I was relieved, and a little nervous, to see Lexi's car in the driveway when we got home from the studio. I had to talk to her about the things she said last night. It'd been bothering me all day. I looked in the kitchen and the living room, but she wasn't in either, so I went upstairs to her bedroom. The door was closed, so I knocked.

"Um…who is it?" she called.

"It's me, babe."

"Oh, uh…hang on…just a second…"

After a moment, she opened the door and hugged me. She sounded like she was out of breath.

"How was the studio?" she asked happily.

"It was good…" I replied. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah! I'm great! How are you?"

"I'm…actually, I wanted to talk to you about something," I told her.

I took her hand and led her over to her bed so we could sit down. She looked like she hadn't slept in a week. Her eyes were all bloodshot. It was weird. Maybe she'd been crying. Honestly, it's about time. Isn't that the normal reaction to what she had gone through? I'd barely seen her frown since it happened. I'm not a psychologist or whatever, but I'm pretty sure that's not normal.

"What's up?" she asked obliviously.

"I wanted to talk to you about last night," I explained. "About what you said."

"What are you talking about?"

She wasn't going to make this easy, was she?

I sighed. "You know, what you said about…when you said you needed to have sex with me so when you thought about the last time you did, it wouldn't be…"

And then she did something I really didn't expect. She started laughing. "That's ridiculous. Why would I say something like that? I didn't say that."

What?

"Yes, you did," I told her. "Maybe you don't remember, because you were drunk, but you said it."

"Well, even if I did, I was drunk. You can't take what I say when I'm drunk seriously."

"What is it you always tell me? 'Drunken words are sober thoughts'?" I quoted her.

She stopped smiling. "That's not the same thing. Anyways, did it ever occur to you that maybe I wanted to have sex with you because you're my boyfriend? Because I love you? This is stupid. Can we talk about something else?"

"Okay, what about your dream?"

"What dream?" she asked. "How would you know what I was dreaming about?"

"You were talking in your sleep," I reminded her.

"I don't talk in my sleep."

Why was she being so difficult? This was ridiculous.

"Well, no, not usually, but you did last night. Do you dream about it a lot?" I asked her, taking her hand in mine.

"Dream about what?"

"Lexi, why are you being like this? You were saying 'please don't hurt me' and 'let me go.' It wasn't hard to figure out what you were dreaming about. I just want you to be honest with me, is that so hard?" I asked, getting frustrated.

She smiled and kissed my cheek. "Are you sure you weren't the one dreaming, Shane? Come on, we should make something for dinner."

"Lexi…"

"Come on," she repeated.

She took my hand and led me downstairs to the kitchen. Why wouldn't she just talk to me? Not that I ever wanted her to be upset, but I just didn't buy that she was raped and it didn't affect her in the slightest bit. Especially not after the things she said last night.

Nate came into the kitchen behind me while Lexi was busy pulling ingredients out of the fridge.

"Is she okay?" he asked me quietly.

I'd told the guys about last night when we were on our way to the studio. They were worried about her, too. Nate kept saying that we should make her go talk to someone – a therapist, or something. But if I couldn't even get her to admit to me that she wasn't perfectly okay, I doubt I could convince her to tell a stranger.

"How the hell would I know? I'm just her boyfriend," I replied sarcastically. "According to her, I made the whole thing up."

"She said that? Seriously?"

I nodded. He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the living room.

"Shane, this isn't normal," he told me, as if I didn't already realize that. "Nobody is fine after they get raped. I Googled this, and…"

Google was Nate's ultimate source of knowledge. He's one of those people who runs straight to WebMD every time he sneezes or has a bruise in a place he didn't remember hitting instead of going to an actual doctor. The number of times he's convinced himself that he has a rare, incurable disease would amaze you, seriously.

"…it said that some people go through some kind of denial or like, suppression phase. Like, they just pretend it never happened. Do you think that's what she's doing?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I just can't help thinking that the reason she doesn't want to talk to me about it is because I'm her boyfriend now instead of her best friend. Before we got together, she would tell me anything."

"Yeah, but nothing like this ever happened to her before, either," he reminded me.

"Yeah, but…I don't know. I just don't know what to do," I admitted. "I've never not been able to fix things for her before."

"Macaroni or spaghetti?" Lexi asked, poking her head into the living room.

"Spaghetti," we both replied at the same time.

It was always spaghetti, but she always asked anyways. I supposed it's possible that we would all just change our pasta choice someday, but I'd say it's pretty unlikely. Before we got our record deal, we went through the whole 'starving artists' thing, and we ate macaroni and cheese for pretty much every meal. I don't think any of us ever wanted to even hear the word ever again.

"Well, we've gotta do something…" Nate said quietly after she had left.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

A/N: I know this is probably shocking any of you who have read my other multi-chapter fics…it's going to be more than eight chapters. I actually have up to 12 outlined, and to finish that out there will probably need to be at least one more. I'll probably end it there, but I don't know. The possibilities are endless.