Wow, guys. I didn't expect to get that kind of response. Thank you. You really made me feel better. And because you did, I sat down and wrote you a new chapter, though it took a bit longer because Mitchie's song turned into a poem, only this time I wrote it out, not just fiddled with it. Anyway, you find out Shane's problem. I didn't address Nate and Caitlyn yet, though. And she was just randomly in a better mood. She was the one who wanted a break, so she's less mopey, okay? Good. Now, on to chapter 28. And I will definitely tell you when this is over. Okay?

Chapter 28

Thankfully, we had Brown's singing class first the next morning. Breakfast had been pretty awkward when we ran into each other. He'd been walking Jacob, who ran over to me without a thought. He's a dog, he didn't know. I noticed Shane's knuckles were scraped up, but the sadistic part of me thought it served him right for punching whatever he did in his cabin.

As usual, the class was rocking out when Brown showed up. He walked in laughing. "Don't stop on my account." He laughed at all of us as we sat down. "Alright, who wants to sing?" We all raised our hands happily. That was something I loved about Brown, he could always make you forget your problems.

After a few people sang, he made me sing. "Come on, love." He coaxed. "You know I love your voice." I smiled slightly. I heard Tess say something to one of the lemmings. Their names weren't important to me. Brown shot her a look.

"Okay, um…" I paused trying to decided what to sing. Suddenly, the words just flowed. "Tear the bandages back and see, What it is you're doing to me. You're making me bleed from old wounds and I want to keep them closed. Be the guardian I need you to be."

I saw Caitlyn give me an odd look. "Not quite what I was expecting from you, but it was different. I liked it. Did you write it yourself?"

"Uhm, I may have just adlibbed that." I said.

"Awe, trouble in paradise?" Tess snickered.

"At least I'm in paradise, Tess." I replied back smiling tightly as I sat back down next to Caitlyn.

"Okay, what was that?" She whispered to me. I shrugged. "That was not your usual."

"I don't know. I guess just everything with Shane got to me." I replied as more people sang. She didn't really like my answer, but accepted it anyway. I pulled out a piece of paper and quickly scribbled the lyrics I had running through my head down. I may be mad, but if I can get a new song out of it, then so be it.

After lunch wasn't as much fun as Brown's class in the morning. Shane tried to talk to me during lunch, but I walked away from him. He had Jacob, so I knew he couldn't follow me into the kitchen. Mom gave me a look, knowing I was hiding, but I didn't care.

I had Shane's dance class after lunch, and I was not looking forward to it. Thankfully, though, Tess' lemmings weren't in it.

"You guys know the drill. Grab a hat. We're doing partner dancing this year." Shane said walking in late. "And sorry I'm late. I had to walk my dog." The girls awed while I glared a little. He was actually my dog. I mumbled that under my breath and Caitlyn gave me a look. "Okay, so I'm going to make Caitlyn help me show you guys."

"What?" Caitlyn squeaked. I knew about this. It was my idea. Another thing I mumbled.

"Cait, you're the best dance I have. Unless you want me to go get Nate-"

"No, no. That's cool." Caitlyn said practically running up to him.

"Of course he'd pick her." Tess said, though I don't think we were supposed to hear.

"What was that Tess?" Shane questioned, moving closer to her.

She mad a weird face that was supposed to be sad, I think. "I just don't think it's fair that certain people get special privileges. That's all." She sighed for dramatic effect.

"Hmm." Shane pretended to ponder that for a moment, before replying. "Don't you think Mitchie would be up here if I was playing favorites, Tess?"

"Not if she's mad at you." She replied snidely.

I saw his jaw twitch and knew he was getting upset. "That'd be more of a reason, Tess." I commented. I saw Shane give me a look but I could see him relax a bit. "He'd have an excuse to talk to me."

"Thank you, Mitchie." He said sarcastically. "I am not playing favorites." He said loudly to the whole class. "I know Caitlyn can dance. She helped Jason over the summer when we worked in new choreography to the show. Actually, she knows this routine." She blushed. "You want to be up here, prove to me you can dance this routine." He said in a final tone.

The music started and he showed Caitlyn the first move he wanted her to do. She picked up the general rhythm quickly and they did the first piece for us to follow. I ended up working with Andy, not that I cared. He'd really come a long way from our first dance class. Shane and Caitlyn did the whole routine, tossing each other their hats and mics at different points.

After class, Shane grabbed my hand, holding me back. "What the hell was that?" He asked, referring to earlier.

"You were getting mad. You didn't need to flip out at Tess." I explained softly, not looking at him.

"Did you have to say the second half?" He asked and I could tell he was mad.

"Yes, I did. Because they all knew it and it put Tess in her place."

"You just wanted to see me belittled, Mitchie, and don't even try to say otherwise."

"You don't know me, Shane. Stop pretending you do. Because you made it abundantly clear that you don't!" I yelled at him.

"I do know you!" He yelled back. "That's the problem, Mitch!"

I shook my head. "No, Shane, you thought you did, and you realized you didn't, so know you're trying to figure me out all over again. And you're doing a really bad job of it." I pulled my hand away from his and left the cabin quickly. I heard him cursing to himself and felt only slightly guilty for walking away. I was still too angry to care much, though.

I headed back to his cabin to take Jacob for a walk. I didn't think to leave Shane a note letting him know I had the dog and received a panicked phone call.

"What Shane?" I asked bitterly.

"Mitchie? Do you have Jake? He's not in my cabin." He seemed really frantic.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. I wanted to spend some time with him."

"Oh." He said quietly. "Um, next time, leave a note or something, please? I got really worried that he got out or something. You know how adventurous he is, he could get lost in the woods real easily." He was genuinely worried and I felt some of my anger ebb away.

I sighed. "I'm going to bring him back in a few."

"Okay."

"Bye." I said softly, about to hang up.

"Love you." He said cautiously.

"I know." I said back and hung up.

A few minutes later I made my way back to Shane's cabin. He was sitting on the steps waiting for me. "Mitchie…" He sighed. "Can we please talk? No yelling or screaming? Just talk?"

I shrugged. "I guess." He stood up to let Jacob into the cabin. I remained standing off of the steps, so he took the leash from my hand. Our hands touched and I shivered slightly. When he sat down again, I remained standing.

"I'm not… I'm not treating you differently." He looked up at me hesitantly. "I wouldn't have told you even before the last week."

My gaze hardened at his admission. "This was a bad idea, Shane." I started walking away, knowing I was too mad still to listen to him clearly.

"No, Mitchie." He grabbed my hand again, stopping me. "You don't understand. I've been protecting you from my problems since day 1. I don't want to burden you with them."

"No, Shane, you don't understand. You tell me you want to marry me but you don't seem to understand something important in a marriage. You need to trust me and I'm supposed to be able to help you deal with your problems. They should be our problems. Not yours. Why is it okay for you to take on mine, but I can't handle yours? I'm not as weak as you seem to think." I said back before turning to walk away again.

This time he stepped in front of me. "Mitchie," He sighed. "I'm sorry, okay? I know I was wrong to not tell you what was wrong. I didn't realize it mattered so much."

"Shane, you get so upset when I won't tell you when something is bothering me. How could you possibly think it wasn't a big deal?"

"Because you wouldn't tell me! I didn't think sharing our problems mattered to you, so I didn't bother you."

"I can't believe you thought that." I said once again trying to move past him. He grabbed my arms keeping me in place though.

"Baby." He was pleading with me to stay and hear him out. "Please?" I sighed and stopped fighting him, but wouldn't look at him. "When you freak out, I freak out. It gets to me that I upset you. But that's not what my problem was, okay?"

I nodded, "You still haven't told me. That's what this whole thing started over and you haven't told me." I said still mad.

"I know. I freaked out when I heard you telling Caitlyn you wanted to go on the pill…"

I looked up at him confused. "Why? What does that have to do with you, other than the obvious?"

"You didn't tell me." He looked down. "And I wanted to know why. And the whole not knowing if you would be the one stopping us… where did that come from?"

"Why didn't you just ask me?" I demanded.

"Because it was a private conversation with Caitlyn we weren't supposed to hear."

"That didn't stop Stas." I laughed slightly.

He smiled. "That's because Stas loves being tactless. It makes her, her. She doesn't care if she shouldn't ask, she just does."

"I wish you would've just talked to me instead of just ignoring me, Shane. I need to think, okay? This entire time I've been thinking you were getting sick of me…"

"I can't get sick of you." He said softly cupping my face with his hands.

"Shane. Let me go, please." I put my hands on his, trying to coax him into letting me leave.

"No. Never." He whispered thinking I meant more than I did.

"Shane, please. I don't mean for good. I mean for now. Right now. I'm still mad at you. I need to fully forgive you before I can be with you completely, okay? Otherwise I'll resent you. I don't want to resent you."

"How do I know if I let you leave right now you'll come back? You won't change your mind about us? You won't realize we're too different or something? What if you find it's not worth it. Or you find someone else?"

"Shane." I said warningly.

"Just tell me." He demanded softly. I pushed him away with all of my might.

"Damn you, Shane. Why are you so thick headed?" I cried at him. I pulled off his ring and threw it at him. "That was why. I made a promise to you, remember? A promise to be with you forever. Or as long as possible. But damn it, you're making this impossible right now." I ran away from him, tears streaming down my face.

By the time I reached my cabin, the tears had stopped falling because I was hurt and began falling because I was angry. Angry at him and angry at myself. I couldn't believe I threw the ring back at him. But I couldn't believe he doubted me even more.

I skipped dinner that night and had all of my meals in the kitchen with Caitlyn and Anastasia. Shane knew better than to try to talk to me, but that didn't stop him from staring at me all the time. In class, Caitlyn and Lola made a human barrier. I noticed though on the fifth day of not talking to him something hanging around his neck. He did a flip or something, I wasn't really pay attention. I was too busy looking out the window. But a chain fell out from under his shirt. Hanging off the chain was my ring. He noticed me staring at him and followed my eyes. He quickly slipped it back under his shirt but looked me in the eyes to express to me that he was sorry. I was still mad at him though.

"Ugh!" Anastasia came in and sat on the edge of my bed on day 10. She took a deep breath and screamed.

"What the? Stas, you okay?" I asked looking up from the song I was working on.

"If I have to hear one more time: 'I love her, why can't she see that?' or 'I love her, why is this so hard?' or 'I love her and she hates me' one more time, I swear both of you will be boyfriendless!" She yelled in frustration.

"The guys bugging you?" Caitlyn asked from behind her laptop, not bothering to look up.

"You have no idea. If I'm with Nate, it's 'What is Caity's problem, Stas? Mitchie won't tell me and Shane is in his own world. Tell me what I'm doing wrong. I love her, does she not realize that?'" I saw Caitlyn pause but still not look up. "He is going crazy with you ignoring him. And you." She turned on me. "If I'm with Shane, it's 'Stas, what am I supposed to do? She thinks I don't trust her, but in reality, I'm just afraid to loose her. I love her so much. I hate not being able to talk to her. I just want her to explain everything to me that I overheard. I need to talk to her and she won't let me. She hates me.'"

I looked down, a bit angry again. "They convinced you to come in here and preach to us? Wow, Stas, thanks for choosing sides." I stood up and headed toward the door.

"I'm not choosing sides, Mitchie." She said, her voice surprisingly hard. "I'm trying to salvage my friendships before I have to. The four of you are miserable. I may not be as close to any of you as you are to each other, but that just means I can see what your doing to one another without even realizing it. Nate and Caitlyn have always leaned on you and Shane when they have problems, and vice versa. You and Shane lean on Nate and Caitlyn. But when all four of you are fighting, who's going to step in and say enough is enough?" Anastasia asked me giving me a hard look. I looked down, thinking.

"I'm going out." I said softly.

"Where?" She and Caitlyn asked.

"I don't know. Where ever my feet take me. I need to think." I left and just began to wander. I eventually came to the canoes at the dock. Shane was there untying one of them. He had Jacob on the leash with him.

"You are not taking our dog on that canoe." I said quickly. "He'll jump out."

"Is he still ours, Mitchie?" He asked, sounding seriously depressed.

"Of course, Shane." I said softly. "Why don't we get in one of these together and talk? That way neither of us can run and we can scream and yell all we want? Just no flailing." He smiled slightly and began pushing the canoe into the water as I picked Jacob up, handing him to Shane. He helped me into the boat and handed Jacob back to me.

After Shane managed to get us to the middle of the lake, he set the oars down. "Tell me why you didn't tell me. You could have told me when you mentioned it in the future tense."

"I don't know. I wanted to see what your reaction was, and I didn't just want to be like 'oh by the way, when we get back from Camp Rock, I'm going on the pill because I don't trust us not to do something stupid.'"

"You don't trust us? You don't think we can control ourselves?" He seemed upset by that.

I sighed. "Shane, I told my mother I wanted to have sex with you." I said quietly, but I knew he heard me. He was silent and when I looked at him, his mouth was opening and closing a few times.

"Like, straight out?" I nodded. "I thought you meant like, you may have indirectly said 'Mom, I want to go on the pill, thus meaning I want to have sex. Most likely with Shane.' Why did you tell her that?"

"Because she asked. I was being honest with her. Shane, I was raised to believe that until I could tell my parents flat out that I wanted to have sex without getting remotely embarrassed, that I shouldn't. I know you believe you're supposed to wait until marriage, but I don't. But I respect that you do. See, the difference is this." I picked up his hand showing him his ring. "This means you promise not to have sex until your married." I lifted my own hand, forgetting that I didn't have my ring, though admittedly my hand felt naked without it. "This means I promise to wait for you. When you're ready I'm ready. If that's right now or that's 30 years from now when we get married, I'm yours and I'll be waiting."

He surprised me and leaned forward, kissing me suddenly. I lost myself in the kiss and was thankful we didn't tip the canoe. I didn't know if Jacob could swim and I didn't want to find out.

When he pulled back, I gasped for breath. "What was that for?" I asked breathless.

"You have no idea what you just did, do you?" He asked pressing his forehead against mine. I looked at him confused. "You held up your hand to show my a ring that isn't there." I blinked and looked down at my hand, suddenly remembering it wasn't. "Then, you basically said your mine to take when I want. The perverted, primal instinct just translated that into you marking yourself as mine for eternity." He let his words sink in for a moment before speaking again. "I just wish you would've told me you were worried about us losing control. And I know that you were freaked out by my indirect proposal, though really that's what this is." He pulled the chain off of his neck and slipped the ring off. "I don't mean to freak you out, sometimes I just get caught up. I forget we need to slow down. Sometimes you need to remind me. You want this back?" He asked holding the ring in his fingers. I nodded, so he took my hand and slipped it back on. "I promise to let you know when something is bothering me and to stop being a spoiled brat about it."

"I promise to let you know when I'm freaked." I said softly.

"So are we good?" I nodded.

"Actually," I paused. "Shane, you know I love you, right?" He nodded. "Okay, I think. I think we need to slow down a bit. Can we take this summer to try to be friends again? I'm not saying we're breaking up or taking a break, even. You can still kiss me all you want. I just, I want to take things slower. No more talking about futures and babies and proposals. And we don't have to be attached at the hip. Like last summer when we would sit by the dock and you would sing to me."

"Deal." He kissed my knuckles.

"Good." I kissed him and whispered against his lips. "I love you."

"I love you, too." He said back. "Want to head back?"

I nodded. "Can we stay by the dock for a while, though?" He nodded.

We spent the rest of the night sitting and talking about nothing important. He sang parts of the new song he was working on, sans guitar. Everything felt right again. More than it had.

Okay, that's it. It's over. No, I'm totally kidding. It's not. Not by a long shot. Promise. And bytheway: 900 reviews! I love you guys.