Chapter 45, enjoy! So wayyyy back in chapter 1, I got a review that advised me to not gloss over Matt & Julie's issues, and I've been waiting to dive deeper into that until now, because suspense is fun right?

"Julie, is that you? What are you doing here?"

"Matt?" She asked, turning towards the voice. She could already smell the alcohol on his breath and he was feet away from her. It took her back to the last night they spent together.

It was the night before he left for a work trip. They had argued about a simple thing: what they would have for dinner. All the tension that had been building up for months, maybe even years, was too much for the two of them to handle. To make things worse, he had had too much to drink and was extra irritable.

"So, what do you want for supper?" Julie had asked.

"I don't know, order something," He snapped back.

"Matt, we've got to quit eating out, it cost too much. And you are about to go on a work trip where you will eat out every night."

"I don't know then, come up with something."

"What, you're going to sit there and drink while I slave over supper?"

"Like you said, I'm about to go on a work trip, you know how my boss is. It stresses me out."

"So your solution is to drink?"

"Do you have a better one?"

"You know what? You can cook your own damn supper if you're going to act like this! You don't realize how much I do for you, and I have to stay here - alone - while you go off on your work trips."

"I go on those trips so I can make money to support us!" He yelled in his drunken state.

"I work too Matt!"

"You call that little editors job work? You just read the damn newspaper before they publish it, and you hardly make anything compared to what I make."

"I'm done arguing, I can't talk to you when you're like this!"

"You cut your hair," He stated, bringing her back to reality.

"Yeah, I did."

"And dyed it."

"Yep," She replied as Jason and Tim awkwardly sat at the table.

"Why'd you leave?" He asked the question that he had been burning to ask her.

"Not here," She timidly responded. "We're not doing this here."

"No tell me! Why did you leave?" He repeated, beginning to get agitated.

"Not here," She repeated through gritted teeth. "Not when you are like this."

"Damnit Julie! Why can't you just tell me?" Matt yelled. "I loved you and you just walked out!" Tim looked between the two, he saw the fear in Julie's eyes and the anger in Matt's.

"Matt, I think you need to leave," Tim warned him, beginning to stand.

"Not until she tells me!"

"Julie, let's go," Tim told her, gently grabbing her arm and guiding her out of the bar with Jason trailing the pair. "Are you ok?" He asked once they were outside.

"Yeah," She whispered with tears threatening to fall down her cheek.

"Do you guys have a place to stay?"

"No," Jason answered. "I figured we'd just get a room at the motel."

"No, don't do that. Come stay at my place, I've got plenty of room," Tim insisted.

"Are you sure?" Julie asked.

"Yeah, It've got two spare bedrooms," He replied.

"So you finally got your house built?" Jason asked.

"Yeah," Tim replied with a chuckle. "Billy and I were a little in over our heads, I don't know why we thought it was a good idea to do it ourselves. You guys can follow me out there," He added before getting in his pickup. Jason and Julie got in Jason's pickup and followed Tim out to his spot of land he and Billy had built a house on.

I know these chapters are short, and I'm sooo sorry for it!