A/N: I only missed one week this time! *celebrates*
I both like and dislike this chapter; I apologize for the length, for those who don't enjoy reading long chapters, but if I had gone any further, the chapter would have been 15,000 words. I spread it out into another chapter and I also added a few more...remember the original 26 chapters I had planned? Yeah? Now it's 34. There's going to be 34 FREAKIN' CHAPTERS.
So, enjoy that moment while you can. (THIRTY-FOUR CHAPTERS!) I included a few scenes you guys won't find enjoyable, but I think it was necessary to write those in.
I have a three day weekend, though, so I could probably get some pre-writing done while I still can. Better now than never, right? Chapter 20 (jfc) is going to be like a rollercoaster, so hang on for a bumpy ride, because Fabian meets someone new and Nina's flaws finally come into play (I feel she's the character I need most defend. She's the most hated on the show and gosh dangit she shouldn't be.)
~Lia

~For you, I was a chapter. To me, you were the book.~
~Tom McNeal

Early in the morning of November 5th, 2012, two days after my friends met Eddie and Mara, Eddie drove to my house and dropped off my daughter, as he and Mara had school, and I didn't.

"Okay, food and drinks are in the bag," he told me, handing me the huge duffel bag on my free arm, as I had my daughter in my other. "She doesn't do well with one person she doesn't recognize, but crowds seem to relax her, so keep her in big groups and/or with only one person at all times."

"I know."

"She likes horses and playing with people's hair and bananas and toy cars and dolls."

"I know."

"Her nap time is at 1 PM and she always needs to hold someone's hand when she wakes up or she'll start screaming and won't stop for an hour and a half."

"I know! Eddie, I know everything. You can go now."

Eddie grinned. "Bye, Emma," he told the little two-year-old, kissing her head, then bidding me a goodbye and driving off, leaving me alone with my daughter. When his car vanished, I brought Emma into the house with me.

Seven hours to go.

"Okay," I began, closing the front door to see all of my four sisters and mother, who all agreed to stay home with me to look after their niece/granddaughter. My father didn't agree; instead of joining the rest of the family, he went off to work. "I need you all to approach me at the same time, because if you don't, this little one will start crying, and I really don't need to deal with yet another screaming temper tantrum. I've had enough of those to last me the rest of my life, and she's only two years old."

"Aunt Isabelle!" Isabelle cheered, pushing herself off the couch and running to me, calling my other sisters and mother towards her. They all surrounded me at the same time, so when Isabelle slapped her knee, signaling me to give Emma to her, I did as I was told.

"Fabian, she's a cutie," Rosie, my older sister by two years, said. She was the stereotypical "smart one" in the family, but she didn't particularly enjoy a child's presence. She resented Olivia from the moment she was born; I didn't think her opinion on toddlers would change in the six hours Emma had to reside at my dwelling.

"I know," I grinned, stretching my neck to make sure that Isabelle wasn't holding Emma upside-down by her nighttime-diaper (Nina was still trying to potty train her), but all Isabelle was doing was hogging Emma to herself and not allowing Olivia, who wanted to desperately to see what her older brother had made two years ago, but Isabelle, the oldest in the family at twenty-two years old, was holding poor little Emma high up in the air and taunting Olivia by saying, "Jump for it, Hannah Montana!"

"Isabelle," I chided, "Give Auntie Olivia a chance to see her niece, too. Not to mention that you're the one who's most likely to not drop the poor child on her head..."

"What did you just say?" she muttered playfully, bringing Emma down from up in the air and handing her to the fourteen-year-old. Emma's tiny little hands, that would soon be writing "Emma Martin" (or Emma Rutter, depending on how the next three years went) on the top left corner of the page in her Kindergarten class, grabbed a strand of Olivia's curly red hair and began twirling it around her finger; but Olivia, silent Olivia, just smiled and tried to pull the hair out of Emma's hands, but to no avail; she didn't know that once Emma grabbed your hair, there was no going back.

Conveniently forgetting to remind Olivia of how to handle a two-year-old, I escaped from the desperate Isabelle, the annoyed Rosie, the desperate-to-see-her-granddaughter mother, and walked over to the sofa, where my younger sister by two years, Chloe, sat with her hand on her chin, resting her elbow on her thigh.

"Hey," I began, plopping my butt next to Chloe. She just rolled her eyes and moved her gaze away from the rest of the group and me, so the only thing left to look at was the drab wall. "You know, you don't have to be so damn hostile," I sneered. "You can go greet your niece like the rest of the family is doing."

"I don't want to," she answered simply, finally meeting my gaze; I saw the same exact eye color reflected — the eye color that had been transmitted from my body to Emma's, the eye color that Nina had to look into every single day before she sent me the photograph and think of the man she had met, who didn't even know he had a child.

I groaned. "Chloe, don't become like dad," I told her, but all she did was roll her eyes. The Rutter family had a tendency to be a bit sarcastic. "He's told me multiple times to forget the two of them, but I've told him multiple times that I'm not going to do that. I really don't need another Dad in my life right now, much less Daddy's Little Angel."

Chloe sighed, stretching her back so she'd reach my height. "I'm not. I just don't feel the need to go up and greet someone who shouldn't be alive."

I had no idea why both my father and sister were so against Emma; Rosie despised little children, but she still accepted my daughter with open arms. I figured both of them were in denial, regretting to admit that their only son/only brother was a father at such a young age. Chloe confirmed my theory by saying, "I'm only sixteen, and I'm an aunt. That's a bit too soon to be an aunt from a nineteen-year-old brother, don't you think?"

"I thought you were against abortion?"

"I am."

"So would you have rathered Nina abort Emma back in 2010, or deal with the child now?"

Chloe opened her mouth, about to say something against my statement; only to close it, then open it again, then close it once more. I had to enjoy the brief moments which I made Chloe speechless.

She soon, however, regained her composure. "Okay, so I really don't know how to answer that without my walls crashing down around me. I—I guess I would have rathered Nina keep Emma to herself, not telling you about your child at all."

"So you'd rather me not know that I had a child for the rest of my life?!"

"Yes, Fabian!" she exclaimed. "That girl is wrecking our family! She's tearing you apart! You claim she helped you with your fame, but she's tearing you down. How do you think the fangirls are going to feel, once they realize that you're dating a teen mother? They're going to tear both you and Nina down together. You were sixteen, Fabian, gods damnit—"

"Please don't start with the 'mistake' rant again—"

"Fabes, think about it," she commanded, making me turn my longing gaze from my daughter back to my annoying younger sister who thought she knew everything. "You were sixteen. You were my age. Do you not see me making a mistake, do you not see me meeting this suave guy who I think's going to be amazing, but ended up breaking my heart?"

"But I didn't break Nina's heart—" I was cut off by Chloe's disapproving look, and the realization hit me like a brick.

I had always considered Nina this strong person, who was never affected by what people thought of her, her friends, and her family. I thought of her as this strong person that was confident in what she did and who she wanted to be. I had never once considered her as a weak person. I had never once thought of her crying when she was pregnant, I had never thought of her crying when she gave birth without her parents or the father to her baby to hold her hands while she pushed a human being out of her uterus at only sixteen years old, or crying because neither Eddie nor Mara believed her at first when she told them that Fabian Rutter was the father of her baby.

I had broken Nina's heart without realizing it the whole time.

That day in the coffee shop, back in the summer of 2009, I had acted like a total mystery, because I thought it was the only chance I'd get to be one. To the rest of my performing arts school that I used to attend, I was an open book. Everyone knew I'd always get the homework in on time. Everyone knew how I'd react when the teacher yelled at a student over missed homework or when the cafeteria didn't serve chicken teriyaki for lunch on Fridays. It was my only chance to become a mystery, so I saw the opportunity and took it.

I didn't tell Nina my name, because I thought I'd become to ultimate mystery. Ultimately, I ended up telling Nina everything about me but my name; how I aimed to be famous but my shyness was dragging me down, how I wrote songs all the time but no one in my family ever had the time to read them, and how I only had one friend at my school, but he had other friends to spend his time with.

Maybe I didn't break her heart the night we sex, but I broke her heart when she peed on the stick and the results came out positive.

I broke her heart every time she had to go to doctor's office to check up on the baby growing inside her without me.

I broke her heart on May 25th, 2010, when Nina had to go to the hospital and squeeze Eddie's hand until he lost feeling in it, not mine.

I broke her heart on May 25th, 2011, on Emma's first birthday, and on May 25th, 2012, on her second birthday.

I broke her heart every time she watched me on her computer screen, listening to my songs, watching my interviews, making sure she watched my concerts on YouTube or somewhere so she never missed a concert. I broke her heart day by day for three years, and I never even knew I was doing it.

"I would want to punch the guy in the nose," I admitted; Chloe shrugged her shoulders in an I-told-you-so motion, but I wasn't finished. "Nina and I only had a one-night stand, though. We knew each other for four hours before I started unhooking her bra strap — I mean, after we had sex — I woke up, and she was gone. I barely knew her. I didn't...I didn't really get to know her, you know?"

Chloe blinked.

"She...we were attracted to each other..." I attempted to explain, motioning with my hands. "We were interested in each other. Not, like, in the sexual way, but, like...interested like you'd be interested in a new television show or something. She was so smart, so bright, so optimistic and intelligent, and that was what I needed at the time. No one else at school ever wanted to spend time with me."

I sighed, thinking of that wonderful day back in 2009. "I was really lonely. I had no brothers to play football with—"

Snorting, Chloe interrupted me with, "Oh, please. You never played football in the first place."

"And I had no friends at my school," I continued, ignoring my sisters rude, unnecessary comment, "so I did everything alone. I ate lunch alone. I worked on projects alone. You think I actually expected some random person to come and sit next to me, all the while I was working on a song?"

She remained silent, and I realized that this was the first time I was ever going into detail about the night Nina and I met.

"I was working on a song that night," I continued, blocking out the voices of my awe-struck siblings, still playing with Emma. "I was so convinced that I would finish it that night, send it to a publisher. I thought they'd love it, I thought they'd sign me to a label or something and have me record it in a booth."

I saw that Chloe's expression was softening, and that was when I realized that my eyesight was getting misty. "Then, just as I was in the middle of writing it, someone sat next to me and said "Hi". I ignored her at first, so interested in my song...but she wouldn't stop asking questions. So, angered, I closed my laptop, and my interest ventured from my song to the girl sitting in front of me. She was different, she was...extraordinary. She was actually asking me questions about my song, instead of my classmates, who just brushed me off and doubted my writing skills.

"Nina was different. And that was what drew me in. Some could romanticize it and say that it was her smile, which was so curious and friendly, or her eyes, which were this puke-green color...they were the most disgusting color, Chloe, jeez. They were like...constipation; or roasted spinach; they weren't like emeralds, I can tell you that.

"But...it wasn't her appearance at all. She looked much different when she was fifteen, when I met her...she was actually interested in me. She payed attention to me. She was concerned about how deep I got into the music industry. She wanted me to succeed; I remember, the moment she told me that, I immediately just wanted to be her friend. Not just to talk with her for another hour and then part ways, never to talk to her again. I wanted to be friends with her, talk to her constantly, have her support and friendship with me wherever I went. And, as it turns out, we were never friends."

I released a weak laugh, as did Chloe. She looked like she wanted to speak, so I stopped, but she only opened and closed her mouth like a fish out of water. The fire between Chloe and I, the argument, died down after that. I probably could have convinced her to see the good in Nina, the good I see in her, the wonderful human being who had her flaws but was an amazing person overall; but instead, I pushed myself off the couch and walked over to my mother.

"I'm keeping her," was Isabelle's first words as I walked back over to the group. "I don't care what you say. I'm kidnapping her before I leave today."

I then had an irrational, terrible vision of a psycho rapist kidnapping Nina on the sides of the street, holding her hostage to collect information on me to pass on to his children; but as soon as it came, it faded.

"Oh, okay," I played along, tapping my mothers shoulder and striking up a conversation with her. My father, however, couldn't be here; he was the same as Chloe in the idea that they considered Nina a mistake, even though I've told both of them multiple times that I'd die for both of them if it came to that. Maybe I'd even sacrifice myself so the psycho rapist guy that kidnapped Nina for information on me wouldn't kill Nina and her family.

Although I've yelled at them, they didn't seem to understand. I loved Emma, but however, I was in love with Nina.

I was in love with Nina; with her smile, her optimism, how she could pick up someones spirits when life took a left turn, when things couldn't seem to get any worse. I was in love with the way she walked, the way how she held Emma in her arms, her disgusting eye color, the way she talked, the way she said my name, as if I wasn't actually in front of her and she was still looking at the naïve singer over a computer screen, the eighteen-year-old singer who had no idea he had a daughter who only lived fifteen minutes away.

It was strange to think about; if Isabelle hadn't cornered me one day last week, I wouldn't have admitted it to myself. I would still be in denial, saying she was nothing more than a friend to me, the mother of my child, a close acquaintance.

However, that was the opposite of what she was. The complete opposite. She was more than just Emma's mother, she was more than the person who I was trying to form a family with. I loved her more than a friend ever could, and I knew a little part of me knew that she considered me more than a friend as well.

How could we be friends, after everything that had happened? After we had sex that night in the summer of 2009, after we reunited in August 2012, after all those email conversations, after the almost-kisses and awkward moments and the time when I had to clean Nina's grandmother's fireplace and we accidentally bumped heads and I had to resist the urge to kiss her, right then and there, with that smile I had grown to love, the smile which I barely saw anymore.

"Can I, at least, hold my granddaughter?" Mum begged, reaching into the crowd of three girls; Rosie, who was now currently holding her niece, tossed her gratefully over to her mother.

"I wish her mother was here," Mum muttered solemnly, brushing Emma's hair out of her eyes, revealing the charcoal-blue that was inherited by her one and only father. "I want to meet her."

"Really?" I asked, gobsmacked, a smile forming on my cheeks. "You want to meet Nina?" and then Mum nodded feverishly, bouncing Emma up and down in her arms. I felt the need to hug my wonderful, kind, caring mother for wanting to meet the person who I loved more than anything in the world.

I wanted to warn her that she falls asleep if you bounce her too much (unless she's throwing a temper tantrum, then she'll just start screaming louder), but Emma looked so content in her grandmother's arms.

From a quick glance, Chloe didn't seem to have differed any more than before. Her arms were still crossed, and she was staring at the wall, as if the plaster was more interesting than my two-year-old daughter, the child of a popular musical artist.

She claimed that the fans would never accept her. And, deep inside, I knew that was true. Media was a sick, sick thing; they twisted something until it was something completely different. I could see the headlines now: "nineteen-year-old rising star Fabian Rutter rapes poor fifteen-year-old girl and gets her pregant when he was sixteen". Nina and I were different. We wanted different things. She wanted to move slow, and I wanted to move faster. She was on the one on top of me.

But somehow fate played its game and placed us in that coffee house at the same exact time. Maybe I didn't fall in love with her that summer evening, but I sure as hell fell for her in these past four months. Yet, "we couldn't fall in love".

My family all differed. My father was the polar opposite of my mother. Nina and I were different, so why couldn't we fall in love?

v v v

Music was a wonderful thing. It explained emotions and someone could pour their heart out in a simple three-minute-song.

As I looked down at my wrinkled, crumpled copy of the song I was writing on the day I met Nina, I cringed every few seconds. My songwriting skills different much from when I was sixteen. Now, at nineteen, I was more experienced and didn't write the lyric "We were meant for each other".

Lost and Found was something I hadn't experienced for myself, therefore being horrible.

When I was sixteen, I was still a virgin. Jesus Christ, I hadn't even had my first kiss before I met Nina in that coffee shop. I didn't know what love felt like, unless you count the type of love you say as you kiss your mother goodnight, even though you're going to see her first thing in the morning. I didn't really consider that the love you'd feel for your significant other.

Love was a complicated word. It was full of twists and turns, and it wasn't as easy as other people made it out to be. At the time, I hadn't known that. When I was writing Lost and Found, I acted like I was writing a novel between these two characters, like I was telling their story of their lost love and how they were trying to rekindle what they had. Lost and Found acted as if love as easy. Lost and Found acted as if you could fix a problem with the snap of your fingers.

In reality, love was the complete opposite.

Love wasn't easy; it was something you had to fight for. Maybe your father and younger sister didn't agree with you about how she was a mistake, so you had to fight to see her again.

You couldn't fix a problem with the snap of your fingers; you had to use manual labor to pick up the pieces and repair them yourself. Maybe you fought with her about how you thought she didn't try to be supportive of her friends, therefore making her ignore you for a week and a half; you couldn't fix that problem by singing a song by her window and expecting her to bound out of her house, jump into your arms, and kiss and make up. Love wasn't like that all.

Lost and Found told the story of two imaginary people who were naïve, who thought love was something you could just pass around. Hate was a strong word, but love was also one. If not stronger. Lost and Found told the story easily, as if the two people faced no obstacles.

Lost and Found, however, did not tell the story of a sixteen-year-old, hormonal boy who had only hit puberty two years ago, who met a wonderful girl at a coffee shop in the middle of August 2009, brought her back to his apartment, had sex with her, only to get her pregnant without knowing, but end up knowing three years later, after the mother sent him a photograph, leading to him driving to her house and reuniting with her, trying to form a family to make sure their child had a stable environment.

Oh, and they didn't mention the fame part, either.

Love wasn't an easy thing. And, in part, I was grateful for that. My story that I was currently writing with Nina would be boring if everything had always worked out in the end. What if I hadn't told her that I didn't like Emma's name that one time? We wouldn't have argued like an old married couple. What if I was on when Nina wanted to talk to me, after Patricia and Joy had called her out in school? I wouldn't have seen the vulnerable, teenage side of her. What if she hadn't yelled at me after I denied her in front of millions of people?

My story that I was sharing with Nina was not boring at all. Lost and Found, looking back on it, was completely and utterly boring. It didn't keep me on my toes like Nina did.

I didn't know Nina when I wrote the song. I didn't work on it after I met her. Here it was, perfectly preserved, untouched since 2009.

Other music described my relationship with Nina better than my own muse did. I could sing "Isn't She Lovely" to Emma every single day, singing her to sleep, and I'd never get sick of it. Emma would grow up with the lullaby of Isn't She Lovely, and she'd do unto her kids the same thing.

v v v

Emma seemed to like the sound of my guitar as I strummed it, sitting next to her, as she laid down on my pillow and listened to my chords. She seemed so interested, even more interested than I was in Nina on the night we met. And that made me so damn happy I couldn't explain.

My family had left, leaving me alone with my daughter. And, for once in my life, I wasn't scared.

I wasn't afraid I'd drop her on her head. I wasn't afraid that she'd realize I was a famous singer. I wasn't afraid of my daughter anymore, I wasn't afraid of being a father and taking responsibility. Maybe it was the support I'd gotten from my parents (minus my dad) but I wasn't all that scared anymore. I stared down at the two year old, lying on my white pillow, and I knew she was the most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on. Even more beautiful than the time when Nina tried on a dress for Mara and I had to give her my opinion on it; I had to hold myself back from telling her how beautiful she looked, since it was back in September, and we were still awkward fucks back then.

I really, really, really loved Emma. She would grow up to be the most beautiful teenager in the history of the world. More beautiful than Megan Fox. Even Jerome would agree that Emma was more beautiful than Megan Fox. At least I hoped he would.

Her giggle was the most beautiful thing in the world. Her smile was the most beautiful thing on the planet. Emma's features were the most beautiful thing in the universe.

"You are so beautiful," I muttered, softly strumming my guitar, making a sound not much louder than a whisper, "to me..."

I didn't know what I was singing myself. "You are so beautiful to me." And there I was, singing a song by Joe Cocker, relevant to both my daughter and my friend, Nina. Emma didn't know she was beautiful yet, and neither did her mother. However, Emma would grow to learn she is beautiful, meanwhile Nina has convinced herself that she is not.

She was told many lies by her classmates over the years. "Fat American", "Sophomore Slut", "Ugly Bitch", and "Selfish Prostitute" were some of which she'd told me she'd been called, as if she paid me to have sex with her in 2009, according to what her classmates were saying. Anyone would think they weren't beautiful after the person you'd lost your virginity to didn't even tell you his name while you were having the sex.

I sighed, placing my guitar at the edge of my bed so I could pick up Emma and place her on my pillow. I figured that the product of my sperm and Nina's eggs better have some comfort. "Don't stop!" Emma begged, thrashing in my grip, making me release her; tumbling down, she hit the bed and bounced a bit because of her small form, but quickly recovered and, giggling maniacally, slid off the bed, released a soft "oomph", grabbed the guitar and attempted to climb back up.

"Start again!" she told me, her tiny little hands handing me the huge guitar, almost heavy enough to topple her over. She muttered to herself, tilting when I took the guitar from her grip. "Thanks, hon," I said, ruffling her shoulder-length brown hair. I couldn't tell if it was dark or not; it was light right now, but as she got older, her hair might get darker along with her.

I helped her climb the bed, but she slapped my hand and said, "No!"

Cradling the hand slapped by my two-year-old daughter, I remembered what Nina had said, all the way back in September; "she's very independent". I couldn't imagine how a two-year-old could be independent, but Nina was more independent than I'd ever be.

Without my help, she laid back down on the pillow. Emma exclaimed, "Sing!" and I started to sing the same song again, realizing that Emma had probably been hearing my voice since she was months old.

According to Nina, she found out I was the father when Emma was three months old. So, in August 2010, when I was just starting as an artist, she was crying her eyes out and beginning Eddie and Mara to believe her, to believe it themselves that Mara's new favorite singer was the mysterious father of Nina's child.

I had never thought of her that way; when I met her, she was strong, confident, and beautiful. When I reunited with her, she was strong, confident, and beautiful. Two weeks ago, she was strong, confident, and beautiful.

It was hard to imagine the days when she was pregnant, the days she cried herself to sleep because she couldn't find the father, when she squeezed the life out of Eddie's hand as she was giving birth to the poor child with an AWOL father. I couldn't imagine her crying; even in the four months I had known her, I hadn't seen her cry. What would it be like, to see the tears streaming down her cheeks? I couldn't imagine the pain I would feel.

Emma, however, had grown up with my voice; I wasn't sure what would happen in the future, but if somehow, Nina and I couldn't be around each other or I had to go on a four-year tour or something and I couldn't see my daughter, she wouldn't stop listening to my voice. Emma would know what my voice sounds like for the rest of her life. If I died, or got kidnapped, or — god forbid — left Nina and Emma, then the only thing Emma would remember me by was my voice.

"Dad!" Emma called, startling me back to reality. She usually called me Daddy, so Dad was a shock to hear, and also a blast to the future. I could see Emma as a fifteen year old, asking me to buy her the shoes she really really REALLY wanted for an early birthday present. I laughed.

"Okay," I told her, rolling my eyes the slightest bit. "You'll get your song. You're just lucky your mother isn't here, because if Mommy was here, then I would not sing."

I realized how ridiculous that sounded. I had literally sang as we had sex together.

"Can't you see, you're everything I hoped for? You're everything I need." I sung, forgetting the things I had just said, and hoping that Emma forgot them too. The song was becoming more relevant to Nina than it was to Emma, now, but I kept singing, as I had her interest. "You are so beautiful to me." I finalized, but the song wasn't over.

"Such joy and happiness you bring," I murmured, seeing Emma was closing her eyes. For once, she was calm, and the fact that I was singing her to sleep made me happier than when Nina said she'd meet my friends. "Like a dream; a guiding light that shines in the night; heaven's gift to me."

She was asleep.

"You are so beautiful to me."

v v v

Eddie picked her up, drove her home, then came back the next day to drop her off. He came on Wednesday, then Thursday, and Friday, too. The only thing he was doing was angering my sisters. And then, before I knew it, the date on my computer read November 10th. I had five days before Nina came back.

Soon enough, the weekend came around. Just my luck that Eddie was forced to go on another fishing trip with his dad while Mara wanted to study for a test; so, as a compromise, they dropped her off at my house. On a Saturday, while both my father and my sister were home.

"Please tell me you were drunk," my father begged, for the thousandth time, as Eddie's car began pulling up into the driveway for the sixth time this week. "Please tell me you've been lying this whole time and drank underage so we wouldn't get mad. If you were drunk, then you didn't know what you were doing, and that's excusable."

"But not being drunk isn't?" I questioned, leaning back against the wall as Eddie opened the back door of his car to grab Emma out of the child's seat. "Being drunk and knocking a poor girl up to get her pregnant is acceptable, but not being drunk isn't?"

Eddie had begun to climb the hill up to my house now. My father bit his lip, and while he was considering his words, I peeked out the window to catch a glimpse of Eddie holding hands with the little one, laughing with her as she pointed out a black butterfly; I wasn't sure what she was saying, but it was enough to make Eddie on the verge of hysterics.

My father spun me back around to get my attention. "Look, son."

"Oh my God, Dad!" I complained, moving over next to the door so I'd be next to it while Eddie knocked. "I can't keep having the same fight day by day. Why are you so against them?"

He looked like he wanted to respond, but luckily, Eddie knocked. I opened the door at once, greeting Eddie and Emma with a grin, and leading them inside. Dad looked disappointed, somehow, but he left the room to be with my mother. Eddie told me how grateful he was of me to watch her again, as if I hadn't been doing it for seven hours a day for the entire week, and left without another word.

Emma waved me a hello, and I grabbed and tossed her up into my arms. "Hey, kiddo," I told her, walking away from my parents and sisters in the kitchen. They were all having still having breakfast. "How are you?"

Her response was a smile, but that was good enough for me.

I led her to the backyard; I was planning to spend the afternoon outside, as it was nearing the end of Autumn. It would be winter soon, so I probably wouldn't get another chance to be outside while it was still warm.

Unfortunately, the backyard was overgrown with weeds and grass; there was even a spot, near the back, that the grass was so high I doubted I'd be able to see Emma if I went back there. Groaning, I brought Emma to the front of the house.

I set her down on the lawn; she seemed to want to run around and look for the black butterfly again, so I sat down on the grass, ignoring the wet dewy stickiness that would most likely stain my nice tan pants. I was as happy as a clam watching my daughter, alone, without Nina or Eddie or Mara or my dad or anyone else who would get in the way of my father-daughter bonding time. I figured I deserved it, after all that I had missed. The only really big thing I knew about her was that she liked horses, meanwhile I knew her mother like a teenager knows her cell phone.

I called Emma over, back to me, when the door opened again, and Chloe walked out.

"Don't you dare say anything," I complained, sitting the squirming child down on my lap. "Stay still!" I commanded her, realizing that I had never acted like a father before (but I didn't really want to be all that fatherly just yet). "Jesus, Emma."

In response, to that, was farting on my already-stained-now-odorfull pants. I waved the smell away, trying to close up my nostrils, but little Emma didn't realize what she had just done. Chloe, laughing her ass off, sat down on the grass next to me; Emma scampered off across my lawn, chasing down a cricket that was not only annoying her, but me, too.

"I wasn't going to say anything," she finally answered my question, scowling. "Mum told me to come out here. She knows I've been holding a grudge against you for the past few days, so she said Go out and play with your brother and your niece or I'll tell the whole neighborhood you didn't stop sucking your thumb until you were nine so I came out here."

"You didn't stop sucking your thumb until you were nine?"

"Shut it!"

It was my turn to laugh this time. "So, you want to 'play' with me and Emma?"

"Well, not necessarily," she grumbled. "Mum just told me to come outside. She never said I had to do anything."

"Oh, come on," I told her, with an eye roll. "You're already out here. I'm not going to command you and tell you off for thinking that Nina was a mistake, because I've heard it way too many times lately. You can believe whatever you want to believe, and I'll believe what's right." I joked, but Chloe didn't seem to recognize my humor. "Why don't you take off your coat and stay a while?"

"Fine," she mumbled, but I could tell that deep down she wanted to stay in the first place.

Chloe asked about the night I met Nina; I had told her a bit before, but I was reluctant to go into details; I wasn't sure why I was doing that myself. Why didn't I want to talk about it? It wasn't like it was something bad. Sure, the first resolution was horrible bad, but it turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to me. Why didn't I want to talk to people about it?

Her smile stayed plastered on her face, never once faltering or giving away the impression that it was fake. Her green eyes shone like emeralds, analyzing my face. Her gaze never left mine.

"Will you show it to me once you finish it?" she inquired, only blinking once. It was like she didn't want to tear her gaze away from me. I didn't want to stop looking at her either.

"Sure," I said right after she asked her question. I wasn't sure where this conversation was going, or where this girl was headed, but I was sure it wouldn't be any good. I finally tore my gaze away from hers and started typing on my computer again.

I waited for the girl to ask another question, but she held back. I was happy for that in a sense; I could finally type the song without any interruptions. I was upset about the fact, also; I wanted to learn more about this mystery girl and why she seemed so interested in me.

I sat silently for a minute, carefully looking at her from the corner of my eye. I thought she'd be a wonderful inspiration to work with, to write about. She was outgoing, confident, and I'd definitely classify her as a "people-person". When she met someone, she wanted to get to know them, to unlock their secrets and let them know they were welcome to talk to her and become her friend.

I was thinking she wasn't going to ask me anything anymore when she said, "Do you play an instrument?"

I was telling her about the many times Nina quizzed me on the United States and I failed miserably when she cut me off and pointed to the street. "Fabian...two people down the road are staring at us. Are they press or just stalkers?"

Trying not to knock the child sitting on my lap over on the concrete, where she had just finished drawing nonsense squiggles with blue chalk, I turned my head around, my long dark brown bangs falling in front of my face. Brushing them out of my field of view, I saw the two people who were staring at me and Chloe.

"I'm telling you," the woman's voice drifted up the hill, unfortunately talking too loudly. I could hear her from where I was sitting. "That's the girl who Lindsey's in love with."

I presumed Lindsey was their daughter, since the woman was standing next to a man. They didn't have any cameras with them, but they kept glancing back down the road, as if waiting for something. "That's the singer?" the man asked his wife, and the woman nodded.

"I think so," she answered. "Lindsey told me he lived somewhere around here. I don't know much about him, but she tells me there's been some nasty rumors about him lately."

That sparked my interest. Aaron had been calling me over the weekend, asking me about some 'girl' I've been seeing; I told him Nina was out of town, but he just groaned and hung up the phone. I couldn't get in touch with him after that, and I didn't know why.

"Rumors?" Chloe whispered in my ear; I shrugged, just as the man repeated Chloe's question to me to his wife.

"I think so," the woman shook her head. "I'm not sure. Lindsey showed me a magazine the other day, with two pictures of him and a child."

I wanted to punch myself for being so stupid, but the woman, with her loud voice, continued, and I tried not to give off the impression that I was listening. "A child?" It seemed all the man did was ask his wife questions, similar to what Nina did the night we met.

"A child," the woman confirmed playfully, sensing the questioning tone in her husband's voice. "Lindsey told me that the singer — I think his name is Fred? Firenze? Fabio? Something along those lines. Well, Fabio said that the child is his friend's niece, but there's been some rumors swirling around in magazines and such. Some people think he's lying about the 'niece' idea."

My heart rate started to speed up unhealthily. "Why does she think he's lying?"

"Well, I don't know," she began, "but Lindsey says that there's been a 'trend' on Twitter, that social website she goes on a lot. There was a photograph of him with the child he's with right now—" I could literally feel her pointing to me, even though I wasn't looking at them. "—and he was touching another girl's face, trying to calm her because she was crying. Some people think that it's the girl's child. And you know what's wrong about that?"

"What?" asked the man.

"The girl in the photograph didn't look much older than seventeen. She's a teen mother. The baby is, like, what, one or two? I bet she was wearing provocative clothing on purpose."

I had to resist the urge to go up the couple and smash their faces in. Were they really trying to blame this on Nina? I didn't like where the woman was headed with her speech, either. I could feel the blood boiling inside me while Chloe gripped my sleeve sweater.

"She probably wanted to get raped, so she could pin the blame on somebody. At least, that's what Lindsey thinks. She doesn't really like that girl in the photograph too much, even though I know it's just jealousy. She has the biggest crush on Fabio. Then, another photograph came out: a sole one of him and the child. It was taken at the angle where you could see the child's face: Lindsey came yelling, saying that Twitter was telling everyone that the child was his baby, not just the girls. Do you really think that Fabio could be the parent?"

There was no sound from what I could hear. My heart beat was echoing in my ears. "Well, she says that 'they have the same nose and the same exact eye color'. She also told me he was playing around with her, tickling her and kissing her...would you do that to Madison's daughter?" she asked her husband. I had no idea who Madison was, but no sound came from the man again.

"Ugh," the woman scoffed, "How old is that boy? Sixteen, seventeen? I bet he was the one who raped her in the first place, and the girl wants revenge, so she went public. Or, maybe he isn't even the father at all! I bet this another one of the Justin Bieber things, where the woman tried to tell the world that he was the father of her baby. I bet she got knocked up at like fifteen, couldn't find the father, and began to tell the world that her favorite singer was the father. Typical."

Chloe looked me straight in the eye, warning me not to pounce. It wasn't like I'd do it in the first place, even with my face as red as a cherry and my fists balled.

"That's not so good," agreed the man.

"Not good at all," said the woman. "I'd hate to be that child when the rumor goes public. It's already in Lindsey's consant magazine she gets every month; when the media gets a hold of the story that a sixteen year old singer raped a fifteen year old, that won't be good press for him. I'd hate to be Lindsey right now, because he's getting knocked off the charts for sure."

We hadn't gotten the magazine yet.

Breaking free of Chloe's grasp, I bolted down the hill, making sure to leave Emma behind. I sprinted down the pathway, skidded at the mailbox, and stopped to take a breather. The man and the woman were now chatting, walking down the street, further away from my house.

I ripped open the mailbox's door, threw away Mum's bills and checks, only to find a new magazine issued to Olivia, my fourteen-year-old sister. I flipped through the pages, and on page twelve, stood a new, glossy, picture of Emma and me in front of the sweet shop that we had visited back on Monday, and you could bet all your money that I was staring at Emma with absolute awe.

A/N: Consult Rick Riordan for cliffhangers, not me.
I'M ON PAGE 351 OF HOUSE OF HADES AND FLUBNUGGETS IT'S SO GOOD. BUT SO PAINFUL. OH GOD ONE LINE HIT ME LIKE A BRICK. BLOOD OF OLYMPUS IS GOING TO BE THE DEATH OF ME.
Okay, so if you're curious, here are the new chapter names, starting from chapter 20:
20) The Compromise, 21) The Laundromat, 22) The Breakup, 23) The Holiday, 24) The Makeup, 25) The Emails, 26) The Reveal, 27) The Kiss, 28) The Confessions, 29) The Flashbacks, 30) The Carnival, 31) The Beginning, 32) [CONFIDENTIAL NAME], 33) The Goodbye, and 34) The End.
And yes. Many will be painful.
~Lia.