TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of abuse, guns

Theodosia and Eliza had decided to see Maria Lewis. It had been all too easy to get the address from Alexander. They had taken the A train down to New York City, found the apartment building, and when up the several flights of stairs. It had been simple. The hard part, as it turned out, was deciding to go in.

They had spent about fifteen minutes outside the door before Theodosia finally got the courage to knock on it. Luckily, it was a girl about their age who answered, not some random guy. Theodosia wondered where Maria Lewis's parents were.

"Can we come in?"

"Do I know you?"

That was a fair question, one that Theodosia respected. She reminded herself that she did not like Maria Lewis, nor would she ever. This girl had ruined Hamilton. She had ruined Hamilton and John's relationship. Still, Theodosia knew that she didn't know anything about Maria Lewis's life. "My name is Theodosia Bartow. This is Eliza Schuyler. We're...acquaintances of Alexander Hamilton."

"Oh." The unfriendly look on Maria Lewis's face didn't change. "Well."

"I understand that you have no reason to let us in, and that Alexander Hamilton is an idiot and an asshole, and that our friendship—aquaintancehood?—with Alexander doesn't seem like a good reason to talk to us. I'm guessing that he's hurt you through the tweeting shit. But I think that we need to talk."

"And I'm Maria Lewis." Maria laughed humorlessly. "But I guess that you knew that, right? Everyone—people at school, hell, even some Starbucks baristas—know who I am. Twitter isn't exactly private. I'll admit that I didn't particularly love what James and I were doing, but at least my life was private. Do you know what it's like being me now? And yes, I realize that that sounds privileged and awful, but you're right, Alexander Hamilton is not one of my favorite people now. I guess I'm just lucky that my parents don't know about this."

Theodosia knew that they would come to this point. She wasn't going to claim to be rich, or anything. Her family was firmly middle-class, at a point where they could support themselves, but also at a point where Theodosia needed a few scholarships to graduate without too much debt. Maria Lewis's life seemed much different. She wasn't as privileged as Theodosia was, and that meant a lot. Theodosia doubted that Maria wanted to hear what she had to say.

Luckily, Eliza spoke up. "And I'm really sorry that all of this has happened to you. This has clearly hurt you a lot, much more than it's affected us. If you don't mind me asking, are things...are things alright with your boyfriend?"

"That asshole? We broke up. Only good thing that came of this."

"Oh. Hamilton...he didn't really...I mean, he said that you weren't happy, but…" Eliza went red.

"James Reynolds was a douchebag. He had an idea for how to get ahead in life, and it was a shitty one. It was working, I'll admit. We were bringing in some money for it. But we were being assholes. And he was a huge dickhead. I loved him. I still love him, I guess. But he's never loved me, and it was good to finally realize that."

"That's good, at least." Theodosia hated talking about her own life, but if Maria had opened up to her like this, then she couldn't not reciprocate. "I'm...not exactly a stranger to abusive relationships. My ex-boyfriend...my boyfriend before him...hell, even my dad. They were all...well. You know."

Maria didn't look very sympathetic. "When I hear things like this, sometimes I think that being in bad relationships is inevitable. That no matter what, being a woman is about finding someone who just...isn't awful."

"I can see how you'd think that way. That was my thinking, I guess, I don't know...you still in high school?"

"I'm graduating this year."

"Yeah. Last year, well...me and my boyfriend...well, I was just getting out of another abusive relationship. My ex before Jacques…he hit me. That's when I got out. And then Jacques was never nice, but he was never awful either, and I guess I just let myself think that it was love. He was well-off. He said that we could last. I believed him. I thought that maybe if I could just stick it out, I'd have a nice life." Theodosia swallowed. "I cheated on him, in the end. Aaron...he was different. But I didn't have the courage to break up with Jacques. When they tried to fight each other...that was when I realized that I was worth more than that. Well, I'm back with Aaron now, and he's...not only is he not awful, he's great. He makes me feel happy. Like I'm worth something. And the best part is that it's not attached to him, the feeling won't go away if we break up...I guess I've started to realize that I have worth, like, as a person. And my point is that there are good people out there. You'll find someone."

Maria's lip was quivering, and Theodosia internally freaked out. What was she supposed to do? Hug Maria? Tell her everything was going to be okay?

"Come in."

Theodosia followed Maria into the apartment, and though Maria left the door open, the two of them sat down on a ratty old couch, and Theodosia thought that maybe this meeting wouldn't be a total disaster.

"Alexander fucked up with this whole thing," Maria started.

"No shit."

"Yeah. But...I don't know if he told you, but it wasn't totally his fault—"

"Don't bother with that shit. His handling of this situation? Was crap. I thought that he was mature. A good guy. But he wasn't."

"I'm not saying that the tweets were smart. But this whole relationship—that was my fault—"

"He could've gotten out, if he had really tried." Eliza winced. "Not to say that he should have gotten out of his relationship with you, I mean, you seem nice, but...look, I'm not sure how much you know about this. His boyfriend, John, was disowned by his father. He couldn't take being around Alex, for a while. So he didn't see Alex. Alex...well, he was hurt by that, obviously. And it was totally his prerogative to start a new relationship if he wanted to. But this? And lying about it, to everyone? Not telling anyone? That was a bad move."

Eliza realized that Maria was crying, and she could stop herself from reaching out and patting Maria on the back. Maria pushed her away. "Stop. I don't deserve this. Your sympathy, I mean. I told Alexander...I told him that John didn't love him. Because I needed him. He was the first nice guy I've known. He was comforting, you know? And I needed him. I'm fucked up, and I'm disgusting, and I needed him. And I thought that that was an excuse to lie to him! I was being selfish! And he was stupid, but it's not his fault!"

This time, Eliza didn't let Maria push her away. She hugged Maria, and after a few moments, Maria was crying into her shoulder. Theodosia was full-on panicking. She hadn't expected tears. She hadn't expected this. She hadn't expected this kind of story behind Hamilton's actions.

"Okay, it was both of your faults," Theodosia said, trying to assume a slightly joking tone. "And thank you for telling us. Maybe now we can stop being mean to him. But—don't make this your fault. You're not disgusting. You just need help. You both messed up, and now that we know that, we can work on fixing this."

"This can't be fixed," Maria sobbed. "I messed up. I hurt Alexander! And I hurt his boyfriend, and all of you, and you shouldn't be sorry for me, you shouldn't have all this sympathy for me, I'm disgusting—do you know what I've done? Do you know who I am?! Stop—just stop—"

Eliza hugged her tighter, starting to cry herself. "You're worth something, you know that? You're not worthless."

This might have been the worst thing to say, as Maria just cried harder. "Stop—stop—"

"No." Theodosia kind of hated Maria. She hated the way that this woman had messed with Alexander's mind. Alexander had been acting insane for the last few months, and part of that was Maria's fault! But Theodosia couldn't hate a crying girl. Theodosia finally stopped holding herself back and let her words out. "Stop crying. Stop feeling sorry for yourself—Jesus, that sounded bad. Um, stop taking the world on your shoulders! Everyone fucks up, and this is a huge fuck-up, yes, but it can be fixed. You can help them fix their relationship. And most importantly, you can help yourself. You probably need to see someone, not to be rude—fuck, I'm bad at this—look, do you just want to sleep over at my house or something? You look like you could use that."

Theodosia thought that she saw Maria nod.

"Come on. Let's go...get some food or something. Let's buy a bag of Twix and eat it all because we can do whatever the fuck we want."

Eliza knew that Theodosia was struggling. "Come on, Maria."

She helped Maria up, and they made their way to the open door—

"Well, isn't this cute."

There was a guy standing there. Maria's dad—no, he was too young—what the hell?

Maria glared at him through her tears. "I told you not to come back here."

Theodosia got it before Eliza did. "Oh, don't tell me that you're Reynolds. Let me tell you, you've caused us all quite a bit of strife. Dick."

"Get out," Maria said, struggling to keep her tears in.

"Fucking amazing," James mumbled. "I come back here to say sorry, and all I get are these insults. Let me make it clear, Maria. I love you. I want you back. You don't have to cry. We can go away from here, we can run away, we'll never look back—as long as we have each other—"

"Leave!" Maria didn't want to listen to James. But his voice, his stupid voice, the one that had gotten her through so many bad moments, was as intoxicating as ever.

Eliza could tell that in Maria's emotional, broken state, she was likely to listen to the asshole that stood before him. She made eye contact with Theodosia, seeing that they both knew Reynolds had to go.

"She told you to leave, buddy," Theodosia said. She could feel the old aggression coming on, the kind that had let her break up with Jacques and the kind that had let her relationship with Aaron be passionate and loving and equal. The aggression that got her through college and kept her as a dominant force in the life of everyone that she knew. "Don't make me make you leave."

"Shut up!" Reynolds was full-on glaring at Theodosia now, and she could tell that this would be a fight. "Get out of my way, you fucking bitch! This isn't your affair!"

"If you mess with Maria, you mess with me." Theodosia moved towards him. "Get out! Or fight me, you—"

Eliza didn't know what happened.

One second there was a loud bang. The next, Theodosia was on the floor. There was blood. Eliza screamed.

Reynolds was holding a gun in his hand. He had a shocked expression on his face. Both Maria and Eliza moved towards him, but he was running away, and they needed to help Theodosia—

"Call an ambulance!"

"I know, I'm on it! Omigod, omigod, please—"

"Theodosia! Stay awake!"

"Oh my God!"