A/N: Thank you to everyone who added this story to their favorites and alerts, as well as myself as an author! Due to so many messages via Tumblr, I've decided to continue this. As nice as the favorites and alerts are, please review, as well! It can be a little disheartening sometimes to see so many people have an obvious interest, but haven't taken the time to leave just a few words. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy :)

I.
In a book, in a box, in the closet
In a line, in a song I once heard
In a moment on a front porch late one June
In a breath inside a whisper beneath the mooon

There it was at the tip of my fingers
There it was on the tip of my tongue
There you were and I had never been that far
There it was the whole world wrapped inside my arms
And I let it all slip away

He's not used to the noise. He will never be used to the noise.

He's not used to the hustle and the bustle, and he doesn't understand why everyone has to be in such a hurry all the time.

Then he remembers that the noise and the hustle and bustle are the very reasons he moved here.

He needs distractions, he needs to forget. He needs the taxi cabs and the whistles and the clicking of heels on pavement to drown out the "what if?"s in his head. He needs the fast-paced lifestyle to keep him from slowly fading away into himself.

It wasn't supposed to be this hard. It was supposed to be a quiet acceptance that seeped into his heart to heal the wounds, a hopeful melancholy that would allow him to go on with his life with dreams of reconciliation pushed to the back of his mind.

He was supposed to be able to move on. Not from her, but from the pain, from the desperate sense of loss. He was supposed to take those last words that came out of her beautiful mouth all those years ago as words of bittersweet optimism, and he was supposed to make the most of his life to prove to himself that he will one day again be worthy of her love.

But his stubborn heartache had other plans for him. Turns out, when you're tethered to someone? Trying to cut the cord is fruitless.

Trying to play football at OSU while trying not to fail all his classes while trying to keep every single girl at least 10 feet away from him, because they're not her, while trying to put on a façade of happiness in the hopes that it will eventually convince his aching heart.. it's all useless.

It's all useless when he can't bring himself to do anything but sob into his pillow and drink to a state of numbing belligerence.

So he bid it all goodbye. The football, the classes, the girls (who he never liked anyway), the fake happiness.. he left it all behind in Columbus.

When he showed up on his front porch in Lima, red-eyed and swaying, his mom tried to keep him there for as long as she could. She knew he was slipping, that he needed a strong support system, that he wouldn't even be able to keep his head above water in the real world without a finished college degree.

So, with his mom's insistence, he showed up at William McKinley High School to see if anyone could spare an alum some work hours. Turns out Mr. Kidney the janitor kicked the bucket a week ago and Figgins was in need of a replacement.

He accepted the offer, knowing it was a terrible mistake.

After just three miserable days, though, of avoiding anyone and anything with a link to his past, he was called to the auditorium (God, why the auditorium?) to clean some gum off the stage, and he knew in that moment that he needed out. He needed out of that stifling job filled with stifling memories of her stiflingly vivacious personality that emanated from every hallway of that godforsaken building and every street corner of that godforsaken town.

So here he is. He didn't come here because he knew she'd be here.

Okay, maybe that was, like, one percent of the reason.

But he came here because he needed to throw himself into something that would keep him going.

Not that selling ice cream at the intersection of Broadway and 42nd will keep him going forever, but it's good for now.

He just wishes the noise didn't have to be quite so noisy.

II.
What do I do now that you're gone
No back-up plan no second chance
And no one else to blame
All I can hear in the silence that remains
Are the words I couldn't say

It's 3:00 p.m. and he knows that the same lady that always shows up at 3:00 p.m. is going to show up again today. She always ogles him and asks him why he's not a model yet.

That's the thing about this job- it's okay to work somewhere like this in New York City, because everyone just assumes he's a struggling actor trying to make ends meet while waiting to make it big. No one looks down on him. Here, he's not a loser for not having a college degree.

So he digs out some knock-off Dippin' Dots for the Chinese family of tourists, and is pocketing his tip when he feels someone pinch his butt.

Great.

Never has he dreaded a specific time like he dreads 3:00 p.m.

He forces a smile and asks her if it's the usual, and she asks him if he comes on top (like she does every single day.. someone should really tell her the novelty of a comment like that wears off after the first fifty times), and he lets out a laugh that would sound painful to all ears but the obliviously persistent ones in front of him.

She makes a show of licking the cone seductively, and he has to refrain from liberally rolling his eyes.

After shooting her down again, because he just can't date women who aren't her, okay?, he purposely looks to the next customer, praying that she gets the hint this time.

His jaw doesn't relax until she's finally out of sight.

III.
There's a rain that will never stop fallin
There a wall that I tried to take down
What I should have said just wouldn't pass my lips
So I held back and now we've come to this
And it too late now

When business slows down, he pulls out "Marketing for Dummies" and looks through the pages the same way he does every other day- never quite grasping it all, but wishing he could.

He needs to make something of his life. He knows that. He can't just sit around and live in the past, or wallow about the present. He needs to establish a future.

But he just hates that word.

The future was always supposed to be with her.

In this very city, with her, and with their kids, and with their dog, and with trophies lining the mantle, and with playbills littering the coffee tables, and with promises to spend every living, breathing moment together.

But he can't think about all that. That now constitutes as living in the past.

So he continues flipping through the pages and pages of accounting and hospitality and public relations, bored out of his mind.

But, really, it's either this or the newspaper, and he can't read the newspaper.

In his fourteen months in the city, he's avoided television like the plague, and has not once touched a newspaper.

He can't start now. He can't chance that.

Living in the same city is one thing (at least, he assumes she still lives here..). But hearing her name, seeing her picture? Something else entirely.

As miserable as he is, he's still made progress from those dark days of binging and self-loathing.

No, he can't chance coming across anything that could serve as an emotional trigger. He can't go down that road again, square one is too painful of a place to be.

So he reins it all in and looks back down, swallowing a yawn.

Page 80, Psychology of Product Placement.

Fascinating.

IV.
What do I do now that your gone
No back-up plan no second chance
And no one else to blame
All I can hear in the silence that remains
Are the words I couldn't say

It's one of those evenings where the wind is forceful enough to swoop between the large buildings and skyscrapers, which magically soften its blow from powerfully gusty to pleasantly breezy.

It's a nice change from the humid, dank air that's accompanied him into an uncomfortably damp sleep the past couple nights. He thinks the people of New York must be happy for the dryness of tonight.

Of course, most people in New York can afford air conditioning and don't have to let the moisture of the city air into their bedrooms.

He takes down his sign, ready to call it a day, one eye on the turbaned guy who's pedaling a rickshaw and yelling loudly at some "imbecile" to get out of the road.

Chuckling, he begins putting cones back into containers, and sorts out the day's pay.

He hears footsteps quickly approaching, and looks up to see the same imbecile slapping a palm on the cart, and asking through pants if he's too late to get some ice cream.

He shrugs and tells the imbecile that it's not a problem, that he can buy something anyway, and begins scooping the pistachio and strawberry double scoop, his heart clenching painfully as he remembers that being her trademark order.

But when he looks up to hand the imbecile his ice cream, he can't hear a thing. He can't hear the taxi cabs or the whistles or the clicking of heels on pavement. He can't feel the whoosh of people hurrying around him. He can't hear the imbecile apologetically explaining the last-minute purchase as a little present for his girlfriend, and then he can't hear the imbecile yelling at him as the pistachio and strawberry double scoop tumbles from his trembling hand.

He sees only those eyes, those big, brown, beautiful eyes. Those big, brown, beautiful eyes looking back at him, shock dilating the pupils and paralyzing the tiny body they belong to.

Oh, God.

Oh, God, no.

All those months and months of living carefully, of living like a hermit to avoid that beautiful name and that even more beautiful face.

Up until now, he could never decide whether or not a tiny part of him actually wanted to run into her eventually.

Now, though, he knows that's not so.

Like a hurricane brewing inside of him, his thoughts and emotions become a whirlwind that he just cannot keep up with.

His head hurts, his heart hurts, everything just hurts.

He thinks his head might actually explode when the imbecile reaches out to her and puts his arm around her.

His eyes still haven't left hers, and neither of them have moved a muscle, and the imbecile must be incredibly confused right now, but he can't be bothered with those thoughts when she.. she is right here. In front of him. Right here in front of him.

Years and years flash before him, like a timeline, and he sees him kissing her, and her kissing him, and nights spent whispering under the stars, and packed auditoriums listening to the magic they made together, and tears, and tears, and just so many goddamn tears, and now he sees her again, right here in front of him, and he's not sure exactly when he began to shake violently, but a concerned passing stranger breaks him out of his trance, and his gaze snaps to the imbecile, who is looking between the two of them suspiciously, and then back to her just in time to notice those big, brown, beautiful eyes still gazing at him and welling up as some of the blood returns to her face.

"Okay.." begins the man on her left.

God, not now, imbecile, not now. Go away, just go away.

She doesn't bat an eye at the voice of the man presumed to be her boyfriend, and just looks to the ground at the melting ice cream.

He follows her gaze and hastily, shakily reaches for another cone, making sure the strawberry scoop is bigger than the pistachio this time around.

She's always liked the strawberry a little more than the pistachio.

She reaches for it quietly, inhaling sharply at his small gesture of remembrance, and her hand lingers on his as the tears she failed to blink back start to flow freely down her face.

He just breathes deeply, attempting to swallow his own tears, and gently pushes the cone into her hand, removing his own.

He can't do this. Not right now. Maybe not ever.

It hardly feels like years have passed. The pain is still too raw. Too raw and too.. painful.

She blinks a little at the loss of contact and all that is signified by it.

He looks down at his feet.

God, he really, really can't do this right now.

Swallowing thickly, he watches as the imbecile pays for her cone, not sparing either of them incredulous looks.

"Thank you, Finn," she murmurs, staring at the pistachio starting to melt.

He feels like he's been punched in the stomach.

How many years has it been since that beautiful voice has uttered his name?

Years ago, he could've sworn that beautiful voice was made to say his, and only his, name.

Now, hearing it after so long, he could swear the same thing.

He steels himself as she turns to leave, but she hesitates and looks at him over her shoulder.

Her eyes are glistening again, and when she opens her mouth to speak, his heart stops at the utter sadness tainting her words.

"Welcome home."

Song credit: "The Words I Couldn't Say," Rascal Flatts