"Maria."

Maria felt a cold rush of fear at James's voice. She looked up from her phone, hands shaking.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?"

Maria was silent. She set her phone on the table and stood up from her chair to face him.

"You let your emotions get in the way of our relationship. You've ruined our reputations and school career, all because you wanted to be with some stupid boy. What was wrong with our relationship? What did I do to deserve your treatment?"

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

"How could you do this to me? To us? Why wasn't I enough? I loved you, Maria, I've always loved you, and you always do this to me. Do you think that you can find someone better than me? There's no one there, Maria. No one who's going to love you as much as I do."

"No," Maria said softly. "Alexander…"

"Doesn't care about you. Why would he have said what he did if he cared? He let the whole world know what a whore you are. He doesn't love you. No one loves you. But me. I love you. And you do this? You've always been irresponsible, Maria, you fucking bitch—"

"Shut up!"

Maria had screamed it out to him, and he stopped in his tracks. Bitterly, Maria realized that this was the first time she had raised her voice to him. Because he's right, she reminded herself, I don't stand up because he's right.

But Alexander—he had cared—

But James—she loved him—

"What did you just say?" James demanded.

He was doing it again. Treating her like a child. He felt the need to be in control of her, so he twisted her every move into someone wrong so that he could pretend he was justified in trying to control her. Maria stared at him as if a curtain had been ripped away from his face. He wasn't justified!

She loved him. But he was wrong.

"How dare you act like my parent," Maria said coldly, shaking with anger. "How dare you?! Every word out of your fucking mouth is meant to make me the villain here! But you're the one that insults me and leaves me and pretends that I don't matter! I matter, James! I deserve to have someone telling me that I matter! And I love you, but you refuse to listen, you try to control me, you try to tell me that I'm bad, a whore, a bitch, but I'm not! I'm so not, you're the asshole here, and this is not love!

"For a year now, I've let you try to destroy me and beat me down because you feel the need to make me hate myself and I've taken that hate out on other people! But let me tell you something, James! Never again am I going to listen to a word that comes out of your piece-of-shit mouth! Maybe you think that your manhood is being insulted or something—well, let me tell you, you are not a man if you think that this is how you can treat somebody!

"If I could, I think that I would set you on fire, or stab you, or hurt you the way you've hurt me, but I'm not because I'm going to get out of this place someday and you'll be living on the streets like the little rat you are, you bastard! I hate you! I hate you!"

Maria was sobbing, with happiness, with anger, with fear. "Get out!"

"Maria—"

"GET THE FUCK OUT!"

Maria was laughing now. "I don't need you in my life! I don't need you! I'm so much better than you are, and you know that, and that's why you want to hurt me! You can never hurt me again! Stay away from me, or I'll fucking kill you—"

"Maria—"

"No!" Maria dragged him out of the door. The stairwell smelled like stale cigarettes. Maria kicked him in the crotch.

He doubled over and Maria hated and loved the feeling of satisfaction that shot through her.

"I hope that you burn, James Reynolds!"

And then Maria slammed the door on him.

"How could you?!"

Alex looked wearily at Theodosia Bartow. He had gotten yelled at by Mulligan, Lafayette, Eliza, Angelica, hell, even Peggy...but didn't he deserve to hear this over and over again? He had fucked up. Badly.

"Hamilton, John's thought of nothing but you for the past months. Every day, he asks Aaron about you. He holds you on such a pedestal." Bartow snorted humorlessly. "And you do this to him!"

Alex's mind slowly worked through Bartow's words. "Wait."

"Every time I suggest that he stops blaming himself over the problem of the day, he acts like it's his fault! You know, sometimes it's yours! You should have taken responsibility when you had the chance! You should have talked to him, a million times over! I don't even know what to say to him at this point!"

"Wait."

"I'm not going to wait for you, Hamilton, no matter how much he might have—"

"Wait! How—how do you know what he thinks?"

Oh, shit. Well, it was all out in the open now. "He was in New York City, Hamilton."

"No shit!"

"With me."

Theodosia didn't feel sorry for Hamilton. She was not going to feel sorry for Hamilton. But the look on his face...betrayal. Anger. Sorrow. Confusion. Betrayal.

"He was...with you. The whole time. You and Burr."

"Oh, don't try to put this on us! The fucking Reynolds Pamphlet—that was all your fault! You couldn't handle this like an adult?!"

"He was with you two the whole time! And you didn't tell me?! For months I could only think about him! I was so worried! And you knew that he was safe! And you didn't tell me?! Who the fuck do you think that you are?!"

"We were honoring his wishes! How do you think he felt when his father disowned him?! That was your fault—"

"IT WAS NOT—"

And then Alexander was sobbing, and Theodosia just wouldn't feel pity for him but she couldn't keep yelling—they had all messed up—all of them—and they were all broken and burning in the aftermath of their dishonesty and crappy decisions.

"I'm sorry," Theodosia whispered to no one.

John finished reading the last tweet.

What—how—why—

He felt sick, he felt awful. What had he done to Alex to make him do this? What had some girl given Alex that John couldn't? Was this whole thing his own fault?

Could he have stopped this? If he had been a little bit more caring, more loving, more supportive—but he had done all of those things. He loved Alex, for fuck's sake! What more could Alex have wanted? I'll do whatever it takes—I'll mess up—I love you—

He wanted to scream, he wanted to sob, he wanted to rip out his heart from his chest because what had love ever done for him? What had it done, except for ruin his fucking life? The very fact that he loved was a secret, one that wrapped around his insides and squeezed at his lungs like some kind of snake or parasite.

How could he love at all, when all that came from it was a shattered heart?

I believe in you—You can do it—I love you—

John's hands shook. He threw his phone to the other side of the room and sank listlessly to the floor.

He had loved him. He had loved him so goddamn much. Didn't Alex understand that? Couldn't he see? He had said he was his. And John had been stupid enough to believe him.

He believed Alex. Alex and his stupid love poems and letters and words. His words has wormed their way into his heart and soul and stayed there, building him up and making him strong. Now John felt them like knives, ripping and tearing at him. Had they all just been lies?

Hamilton—Alexander—Alex—

A ripple of anger coursed through him. Stupid Alex. Stupid Alex and his stupid fucking words. He wrote those tweets! He told the whole fucking world how he had been with that girl! John didn't believe Alex for a second that their relationship hadn't been sexual. Emotional support? He may have cleared his name from any kind of blame, but he had ruined their love and everything that came with it.

He wondered what Eliza would say to him right now. Or Angelica. Or Theo or Burr or Lafayette or Mulligan or anyone at all. If John had been any better with words, he would be able to come up with some kind of shitty metaphor for the situation. Maybe something with the sun and the sky, since Alex had always called John his sun. His stars, his sky, the light of his life.

Wasn't that so fucking funny now?

I don't—I can't—I won't—

If John was the sun, what did that make Alex? Icarus, maybe. Flew too high and dreamed too much, too caught up in his own life to noticed himself falling apart at the seams.

He hoped with a sick hope that Alex kept flying. Kept flying and flying, higher and higher, until he burned and broke.

Broke so much that he would know how broken John was now, falling apart from the weight of everything Alex had done to him. Broken to the point of no repair, broken and shattered and gone. For the last months, his relationship with Alex, the love that they had shared, had felt like a tether. It was weighty and dragged him back, but it kept him attached to earth and to everything that came along with it.

But that tether was burning. John felt...empty. Unattached to anything in the world. He could have floated away like ashes if he wanted to. There was nothing keeping him here.

Alex…

I broke him—he broke me—it's over—

John wished that his anguish would burn away with his belated love for Alexander.