. Yes, it's because of him. It's because of who I became without him. It's who I tried to be. It's seeing him so happy and seeing me go through just another thing on my 'worst things that have happened to me' list. But it's also not him. It's me. It's every little thing that has happened to me. It's my mom's death, it's Liam, its Wyatt, it's constantly not be happy. It's my messed up life that I caused. It's everything at once. I want to tell him all of this but I can't.

"Callie…do you remember the day we set on the bench outside the hospital after Lena lost the baby?" I nod at him. He continues "I told you that you never want to talk about things that are hard. That it doesn't make it hurt any less, it just hurts the people you shut out. Well, I don't want this to be like that again. Talk to me. Okay, tell me what's going on? How can I fix it? How can I fix this?" Okay, that's it. I can't handle him telling me how to deal with this. Why does he insist he can fix it? His hands are in my hands now. I look at them. I think about all the good that has happened because of these hands. These are the hands that touched my face in gentle kisses. But these are also the hands that caused me pain. The hands that were hurt and almost cost me his life. I don't want to lose these hands.

"Brandon." He looks up. Staring, waiting for me to continue. Begging me to continue – to say anything. "I want to answer your questions. But after I tell you the answers I want to plead with you not to say anything about it. You have to let me finish. Then we can talk. I need to tell you how I feel." He looks at me like I am a treat and he's a puppy begging to have what it wants. I don't know what I'm getting myself into but I know he deserves to have some answers. We all deserve answers. But I can't let him leave this bathroom thinking what he knows is about him. That will eat him up. I care too much about him to let him think that.