I managed to avoid Drake for almost a week before he showed up at my bedroom door with flowers and an expression on his face as unreadable as cheesy fan-fiction written by pre-pubescent emo girls.

But for undeniably different reasons.

Or so I've come to discover from hours of late night internet scouring.

The lapse in three a.m. phone calls and window rendezvous with Oliver had given me far too much free time.

Shouldn't these girls be playing hopscotch? The world has changed so much since I was twelve.

"Are you avoiding me?"

I sat up from my leisurely position on my bed, my chemistry book toppling to the floor in the process and stared up at Drake, "What would give you that idea?"

Drake plucked at the flowers he clutched in an almost shy manner and leaned against the doorframe, "You haven't talked to me in days."

"I've been busy." I lied.

"We have three classes together."

"Yea and finals are coming." I stretched, knowing none of those three classes were getting all that taxing in any sense of the word. Drake just fixed me with his imploring eyes and I found myself feeling not only irritated but slightly guilty.

A decidedly unpleasant combination.

Especially when you've established yourself as a particularly self-righteous teenage girl.

Or not so much self-righteous as stubborn and ridiculously pig-headed.

Either way, when it came to Drake in particular, I didn't like the thought of being the asshole of the relationship. I mean, it was Drake. If I was becoming the greater of our two evils then something was severely out of whack with the universe.

However, despite this inner revelation I remained, and probably always will remain, the One and Only Lilly Rose Truscott. Clever, obstinate, and always offensively evasive. So I sighed, leaned over to collect my discarded book from the floor and gave my beau Drake one more chance to retract his complaint.

"I don't get why you would think I was avoiding you."

Drake frowned and for a second, his tone got edgy and patronizing, "When I called your name today you looked right at me and ducked behind the fat foreign boy."

There's the Drake I started dating to spite my best friend.

Seems like so long ago.

Instead of acknowledging his incriminating statement, I got up and made my way over to him, pretending to be preoccupied with getting my hands on those flowers when really I was just stalling for time. I don't know what I thought might swoop in and save me, but it seemed like, if given enough time, something reasonably would.

"Lillian?" Drake asked softly as he let the flowers go, "Did I do something wrong?"

I took the flowers over to my dresser and set them down carefully, fiddling with the heads for a moment before turning around and finally facing the reality that I was indubitably on my own.

"No, Drake." I sighed loudly, "You didn't do anything wrong."

He just watched me, completely unconscious of the potential ego-crushing that was to come.

I lifted my arms and let them drop helplessly, "Look, I remember what you said at that party."

"Yea?" Drake squinted at me, suspicious, but not quite comprehending.

"I'm sorry, Drake, you've been great, really." And I had to pause a moment to fully take in the underlying truth of that, "But I don't feel that . . . strongly . . . about you."

Drake still stared at me, eyes narrowed, brow furrowed, jaw set; the perfect picture of serious contemplation. A boy so obviously trying desperately to put together the pieces of a puzzle recommended for people just over his age limit. I almost wanted to hug him. But then he took two large steps to the dresser and snatched the flowers back, petals floating to the floor as they were shaken loose from their stems.

"I knew you were in love with that skinny piece of shit Oken." He grumbled as he shoved past me on his way back to the door. I stumbled into the side of my bed, my knees buckling against the edge of the mattress, and as I bounced in a state of confusion usually reserved for drug sniffing dogs at a Columbian coke rally, all I could manage to say was something along the lines of:

"Oliver isn't that skinny."

Before Drake stormed out the door he turned around and shot me a very dirty look, "I'm not as stupid as you think I am."

I had already begun to wonder if I wasn't the real village idiot.

Drake looked back at the flowers he had confiscated, and a brief look of melancholic understanding passed over his face. He sighed and walked back into the room.

I started crawling backwards on my bed, afraid that maybe all that testosterone was beginning to bubble over and he was going to beat me to death with daisies.

But Drake just set the bouquet on the bed by my feet, "Or maybe I am." Then he went back to the door, "Bye, Lilly."

And Drake was officially no longer my beau.

Officially.