Sometimes it was hard to tell what the exact part of this all was the worse. The endless nights of tears and self-hatred? The anxiety creeping into your bones at the thought of you realizing you're never going to be good enough? The habit of jumping at the slightest movement, touch or noise? The sound of the heat finally switching on might as well have been him kicking my door in in the middle of the night. The millions of voices running through your mind, telling you'll never be good enough or worth anything. There was one, however, that was always the most overpowering. What did I do to deserve this?

I continued sitting there on the floor of the shower, for god knows how long, before I finally decided it was time to pick myself up and get ready for work. If there was one thing that kept me going anymore, it was my job. I hadn't missed a day of work in my entire life, and that wasn't going to stop now.

Passing by the mirror (nearly scaring myself half to death), I noticed the faint bruise on my face from our dispute this morning. I groaned; there was no way in hell this was going to go away before work, and makeup was out of the question. Three bottles of concealer had gone into trying to cover the damages on my body, leaving me with very little supplies. Covering the nuisance with loose strands of my hair, I prayed they would stay in place as I got finished getting ready for work. Since the required uniform was nothing more than a black polo and any pair of black bases, it only took a few minutes to get ready and leave even with the few limits with the condition of my body.

Walking into the tiny café on the corner, I couldn't help but notice how empty the place was. I was no Starbucks, but I didn't want to imagine this place getting shut down. Hell, it was far from the quality of a semi-decent apartment, but it had grown to be my second home; my shelter. Entering the small building, I admired the smell of coffee welcoming me in and comforting me.

"Well it's about time you showed up." Jeff, a co-worker of mine, called from behind the counter; vigorously scrubbing away at the countertop. "I thought you weren't coming in today." His tone was somewhere between relieved and overly stressed.

"When do I ever miss a day of work?" I scoffed, pulling on a dark-red apron. The seemingly only color in the dim, dark shop. "What are you stressing about anyway? There's like three people in here."

"I'm just surprised the villagers didn't show up to your front door with torches and pitchforks and burned you at the stake." His complete façade of worry and stress faded in a smirk. The man was a master at putting on a show, I swear he was by far the best actor I have ever seen.

"What the hell are you going on about now?" I groaned, rolling my eyes and pulling myself behind the counter.

"All I'm saying is, adultery is still looked down upon in society, Hester." The smirk never leaving his face.

I shot him a look hoping to make him feel as dumb as he was sounded.

Finally giving up on his attempted joke, he pulled out a tabloid from under the counter. A picture of me blocking my side of my face from the flashing lights.

"You might as well run around with a bright red 'A' embroidered on your shirt." He continued on, jokingly as I looked at the paper in annoyance.

"Oh please," I scoffed, crumpling the paper. "Who's even going to take this seriously? Hormonal twelve year olds? Just because I was seen at his place doesn't automatically make him my boyfriend. Like I care what some twelve year old fan is going to think."

Nearly seconds after I threw the paper into the recycling, the service bell rang. In came two girls who couldn't be more than 13.

The first spoke up in a slightly nasally voice as she popped her gum. "Hey, can I get one Vanilla Frap—"

"If you want a Frappuccino, you're going to have to go find a Starbucks, Sweetie. We only sell real coffee here." Jeff snapped in a sassy mocking tone.

Just as soon as the first costumer began to speak up once again, her friend nudged and spoke in a similar tone, "Isn't that Nick Jonas' girlfriend?"

Jeff turned to me with yet an even wider smirk than before. I stomped on his foot to prevent any more of his god damn Scarlet Letter references.

"No, I'm not…" I knew I was clearly hesitant, only because I was still trying to figure this all out myself. "Well, I mean… I'm his friend who's a girl, but not I'm his girl… friend. Actually, I'm in a relationship with someone else."

Anxiety was never a good friend of mine, if it was, it would have stood clear of me completely. Today was one of those days where it hit harder than usual and if there was one thing that suffered the most from my anxiety, it was my hair. I knew I had a problem with absentmindedly playing (and quite honestly biting) on my hair when I was anxious; but trying to avoid moving the loose strands from my face only added to the knots woven into my back.

"He must be something special if you chose him over Nick Jonas." The first girl spoke again, smacking her gum loudly, startling me.

"O. M. G., you're totally nervous about this aren't you?!" The second girl piped up after most likely noticing how uneasy I was feeling. "You can tell us all about it, Sweetie. We promise we'll keep it on the down low."

"Lexi," her friend groaned. "You can't push those things on someone who obviously doesn't want to talk about it. You have to start with small talk. So, what's he like?" She demonstrated to her friend, who she identified as Lexi.

It's not like I trusted them with such personal information in the first place, but I also couldn't stand talking with people more than I had to. That was one of the benefits of working here, It was little small talk and hardly ever busy with costumers.

"He's a… regular guy? He watches sports… and hangs out with his friends." I kept it simple knowing Nick would have my head if I gave out anything too personal, not that there was much to speak of for his personal life anyway. He had been out of a relationship for a few years and he wasn't much of a partier.

"Yeah, sure. A regular guy." The girl who had been identified as Lexi, scoffed.

"What's your boyfriend like then?" Lexi's friend voiced after a few minutes.

Suddenly my heart was beating in my throat and I felt like screaming.

Before I realized what I was doing, I looked over at Jeff to realize he was staring me at with wide, concerned eyes that resembled a puppy's.

As if right on cue, an older woman walked in asking for, assumingly, the other girl because they both said their goodbyes as they left.

"…It's Bailey right?" The unnamed friend pondered in a way that would have sounded unnecessarily bitchy if it wasn't the way she naturally spoke. I had never been more thankful for someone so spacey and conceited in my entire life.

"It's Kali." A small smile on my face.

When the door slammed shut behind them, Jeff instantly turned on his heels and faced me. "What the hell happened to you? And what the hell happened the other night at Nick's?"

In all honesty, I wish I knew. I was still attempting to figure this all out on my own and preferred to keep it to myself, and so I did.

Or at least I tried to.

"Will you at least try and talk to her for me?" My second youngest brother of 21 years begged me. If it weren't for his pride, he would be on the floor on his knees.

"Why can't you get Kevin to do it?" I groaned.

"Because he's too busy with Danielle and their baby planning."

Ever since Danielle and Kevin had started talking about children, the planning never seemed end. Now with only months until the baby would be born, they were both jumping off walls.

Nick was out of his mind if he thought he was going to get me to talk to Kali for him. Sure, she was more than just some girl to Nick, but he could handle his own damn problems.

"What the hell makes you think she's going to listen to me? She hates me!"

"Because you haven't tried to make a move on her… recently." I smirked thinking back to junior year of high school when Kali was just a freshman.

After taking a long sigh of annoyance at my little brother staring back at me with intense dark brown eyes, I finally gave in. I mean why the hell not? I don't have anything to gain or lose in this. Besides maybe after rejoining Nick and Kali, I could get a free coffee.

We discussed what he wanted me to pass on and whatnot for another half hour because he couldn't make up his god damned mind on what he wanted to say. I hadn't talked to the girl in like 2 years knowing what to talk to her about was far out of my expertise.

Making my way over to the shop it's self wasn't too difficult, being only a few blocks away. It was the fans that made it an ordeal.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job, and my fans. I mean, who doesn't love a little extra attention? It would just be nice to walk across the god damned street within being interrupted to take 3-5 pictures each and every trip. Although, I can't complain too much about gifts and extremely attractive fans. And fans that were both? God, don't get me started.

In all seriousness, sure it could get annoying, but I was grateful. I was grateful for the money, the gifts and for something I didn't admit often, the support. I was grateful for it all.

I made it all the way down the block and nearly inches away from the door before I heard a shrill voice scream to my left. "Oh my god, Joe Jonas!"

"Hey guys." I turned to respond shooting them a wide grin. "What's up?"

"Could I get a picture?!" The first one piped up, jumping in place.

"Could we get a picture?" The second one corrected her.

"Of course." The two girls pulled out their phones and snapped a few pictures as they squealed.

Unsurprisingly, they also asked for my autograph as well. "So who am I making this out to?"

"Mary and Lexi."

I scribbled the first chicken scratch autograph onto the back of the magazine they handed me.

"Hey Joe, what do you think of Nick's girlfriend?"

It was a simple question, but I couldn't chuckle. Who was the rumored girlfriend now? Miss USA? "Who?"

"You know, Kali."

My head shot up so fast I was surprised I didn't get whiplash. "Kali?"

"Yeah. What do you think of her?"

I didn't feel bothered to read gossip magazines or sites anymore but I felt like I just missed the shooting of the president. The one identified as Mary flipped over the magazine in my hand and sure enough there was Kali on the front page.

I hurriedly scribbled the second signature and rushed into the café.

"What the hell do they mean Nick Jonas' girlfriend?!" I marched in, directly to the counter.

Kali looked as though she was somewhere between exhausted and annoyed.

"No Joseph, I am not dating your brother."

"Well I know that! I would have found out by now. Just- someone explain to me what the hell is going on."

The dark haired co-worker standing next to her looked just as confused as I felt. This only encouraged me to interrogate Kali further.

"Look," She sighed, as she ran a frustrated hand through the hair that wasn't tied back. "Nick and I were just hanging out and then as I was leaving the paparazzi attacked me."

"But what about your br—" the guy behind the counter asked before Kali interjected.

"That was something different."

"What—" I began to ask myself before she interrupted me this time.

"What the hell are you doing here, Joe? Are you here to order coffee, because if you are I can hand you a cup and you can be on your way out."

"Nick needs to talk to you." I explained gently yet urgently.

"Well why can't he come and do that himself?"

"Because you've ignored every single phone call and text he's sent you the past two days. You can try and pull this 'nothing happened' bullshit, but everyone knows more than that happened that night. We just don't know what."

"We kissed." She blurted out, her face slightly blushed. "I went to Nick's to hang out like old times and towards the end, we kissed each other and it got awkward so I left."

"Did Brad find out? How did he take it?" I asked. I didn't know much about him, but Nick always somehow managed to talk about how annoyed he was by him.

Immediately following the question, she bowed her head and began scrubbing the shining countertop in front of her. In the process of doing so, the hair on the side of her head fell out of the placement it had been in earlier, exposing a shadowy but apparent bruise on her face.

"…Kali?" I heard my voice crack. Surely, he didn't….

Her once bright blue eyes, looked wan and miserable. "He didn't take it well."

I'm so sorry for the wait on this last chapter! School's been kicking my ass lately. As always, thanks so much to the amazing Milly for your input and advice! I love you all so much for your everlasting support and faith in me and this story. Thank you all so, so much! I hope you all enjoy this chapter as well as the rest of the story.

Of course, Reviews as always greatly appreciated and ultimately my biggest motivation.