A/N: Well, so many reviews so quickly… I had to update in a likewise fashion. My apologies for the choppiness of these last few chapters. But here's a longer one…like 2.5 times the length of my average chapters. You all should be so lucky… ;)

Chapter 18

As I sped toward where I hoped Ren would be my mind was racing—looking for answers as to why she'd left so suddenly. I couldn't come up with anything. The only thought I could manage was that she wasn't happy about us, but she had seemed fine. But I could've been wrong. Though this reaction didn't fit that problem. I could see her needing to get away for a few days, but to leave no note? And so suddenly without a warning of any kind? It wasn't Ren.

The roads were windy but empty, and it didn't seem to take long for me to find the dirt road she'd made me pull onto months before. I was forced to slow way down as I made my way through the darkness, but eventually I pulled out into a clearing and found Ren's car parked there. I parked beside it, jumping out of my car and rushing around to hers without even shutting my door.

I peered inside her car but found nothing. I turned and walked toward the lake. It was clear and if she was sitting down there she wouldn't be hard to spot. The sky was perfectly clear and the light of the stars and moon would aid me.

But when I reached the shore of the lake, she was still nowhere to be found. I searched all around the area-- she could be lying anywhere in the knee-high grass that covered the ground. It was late after all, and if she wasn't sleeping in the car…

I sighed with frustration. My heart was pounding—a million horrible possibilities racing through my mind.

Then I noticed a light on the about a quarter of the way around the lake, hidden behind a few trees, it only flickered a moment before the black walls of forest encompassing the lake enveloped it again.

Hurriedly I began to walk along the shore, hoping to a God I didn't believe in that Ren was there. When I got closer I found a small shack with the windows boarded shut. A little light could be seen through cracks at the edges of the frames, and I figured the light I'd seen across the way had been from the door being opened.

As quietly as I could I moved closer to the windows, trying to peer in through the cracks. The first one revealed only a mattress on the ground, with a sheet pulled over it and a wool blanket laying neatly over half of it.

I moved across to the next window and I could see the lantern resting in the middle of the room, the only apparent source of light. So far the whole of the structure appeared to be a single room. Quickly I rushed past the front door, though I'm not sure why. I couldn't be seen through the wood of it. The next window revealed what I'd hoped to see: Ren. She was sitting on a small wooden chair, reading a book despite the poor lighting. She was wearing a red sweater over white button-up shirt, and dark jeans. She had a bag on the ground beside her and I could see what looked like a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine protruding from it. I checked the next window, just to be sure if no one else was inside.

I moved back to the front door. Taking a deep breath, I knocked.

She would probably be startled, I thought. Probably didn't expect visitors.

She didn't come to the door and I dropped down to the window to see what she was doing. She'd moved, had taken the wine bottle up for defensive purposes it seemed. She eyed the door suspiciously, fearfully.

"Ren?" I called in through the crack. "It's Tawny. Let me in."

She sighed, dropping the arm that held the wine bottle, posed for battle, to her side. She stared at the door for a moment, her expression indisputably pained.

I stepped back and waited outside the door, and soon she opened it, though not all the way. "What are you doing up here?" she asked, apparently not planning on letting me enter her ascetic abode.

"I could ask you the same," I responded.

"I wanted to be alone for a little while," she answered, simply enough.

"You didn't leave a note or anything," I said, then adding: "Please, can I come in? It's freezing out here." I was still dressed as I had been for my date earlier that evening—a slender black dress with thin shoulder straps, and a jean jack I'd grabbed on the way out.

"It's not much warmer inside. There's no heating," she replied, but stood aside and let me enter anyway. She wouldn't force me to stay outside in what I was wearing.

She shut the door behind me. "You can stay for five minutes. No longer."

"What?"

"It's a pretty simple statement, Tawny, but if you need me to break it down for you…"

"Why are you up here?"

"I already told you."

"Well, what's wrong, Ren?"

"Everything. I don't want to talk about it." She sat back down in the chair she'd been in before I'd intruded.

"You can talk to me about it, Ren," I said, trying to sound as inviting as I could. "We could always talk. You wanted to be friends again, remember? This is what that's for."

"No, we're not friends. I don't want that anymore. That was a mistake."

I didn't know how to respond to that.

"You should just go, Tawny."

"Well, are you coming home soon?"

"I don't know."

"What is that supposed to mean? You're just going to stay up here? Live on bread and wine and let your family freak out about you?"

"They don't need to freak out, you can tell them that."

"I'll tell them where you are."

"I'll leave; I was only going to stay here for a night, maybe two."

"And then?"

"I don't know."

"Spontaneity doesn't really work for you, Ren."

She sighed angrily.

I put my hands up. "Sorry."

She glanced at her watch.

"Are you waiting for someone?"

"No."

"Are you going to tell me anything, or am I going to have to work it out of you?"

"I don't want to talk to you, Tawny," she yelled, catching me off guard. "Not you or anybody else. I want to be alone."

"Ok, ok," I said. "But I'm not going to just leave you up here without any answers, Ren."

She crossed her arms.

"I'm not trying to upset you,"

"I know, but it's been five minutes. So you can go now."

"What? No. We're not done."

"Yes we are," she said, rising from her seat and moving toward me.

"What's wrong, Ren?"

"Nothing."

"You said everything was wrong."

"Fine, everything. Now go." She grabbed my arm and jerked me toward the door.

"Are you kidding me?" I snapped, startled by her aggressiveness.

"No, I want you to leave… now I know you're not good at doing things for other people…"

"What? Ren…"

"I don't want to talk with you, Tawny!" she let go of me and turned away, pacing back toward the center of the small room, her hands pressed behind her head as though she were under arrest.

"Everyone is worried about you, Ren," I said. "I'm not trying to upset you but what do you expect me to do? Just leave you up here? When something is obviously really wrong?"

She sighed, but still didn't turn to face me. "Just tell everyone that I'm fine. Please. Just go. Leave me alone. I'll be gone for good tomorrow."

"What?"

"Nothing, Tawny. Just go."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know!" she snapped again. "Away. Maybe just to the bottom of the lake…but probably not. Probably farther away…"

"To the bottom of the lake?" What on earth was she talking about? Nothing could be that wrong, could it?

"Or farther away… but that would be easy." She started mumbling to herself. "There are some cement blocks and a small wooden boat… it only has one oar. But I could paddle out there, attach my hands to the block and throw myself off. It'd be difficult to unhook them underwater and I couldn't lift it without my leg strength…I just need something to attach my hands with…"

"Well, I'm sorry but now I'm not going to leave you up here for sure!"

"No, no… I won't do that. I'll just leave, Tawny. Please, leave me alone…"

"What the hell is the matter with you?" My voice was barely above a whisper at this point.

She just shook her head, still not facing me.

"Ren? Come on… you could always talk to me."

She didn't move.

"Tell me what's wrong," I spoke softly as I moved closer to her.

"Nothing… it's nothing…. I…"

"It's not 'nothing', you were just rambling on about killing yourself," as far as I was concerned at this point my job was to get her back into town and to a professional psychiatrist.

"I won't, Tawny, I won't do that…"

"Just talk to me, Ren," I put my hand on her shoulder.

She whirled around, pushing my hand away. "Don't touch me!"

"Ok, ok…sorry…" I replied quietly, noticing how hard she was fighting to hold back tears. "Talk to me, please."

"What do you think is wrong?" she raised her voice.

"I don't know, tell me." I could only think of the situation with us, but I didn't see how that alone could drive her to this point. Or how she could've hid it so well. Either way, it seemed self-centered and I dared not venture the possibility out loud.

"Everything is wrong!"

"Like…?"

She glared at me.

"Ok, well…uh… Amy said you've been having fun with some of the girls…so it's not a relationship thing, is it?"

She looked at me very strangely then. "Everything encompasses a lot of things, Tawny. I think you'll always be one of those things."

I hesitated before pushing to another section: "School?"

She laughed. "School? You mean my grades? 'Cause there still perfect, even with Larry taking over the student government, my record is perfect. Not good enough, but perfect. Better than anyone else at that school's record."

"But not good enough?" I didn't understand what she meant by that.

"No, not good enough."

"How can perfect not be enough?"

"I don't know. You'll have to write the admissions offices at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Brown for the answer to that one." She scoffed.

"What?"

"What? I didn't get in. Not to any of them. And my mother went to Brown and my dad went to Stanford. Legacy is supposed to have a lot of weight at those places! But not enough for me."

"Ren…" That would do it, I thought, that would push her over the top. She never told her father about us because she didn't want to ruin his ideals of the perfect family, the perfect daughter—the valedictorian who was destined for some Ivy League school, or, at the very least, Stanford. "It's just luck, bad luck."

"No, no it's me. I'm not good enough. I'm a let-down."

"No you aren't. Tons of people apply to those places and they can't all get in. There are people all over the country with the same credentials as you who just had better luck."

"How can I tell my parents that I didn't get in anywhere? I mean, they've expected no less than Harvard or Yale for years. I was supposed to get into both of them and then make a choice. I was good enough to have that right. They didn't even think I should bother applying anywhere else, not even Stanford or Brown, and especially not Princeton. And now it's no even that I'm going to a lesser school… I'm not going period."

"Ren, they'll understand. It's a matter of luck."

"I should've at least gotten into Stanford or Brown."

"You should have. You deserved it, but they only have so many slots…"

She shook her head, her back to me again. "This year everything just went to hell."

"You can reapply for Winter term. Maybe take some time off and work or go to a community college?"

"A community college?" She didn't like that idea at all.

"I'm just saying it's not the end of the world… certainly not worth drowning yourself."

"No, you don't get it. You've never had this… you've never had the pressure on you that I have. Your parents are different…" she paused, letting out a brief, pained laugh. "So what now? I tell them hey, not only am I, your pride and joy, a fag—but I didn't get into any of the schools I applied to either! Yes, I am just that much a failure! The disgrace of the family."

"You can reapply, Ren," I maintained.

"No, that's not the same. Everyone will know I didn't get in the first time around. Larry will find out and make sure everyone knows. They print up senior destinations in the school paper."

"I doesn't matter what other people think, Ren. They don't know the whole story. They never do."

"You always say that: It doesn't matter what others think. But it does matter. It matters to me. It may not matter to you and it may not matter to…her… but it matters to me."

I was taken aback by the amount of venom she'd injected into that word: her. Obviously she wasn't as ok with that situation as I'd thought.

"I was counting on this, Tawny," she sighed. "I need to get away from here. When you wanted to get back together and I said no, it was because I knew I'd never come through for you. I failed you completely…"

"Ren," I protested, but she cut me off.

"No, I did. I was a big let-down there. But I figured maybe I could do the friends thing but that didn't work. That hurt too much. And seeing you with her…" the venom was there again. "So I figured, 'ok I just have to put up with this for a few more months'. I didn't want to rescind my offer of friendship, but I figured you'd be easy to avoid in the summer and I'd be working most of the time anyway. Then in August I could leave. I could put, like, three-thousand miles between us. Then, I thought, things would get easy. And now what? I can't go three thousand miles away with no purpose. I'm stuck here with you." She walked over to the mattress and sat down, her elbows resting on her knees, her head in her hands.

The wording of her little speech stung a little, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt, assuming she meant no real offense by it. I moved across the room after her, taking a seat beside her on the mattress and putting my hand on her shoulder, half expecting her to swat it away again. She didn't.

She continued speaking, not looking up. "At least before I had you so even if this fell through—which I never even considered possible—I wouldn't have minded staying here so much. I was kind of planning on it…"

"What?" I asked, startled.

"Well, long-distance is no good… even if with me you probably wouldn't have even noticed. I would've gone to Stanford for a year maybe. I could've visited you on weekends at least. You said you wanted to go to New York. That's close enough to Harvard or Yale. So I could've gone to Stanford for a year and then transferred, taken some General Ed classes… they're pretty much the same everywhere. And then next year we both would've gone to the east coast together. Or maybe I would've gotten a delayed enrollment thing, I had a friend who did that. She wanted to take a year off to travel first. I could do that. I could've put Harvard off for you. But now…" she sighed, so upset. "What am I going to do, Tawny?"

At that point I somehow lost control of myself. I moved my hand from her shoulder to the back of her neck, and slipped the other one under her chin, turning her tear-streaked face toward me. "Come here," I whispered, pressing my lips against hers.