Sorry I'm slow on the updates. I've been worked crazy, currently in my 3rd week of school, currently in a situation in the story better known as "WRITER'S BLOCK". But I'm working on it, I really am. I'm sure I'll get on track soon.

R&R please, 'cause as always, that's the kind of thing the writer likes. :)

I walked out on him that night. I couldn't stand being in the same room as him. How could he do this? He's back, and I can't understand how he took it all and ran away, and now decides to come back expecting me to pretend it never happened. They say you can't run away from your problems. Tommy obviously considered himself an exception to the rule.

As I contemplated Tommy's return in bed one Saturday morning –18 and 2 months exactly- I put my words down on paper. Cryptic lyrics that nobody else would be able to interpret without the whole story. Because I'm not sure if I can put pen to paper on my raw emotions.

Do you see how you've taken me this way?
Torn me, broke me up inside
Now here I am
Writing just like everyone else
And I'm writing it all for you
In the end I always do

I shoved the notebook away from me and laid my head down on the desk. The music can come later.

Does he see what he's done to me?

I wasn't sure what it was I needed anymore. Writing music had always been my escape. But when I need to write about Tommy, and my past? It'd be impossible to escape from him.

Maybe I was a tiny bit glad that he came back, but it hardly compensated for the past one and a half years of pain he left behind. He'd never make it up to me. He'd never understand how much it hurt to wake up one normal morning and find him gone.

Georgia knew. Georgia always knew. It was almost as if she expected it to happen. But I knew she'd never wanted it to happen. Nobody wanted it to happen, because as soon as it did, everything went out of control.

I hated that feeling. I hated being out of control.

But now I'm back in control. After finding Tommy's letter lying around in Studio B on morning, I kept it for a week. Read it until I had it memorized by heart. But over that week, I slowly grew more angry and less sad. By the time my heart was stone cold, I burned the letter in my backyard, I guess in hopes of releasing the demons. I forced myself to forget all about him, to put him in the back of my mind. I made myself hate him and everything about him.

I went into an emotions-free mode, to protect myself. I'd learned to build a wall around myself and how to keep my distance. My life had become ritualistic. Wake up, walk to school with Kat and Jaime, do the learning thing, come home and do homework. Go to the studio, record/write/mix/whatever, go home, sleep. My goal every morning was to make it to bed that night. I'd become almost inhuman, robotic to the point where even my emotions were nothing short of average. Okay would have been the best word to describe the way I'd felt. 'Okay' would have even described everything else I'd done during that time.

But still, I couldn't bring myself to erase his number from my phone. There was a part of me that hoped he'd come back, behind the anger.

By the time three months had passed, I accepted that he wasn't going to come back. I realized he wouldn't call, wouldn't email, wouldn't visit. But I put my game face back on and kept on "living". I told myself it didn't bother me that he was gone.

Your feelings are completely psychological, I learned. Because after a while I believed myself. I didn't miss him!

But...Now he's back.

No matter how many times I'd said it, it's meaning hadn't changed. Still, I repeated it, almost as if it was a mantra, one that brought little comfort.

I wrote songs, a lot of songs. I wrote them for me and only me, and I had no intention of letting them reach anyone elses ears. Those songs were my release; songs Tommy didn't know about.

And I guess that's where the problem started. My songs that Tommy didn't know about. Because in G Major that afternoon, things weren't running so smoothly. Actually, things hadn't been going well for weeks.

"Jude, come on. We have to finish at least one song this week. And I can tell your heart isn't in this." He put his hand up to his chest for emphasis.

I'd written roughly three songs that week, and it was still only Wednesday. They needed cleaning and plenty of work. But yeah, my heart wasn't in this song we were trying to write. We hadn't even gotten to the lyrics yet and I was already tired of it. Because it wasn't the release it normally was for me.

"I know. My mind's just in another place right now." Another place being at home, in my room with my guitar.

He sighed. "Jude. Focus. We haven't been getting any work done lately..." He grabbed me gently by the shoulders and shook me playfully. With a friendly laugh he said, "Am I going to have to Chinese Water Torture this out of you? I know you can do this, you won a song writing competition!"

"Maybe. Maybe that's just the motivation I need." I knew my voice bit back hard, but I told myself I didn't care. Considering I didn't care anything about Tommy...

This got another sigh. "You used to be a song writing machine. What happened?"

I gave him a look that was easily comparable to my voice just moments ago. Like you really need me to tell you. I could tell he was beginning to get exhasperated.

"We're hardly getting anything done. I may as well write your music myself!"

"Well then have fun with that! 'Cause isn't that what producers do?" I cried. I grabbed my purse from off the floor and stood up. Those days, just sitting in a room together with Tommy drove me mad. And making music with him? I would have rather not made anything with him.

And thank God I hadn't those past 2 years.

He doesn't call me back into the room as I leave. He's learned not to bother, because I never turn around.