As much as I hate to say it, I must again say that I do not own the Gallagher Girls, all rights to the characters go to Ally Carter. (:

I bury my face in the crook of my pillow. For a few moments, I just breathe in and savor these short periods in which I have no worries and can simply breathe. My pillow radiates heat and I instinctively reach an arm around and try to pull it closer.

But the pillow lets out a low groan and a set of arms wrap around me. Suddenly, the groggy morning moments are over and I realize that my head is not on a pillow, it is on something way leaner and muscular than a pillow. I was sleeping with Zach.

The sensation of waking up in someone's arms is still odd and frankly, a bit off-putting, but I can't complain. I haven't had a nightmare once in the eighteen nights I've been spooned up against Zach.

For a moment, I try to pretend that this is not something new. I try to not remember why I wake up every morning tracing my fingers lightly across Zachary Goode's well sculpted abs. And yet, every morning I do. Cammie is still missing, and maybe she always will be.

It has been seventy days now since the Operative was last seen and sixty-nine since I decided that the next time I see her, I may kill her for making me worry so bloody much.

Zach rolls onto his side to be able to look me in the eyes. "Good morning, Bex," he tries to make it sound like he's used to this, but I can tell from the look in his eyes that he is not. Sometimes, when we sleep, I can hear him mumble Cammie's name as he grips me tighter. Great to know that I'm simply a replacement for his girlfriend.

Which, evidently, I did. Zach and I's sleeping together has just been a way to fall asleep. No clothes come off, nothing is aroused, we just lay down and sleep. Sometimes you just need something to hold onto.

I needed Zach, and he needed me.

I don't consider it betraying Cammie. In fact, anything that I try not to feel for Zach I blame on Cammie. She's the one who left. Cammie is the one who ran.

Cammie is the one who ran and didn't take us with her.

So, I listlessly mumble back, "Morning Zach."

He studies me for a second, presumably attempting to figure out why I am not reacting as I usually do to waking up beside him. I guess he comes to the conclusion that I'm overly stressed out, because the next thing I know, his lips have found my own and he's pulling me against him.

If I'd have been standing at the moment, my knees probably would've given out. Throughout my grief and fright and stress, Zach has been the only thing to keep me anchored. His kiss is sweet, unlike most of the times he kisses me. This kiss is not for him, no, this kiss is different. This kiss is for me.

But it feels more like it's for Cammie and so I pull away.

Zach cocks an eyebrow at me. I've never pulled away before. He's always the one who must pull away from me. For a moment, I stare at him, unwilling to look away.

Then I kiss him, just the way I like it. Primitive. This way no feelings can surface. This way when Cammie returns—if she returns—I will feel no emotional attachment to Zach. I allow myself to be a lot of things, but I refuse to steal Zach away from Cammie. Only a bad friend would do that.

But this is coming from the girl who is currently playing tonsil tennis with her best friend's boyfriend in bed. And damn, I won't lie, it feels good.

I only feel alive when I'm kissing Zach these days. So I allow myself to roll on top of him and straddle my knees at his waist.

Whatever tension I'd built up already this morning disappears and all I know is that I am kissing Zach.

His hands trace down my waist as I nip at his lip. We've grown accustom to each other in this manner. This is purely a stress reliever. A way to try to forget that my best friend and his girlfriend is out in the world alone and perhaps even dead.

Zach's forearm goes around my waist and he pulls me close, fitting me perfectly against him before rolling to his side, pulling back and getting out of bed.

My parents were called on an assignment, so for now, it's just me and Zach in the house, supposedly getting ready to go back to school tomorrow.

Zach's coming too. The trustees agreed to let him go to Gallagher full time. I guess there's nowhere else he can go.

I straighten out my tank top and stand up too. Zach's hovers over his already half-packed bags, breathing heavy and pulling out a pair of jeans. "Do not tell me you're planning on spending the day without a shirt on." I roll me eyes at him, but he simply shrugs.

"Hey, the parental units cleared out. No one here to tell me to put a shirt on." Zach smirks at me with his signature look.

I giggle in a totally un-Bexlike manor, retorting, "Since when did you take a liking to Team Jacob?"

"I did not," he tells me, changing out of his pajama bottoms as I pull my hair back into a ponytail. "You yourself should know I don't swing that way."

Winking, I respond, "Hey, you kiss me, doesn't exactly mean that you have to enjoy it."

Zach balls up his blue pajama bottoms and chucks them playfully at me. I simply laugh and pick them back up off the ground. "Is this what guys do instead of chucking panties at severely attractive members of the opposite sex?"

"Or you know, what guys do when they're trying to change and a girl is practically drooling at them." Zach snaps.

"I do not drool, Zachary. I do, however, appreciate a good set of abs when I come across them. I mean, bloody hell, what do you to get them?" I ask, pulling yesterday's t-shirt on overtop of my tank top. Zach may have no problem flashing me his Batman boxers, but I still maintain a little decency in front of a guy who I know is not my other half.

He shrugs, "I had to have maintained something from my extensive training at Blackthorne. I honestly think that the only guy there who didn't have a six pack was Jonas."

I stand and the two of us walk out of the room together and down the hall to the kitchen. Even his back is sexy. Then I mentally slap myself for even letting that thought cross my mind.

Think of something different, I silently plead to myself, but the thought that pops up is not one that I wish to think of either. Still, the words tumble out of my lips, "We go back to school tomorrow." I state, and then realize how much of an idiotic statement that must have sounded like.

So, I revise it: "We go back to school tomorrow and Cammie is still gone."

Zach pauses with the fridge door open, staring blankly in. I should not have mentioned her. We were doing so well. We had been so close to normal and then I had to go and think.

My entire life I've been trained to remember and recall. I've been trained to think. But I can honestly say that I've never regretted those facts so much before. I can still see her, remember all Cammie's favorite movies and bands. I remember going through Josh's trash during sophomore year.

That's the problem. I remember. And so does Zach. We will never be able to forget about Cameron Ann Morgan. She will always be engraved into our memories and the person that we worry most about. Zach and I will never, ever stop searching for her. To get her back, we would both crawl through the deepest pits in hell.

I don't touch Zach. Right now, we are both made of ice.

Zach just closes the refrigerator and crouches down to his knees, holding his head in his hands. It's as close to a fetal position as Zachary Goode is capable of assuming. "We go back to school tomorrow and she's still missing." He says distantly.

He's making me acknowledge it and I hate him for it. I hate that I have to say aloud, "What if she never comes back?"

"Just like her dad." Zach says. He looks like he's lost the will to go on, the will to fight.

I knew that he'd reached rock bottom already. Two weeks he'd been missing earlier this summer, but he'd come back. And that was when I knew that he'd hit his lowest, because that was when he first kissed me. No one resorts to something so desperate when they have not hit the bottom.

Damn, I wish I could fix this mess. I wish I could go out, grab Cammie from whatever dreamland she'd run off to when she decided to run away, and bring her back to him. I wish that everything would just go back to bloody normal.

Tired. I am so, so tired. I've spent too many days stressed out, worried, listening for any sign that Cammie is alive or dead. My body feels awkward and too small. I don't eat enough anymore, but I don't think any of us really do. Head Mistress Morgan has never been more stressed out and frantic.

She's lost both her husband and her daughter now.

All of our hope is as good as gone now. She said she'd be back by now. In her mission report, she'd promised she'd be back by now.

I guess that was a lie.

I reach down and pull Zach to his feet. "Until we know that she is gone forever, promise me we will go on as if she is. No matter what we must give up."

He stares down at me. "Promise?" he asks.

Never before has Zach seemed so awkward in his own body. I hate to see the pain in his eyes and the disappointment as he stands in the kitchen and just stares at the table. This isn't the strong and sexy Zach I've gotten to know perhaps too well over summer break. No. This is the boy who knows that he has almost officially lost everyone he ever cared about.

So I place my hand gently on his cheek and whisper, "I promise."

Zach pulls me in close to him and buries his head in my neck. We don't kiss. There is nothing romantic about this moment. We have spent so much time worrying. So much time that we should have been able to laugh during.

But we couldn't. I am going to miss these days alone with Zach, though not for the reason anyone watching would think.

People who only saw us would think that I would be missing a lover. That we only had one summer together, and then we split off and never saw each other again, but that is not true. I am going to miss these days where I only had one thing to worry about and one person who was there for me at every second of the day.

I am going to miss the friend, not the hot and heavy make-out sessions with an extremely attractive teenage boy. Though, who could really blame me. I think any girl would be more than disappointed to stop the make-out sessions.

Well, as long as the make-out sessions weren't with their missing best friend's boyfriend. I'm just screwed up.

"She'll be back." I tell him, "And when she does, I'm going to murder her."

Zach raises an eyebrow at me, then gives that slow, sexy smirk. "I think I'd call that counterproductive, Baxter," he says. "And remember, you lay a finger on Cammie and I'll be the one doing the killing."

I laugh. "You think you could beat me, Goode? I'd like to see you try."

And that was all it took to raise our spirits again. Sometime laughing is the only thing you have left. Sometimes you have to believe what someone tells you.

So, I believe that when I get back to school, Cammie will be sitting on her dorm room bed, reading our newest Culture and Assimilation textbook, taking notes. I believe this because I believe that Cammie keeps her promises. She promised she'd be back. And I promise myself that she wasn't lying.

I don't touch Zach after that. I'm not sure I ever will again. Now it just feels like betraying a girl who's still watching. So I ignore anything I might feel for him and try to go back to normal life. But until Cammie comes back, it won't be normal. There will still be a hole in my life. Perhaps it will mend. Someday, sometime, somewhere, with someone, but today I do not think of that.

Today I promise myself that she will return, for that is all I have left.

A promise.

So, I must admit, I'm kinda still deciding whether I prefer Zex or Zammie, but I feel like this is the only thing that ever could happen with Bex and Zach. They're both loyal and smart and trustworthy. But yeah. That's it for this I think. Though, I'm kinda formulating in my head a third chapter. Maybe if I get enough reviews...(: ~Skylar Marie