A/N: Sorry it's taken me so long to get this up. I feel like my brain just kind of fizzled out on this story. But I'm almost done, there's one more chapter after this and it should be up sometime in the next few days.

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Unlikely Sources

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The last person I expected to see on my doorstep two days before New Years was Jesse.

But yet here he is, standing on my parent's porch in the freezing cold, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else on the planet.

"What are you doing here?" I ask as he walks inside. Without an invitation I might add.

"Nice," he snaps, "I haven't heard from you in over a week. I just wanted to make sure you were still alive."

He moves to walk past me, but I stop him with a hand on his arm. His eyes are focused on the floor, and I watch as the muscles in his jaw clench rhythmically as he swallows roughly.

"Jesse, I'm sorry. This thing …" My voice trails off uncertainly. How do I explain something as weird and complicated and messy as Craig and I to him when I know there's no way he can possibly understand?

"You mean this Craig guy?" Jesse's voice is low, bitter. I've hurt him and I hate myself for it. Oddly enough, I hate him for making me feel this way. I wanted Craig before I ever knew Jesse. What right does he have to make me feel guilty?

With a sigh, I flop down onto the couch. This is so not what I want to be doing right now. I'd much rather be upstairs, in my old bed, wallowing in my misery that Craig is leaving tonight and has made no effort to contact me since Joey's party. I guess I was right about him and me all along. Now that he knows for sure how I feel about him, he's running scared.

Jesse comes over and sits down beside me, and far enough away on the couch to make it make it uncomfortable. "So, is this guy like an old boyfriend that you're not over or something?"

A snort escapes before I can stop it and he looks at me like I've lost my mind. "Hardly. Craig is a friend. Only a friend."

"So you've replaced the 'just' with an 'only' now," he observes, "Is that your not so subtle way of convincing me? Or yourself?"

"I'm not trying to convince anyone, Jesse. Why don't you believe me?"

"Because you're lying to me, Ellie," he shouts, standing up and walking towards the door.

"Jesse," I call after him. He stops at the door, hand on the knob, but doesn't look back at me. "Honestly? Yeah, I wanted Craig once."

"Once?" he asked skeptically.

When I don't answer, he finally turns back to me. Guilt is written all over my face, I can see it in the accusatory expression directed back at me.

"Are you in love with him?"

When he asks me that, I get this weird sense of déjà vu and the image of Craig smiling at me from across the small dingy room at the rec center that housed the place where 'us' really began to form came into my mind, followed quickly by the remembrance of his arms wrapped around me as our hands moved as one over the drums. And with the feel of his breath blowing softly against my hair as he slept peacefully behind me still fresh in both my mind and my heart, I know with a shocking burst of clarity that we're nowhere close to finished yet.

"I want to say no, believe me I do," I tell him in a small voice, "but I honestly don't know."

"You have feelings for him?"

"Yeah. Pretty serious ones," I confess.

Jesse finally turns around and faces me. My heart lurches at what we've lost here today. We could have had something good, Jesse and me. If only we'd had the chance.

If only my heart was free.

"I hope you get what you want," he chokes out. Then, just like that, he's gone and I know it's over. For good.

For whatever reason, I follow him out onto the porch, watching as he gets back in his car and drives away. He never once looks back.

I kick at the floorboards with my toe, and my foot stops short of something sitting in front of the door.

My box.

I take it inside, opening the familiar lid on the way. Everything is still there. But there are things that weren't there before. The Palmistry book and the plane ticket are laying on top of all the little things I've stuck in there over the last two years.

This is bizarre. How did this get here? The last time I saw it, it was in my garbage can at the dorms and that was a week ago and I'm fairly certain it wasn't here earlier or else my mother would have opened it and then proceed to grill me about every single item in it. And Jesse never said a word about it; surely he would have brought it inside had he seen it. So how'd it get here?

I need coffee.

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Of course there's no coffee at home. I used the last of what was left last night, and my mom conveniently forgot to get any when she went to the market this morning. Thus forcing me out of the house to the Dot for a latte.

It's packed, as usual. Gr, why can't these high school kids just stay home? It's not like they need to be here. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, there has to be an out of control party somewhere where they can all get plastered and naked.

But no. Like I said, I was born under a cursed star and when I walk in my eyes land right on Manny sitting in a booth with a very snuggly Emma and Sean.

Just freaking fantastic.

And they've seen me. It's obvious by the halted laughter and the burning looks directed at my back.

I order my coffee and make to leave. But somebody stops me; the last person I ever thought would want to speak to me.

Emma.

She's standing in front of me, looking so sympathetic that I kind of hate her a little bit.

"Yes?" I snap. Is it bad that I enjoy watching her eyes widen at my rudeness?

"Look, Ellie," she says, "I know you don't like me, and I don't blame you for it."

I quirk my eyebrow at her statement. Did she actually just say that? "Really?"

She nods, her shiny blonde hair shimmying across her tan shoulders. God, could she be any more of a Barbie cliché?

"But," she went on, "Sean told me what happened at the mall."

"Nothing happened except your little sidekick over there going all drama queen and dumping her boyfriend."

She quirks a perfectly arched eyebrow at me. "Ellie, you and I know better than most how oblivious Sean can be at times."

She wants to bring that up now? "Do you have a point?" I demand. I am so ready to be done with this conversation.

"My point," she snaps, "is that even he could see, in ten minutes, that there is something between you and Craig."

I recall the look in Sean's eyes that day. It was like he knew what I was feeling. I used to love when he looked at me that way, like he was the one person in the whole world who actually understood me. Back then, it was what held me together during the worst point of my life when in reality I now realize it probably had more to do with what I wanted from Sean than what he actually got.

"Sean has no clue what he was talking about. And neither do you," I snap, walking past her towards the door.

Of course she follows me.

"I'm trying to help you here, Ellie. Don't ignore that because you're still bitter over Sean."

Oh she did not just go there.

She raises her hand to cut off my impending tirade when I whirl around to face her. "I know you loved him, Ellie, but be honest here. Did you really think he was over me, or were you mean to me just because you didn't like my shoes?"

Okay, she's got me there. I know Sean wasn't over her when we were together. Any time she came into a room he would either get really quiet and pretend he didn't see her, or become overly couply, all the while sneaking glances to see if she was noticing. I was perfectly justified in hating her.

"What does Sean never getting over you have to do with me and Craig?" I ask, now thoroughly ticked and wanting to throw my coffee in her face.

"It means," she says slowly as if she's talking to a child, "that I get it."

God, Sean deserves a medal for putting up with this for six years. I have no clue what she's getting at here.

"You get what?"

"Look, Manny is my best friend. She's like my sister. But Craig is my friend too and I want him to be happy. And if that means you, then so be it."

There's a throbbing developing in my temples that came from either the lack of caffeine in my system or the monologue from Little Miss Goody Two Shoes. I rub my head in an attempt to ease the pain, but it's no use.

"Emma, I'm really not getting this."

Her expression softens, so much so that I can almost see why Sean always ran to her.

"I know what it's like to love someone and have to see them with somebody else every day," she says softly.

My eyes fall on Sean in the booth behind her, his blue eyes fixed intently on us. My heart lurches and I suddenly get what Emma's been trying to say this whole time.

"It sucks," I tell her.

"Yeah," she agrees, "and it never gets any easier. I felt like that every day when you were with Sean. So I know how you're feeling right now. But you have a chance. You can get Craig."

"What do you think Manny's going to say when she finds out about this little conversation?" I ask

She shrugs. "I told her what I was going to say. She's not happy about it, but she'll get over it. She and Craig are better off apart. The last few months they barely spoke, and when they did they would bicker. She loves him, but he wants you. Anybody can see that."

"

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Airport security sucks. You would think they had never seen someone running to try and catch a plane before. And really, do I look like a terrorist?

They're lucky I was in a hurry and didn't have the time to go off on them like I normally would have.

I can hear Craig's send off crew before I see them. Jimmy, Ash, Marco, Spinner, Joey, Angie, Diane-they're all there, laughing and joking. Craig's in the center, a forced smile on his face.

I stop and look at him for a second. He should be on top of the world right now. This is what he's been working towards all this time, but he looks like somebody just shot his dog.

"Craig!"

It takes me a second to realize the shout came from me. But then everybody turns to look at me standing there with two bags and a ticket clutched in my hand.

Craig breaks away and walks toward me, handing his luggage off to Joey. I see Marco and Ash watching over Craig's shoulder. The rest of them turn away politely, trying to give us some semblance of privacy in the crowded airport, but they keep watching. Ash looks at Marco, obviously having no clue what she's seeing, and Marco puts an arm around her consolingly. He looks ready to burst out of skin in curiosity, however.

Craig stops short of me, uneasiness plain as day on his familiar features.

"You came," he says softly. "And you have luggage. Does this mean your coming with me?"

"I don't know," I answer.

His forehead wrinkles, a small line popping up between his eyebrows like it always does when he's thinking too hard. "Then why are you here?"

"Craig, were you at my house this morning?"

He swallows and I watch as his Adam's Apple bobs with the motion. He shoves his hands in his pockets and his eyes go to the floor. "Yeah," he finally admits.

"Did you leave that box on my porch?" I don't really know why I'm asking this, I already know the answer.

"I came over to convince you to come with me and that's when I saw him." The bitterness is evident in his voice and I want to be angry at him, really I do. Jesse and I were doing really good until Craig came back and made me realize it was all fake.

"Jesse broke up with me. Officially. I had to tell him the truth," I tell him.

His eyes, sad yet hopeful, finally rise to meet mine. "What truth would that be?"

"That I'm not over you. Not even close," I admit.

Craig unbuttons his shirt cuff and pushes it upwards. What is he doing now? Then he takes off his watch and holds his wrist out to me. And there, on the inside of his wrist, is a tiny tattoo. I had no idea Craig had a tattoo. Let alone one of a small blue star.

"What is that for?" I ask, hearing the breathlessness in my own voice.

"Do you remember that summer when we were at the park watching the fireworks with Angie?"

I nod, not trusting my own voice at the moment.

"And then," he continues, "when I was walking you home we saw that shooting star?"

I nod again. I had almost forgotten about that.

"When I made my wish," he tells me, reminding me of my insistence that we both do it out of the silliness of the moment, "I wished that we would always be like that."

Aw, I feel myself melting into a big pile of mush. No. Bad Ellie. Don't let him do this to you.

"So then why get a tattoo?"

"It was my first week in Vancouver," he starts, "I missed everybody like crazy, even though I was loving being out there. So the guys in the band took me out for some drinks and we ended up in a tattoo parlor. I was sitting there in the chair and that moment came into my mind and I couldn't get rid of it."

"But why not get something to do with your girlfriend? She's the one you love, right?"

Craig shakes his head, stepping closer to me. "No, she's not. Not anymore."

"Ladies and gentlemen, flight 452, nonstop to Vancouver is now boarding at Gate 12."

The announcer's voce pulls me out of whatever place I'm in where all I can see is Crag's eyes and I'm grateful. This isn't something to do on a whim.

"Are you coming with me?" he asks. I see Joey heading towards us behind Craig.

"On one condition," I tell him.

"And that would be?"

"I want you to give me a reason. One good reason why I should come with you. Not why you want me to, but why I should. Give me just one reason to trust you and leave everything in my life behind me. Can you do that?"

Craig looks so tired. His eyes close and his head falls forward. Why do I feel like this is a bad sign?

"No," he whispers, "I can't."

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A/N: Yeah, I don't really like this chapter at all. But I had no idea what else to write, so here you have it.