It was those two words that did it. It was those two words that killed Karma, that absolutely broke (shattered) her heart.

I am

No. Not those two words. Those two she'd seen coming since the moment she'd spotted that fucking rock around Amy's neck. Maybe Ashlyn had held out some hope, maybe she'd been like those fucking ridiculous Karmy shippers back at Hester, the ones that had believed Amy and Karma would end up together no matter what.

"I still can't believe we're graduates," Lizbeth had said to Karma, five minutes after they'd all tossed their caps into the air and four minutes after Amy had disappeared into the crowd with Farrah and Bruce and her father and Lauren, leaving behind nothing but a whispered promise of swinging by the Ashcroft's later that night.

"I still can't believe we're graduates," Lizbeth repeated (a little louder), as she shifted in front of Karma (who hadn't heard her, what with her eyes still staring at the spot Amy had vanished into and her ears still listening to that faint promise). "And you and Amy aren't together? It's not right," she said. "It's just not right."

Karma had agreed. Even if she wouldn't say it out loud or even to herself.

Ash was like Lizbeth who was like Leila who was like a dozen or so stubborn hold outs that refused to believe Karma was straight (and maybe she wasn't gay but there was still bi and Amysexual and come on, it was so fucking obvious). Even Liam fell for it. He'd been obsessed with Karmy all throughout their last year and even into their first year of college.

"You're never going to love anyone like you love her, Karma," he said. That he said it over and over (including when she was under him and yes, she knew even then how bad an idea that was) should have been a sign.

A sign of what, Karma was never quite sure, but it had to be a sign of something when your ex-boyfriend, the first guy to ever say he loved you (because Kevin Cutter in fourth grade didn't count and Amy wasn't a guy and Karma had long since stopped wondering how much easier things would have been if she was) kept insisting that you're feelings for your best friend were more than platonic.

"She's the love of your life, Karma," he said (and God, it was so fucking annoying how he kept using her name). "And we both know you're hers," he said (and why the fuck couldn't he just shut the fuck up and finish so she could get back to work cause her Sociology paper wasn't going to write itself.)

"Liam," she said, trying to warn him into shutting up but he didn't hear it that way (the fucking smirk on his face and the way he sped up, like he'd done something right - which was so not the case - told her that).

Moments later (very few moments, fleeting moments, thoughts of Amy filled moments), he mercifully rolled off her and propped himself up on one elbow next to her. "You're soulmates and you know it, Karma," he said (and did he keep saying her name so he remembered who he was talking to?).

And then Liam had said something, maybe the only thing he'd ever said to her that made any fucking sense at all.

"You two are meant to be," he said. "But if you don't do anything about it? Someone else will."

Liam wasn't her Aunt Sage. He didn't have ESP or tea leaves or goat entrails or that oddly graphically violent Tarot deck. But he'd done it anyway.

He'd predicted Maisie.

As if Karma had needed more reasons to hate him.

Ash and Lizbeth and Leila and Liam had all believed. Ash even did it in the face of that fucking rock, in the face of every bit of evidence to the contrary. It crossed Karma's mind, in those few short seconds between I am and those next two words (the ones that shattered her heart to the point she wasn't sure she could fucking breathe) that they were all like Amy. Amy who had believed (or let Shane make her believe) that, despite the mounting evidence (Liam and the thunderbox and the rejection after rejection after rejection) that Karma might really love her.

In that way.

And that night, the night of the drinks and the fucking rock and the puking and not looking in the right places and I am (and yes, that was technically in the morning and that was so besides the point), Karma almost joined them. She almost let Ash push her off that cliff (the cliffs of insanity) into the pit of denial.

But Karma knew better. She knew Amy better. She knew, all Ash's perfectly logical and perfectly romantic protestations aside, Amy wouldn't wear that fucking rock, she wouldn't even think about putting it on, unless she was in love, unless the idea of spending a lifetime with Maisie was something she could imagine.

She wouldn't have been wearing that rock unless Liam had finally been right and someone else had done something about it.

Unless Karma was too late.

So it wasn't those two words (I am) that did it. They weren't the ones that wrecked Karma's heart. It was the two that came after, the two that came next.

"I'm sorry."

Karma was barely listening at that point. Her mind had gone (mostly) blank the moment those other two words left Amy's mouth. She'd been expecting them, she knew they were coming, but that didn't make them easy to hear. Her eyes had drifted from Amy's face down to that spot, to the one where 'V' (not x), marked the spot, the neckline of Amy's tee shirt (so short and so thin, leaving so much leg exposed that Karma could feel under her, warm and soft and… not hers). The tee did less to hide it, so much less to hide the outline of that fucking rock against Amy's skin and Karma couldn't help staring.

Until those words.

"I'm sorry," Amy said. Her voice was so soft and so pained and Karma almost didn't hear her but there was something… familiar about it. Something that slipped inside Karma's mind and slapped her. It wasn't the words (Amy had apologized about a million times over the years for a million different things and those words just blended in with all the others). It was the… tone? The sound? The feel?

So familiar…

Have a good summer, Karma

Oh. Oh fuck.

It was that. 'I'm sorry' meant that and that was about one step (one giant step, a fucking leap) past anything Karma thought she could take. Her eyes snapped up to Amy's and she saw it all there, on her best friend's face and it hit Karma like a bomb, like a fucking nuke right between the eyes.

Best friend.

That was all. That, that… thing… that she'd always held so close and so dear… that thing that had once been enough (more than enough), that had been more important to her than Liam and more important to Amy than Reagan?

That was all Amy would ever be.

So, maybe, in the end, 'I'm sorry' weren't the two words that did it either. Those weren't the words that killed her, that ruined her heart.

It was those other two.