The following day, Thayer knocked on the door to the Mercer home. He figured Sutton should be home by now and he was desperate to see that she was okay. He didn't care about what had happened the night before. All he cared about was making sure she was okay.

The door swung open to reveal Mrs. Mercer standing in front of him. She smiled, "Hi Thayer."

"Hello Mrs. Mercer. I heard about Sutton. How is she?"

"She's okay. Pretty banged up, but that's to be expected."

"Do you think she's up for a visitor?"

"She might still be asleep," Kristin warned, "but if she is awake I'm sure she'd be happy to see you."

Apparently Sutton had not said anything about their fight. Either that or she wanted to put it in the past as well. Kristin stepped out of the doorway to let him in and then led him to Sutton's bedroom door. She knocked twice before poking her head in the door.

"Sutton," she called as she walked into the room, "You have a visitor."

Thayer saw Sutton's head pop up and look over her mom's shoulder at him. It was a good thing Kristin did not stay long enough for Sutton to object, because Thayer could see that's exactly what she wanted to do. Her eyes were blazing with hate and anger. He thought this might happen and when the door closed, leaving him alone with her, he was glad she couldn't come after him.

"That looks like it hurt," he commented, acknowledging the bruising that covered her left temple, where her head hit the window, and the cuts that covered her face from the broken glass. All in all, she looked pretty good. Then again, Sutton always looked good.

"I wouldn't know," she answered simply, "I was unconscious."

"That's convenient I guess. So how long until you get that cast off?"

He gestured to the purple cast encasing her left wrist. When he looked back up at her that same hate blazed in her eyes and she refused to break eye contact with him, "Seriously, Thayer?"

"What?"

"So you're just going to act like nothing happened last night?" She questioned, getting out of bed. It was slow and stiff, but she managed to hide it fairly well as she got right in his face.

"I don't care about what happened last night. All that matters is that you're okay."

"Because it hurts more to live without me than to live with me at my worst, right? That's why we haven't talked about LA since you thought I'd died in the lake. That's why we keep acting like it never happened."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

"It is when it's a load of crap."

"What are you talking about?"

"Seriously? Last night you tore me apart for something I did months ago, something you asked me to never talk about, because you wanted to leave the past in the past. That's obviously not what you really want so why don't you stop lying to yourself and me and tell me what you really want."

"I want to go back to the way things used to be with us."

"Well I don't," Sutton spat.

"What?"

"Forget it, Thayer," Sutton responded, turning away from him, "It doesn't even matter anymore. I told you last night that you needed to be honest with yourself and if you had been, you never would've come here."

"Sutton," Thayer exclaimed.

"We can't keep doing this, Thayer," Sutton practically whispered. She turned back to face him and he could see the tears welling up in her eyes as she continued, "I am never going to feel the way you want me to feel about you. The sooner you realize that, the sooner the both of us can move on."

"What are you saying, Sutton?"

"We can't be friends anymore, Thayer," she stated, turning her head to hide the tears rolling down her face, "It's just too painful for both of us."

"Sutton, please."

"I'm sorry, Thayer," Sutton interrupted, turning away and leaning against her desk in front of her, "but I can't do this anymore and you shouldn't have to. We're different people and no matter how much we want to deny it we don't fit together the way we used to."

Thayer felt like she'd just thrown a knife through his heart. She was ending it…everything. After everything they'd been through, after everything they'd survived, she was throwing in the towel. She was walking away from him for good and he didn't know what to do about it. He felt the tears well up in his eyes and he willed himself to hold them in as he turned and walked out of her life.

Sutton heard the door open, but refused to move at all. She was lying on her side, with the covers resting at her waist. After Thayer left she'd curled back up in bed in this exact position and tried to fall asleep. For an hour she'd been lying here feeling her heart slowly break into a million pieces, unable to do anything to stop it or take the pain away.

"Sutton," her mom's voice cut through the silence, "I brought you some food."

"I'm not hungry," she mumbled.

She heard her mom set the tray of food on her desk and then the bed bounce as her mom took a seat next to her. She felt a hand touch her forehead and then brush her hair off of her face, "How you feeling?"

Sutton shrugged. There was no way to describe how she was feeling. She felt sick without actually being sick. Even if she hadn't wrecked the car last night, she probably could've convinced her mom she had the flu.

A knock sounded on the door and then she heard Emma call, "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," Kristin stated, getting up off of the bed, "Let me know if you need anything, Sutton."

Sutton didn't move. She didn't even acknowledge that her mom had said anything. She heard her sigh in defeat and then the door click closed, leaving Sutton and Emma alone. The bed bounced again as Emma took a seat, but Sutton still refused to look at her.

"I got your assignments for you," Emma explained, "There wasn't a lot, but they're sitting by your desk."

"Thanks," she responded.

"Everyone kept asking about you," Emma continued, "Even Nisha wanted to know if you were okay."

No response. She knew that Emma was just trying to make her feel better, but that's not what she wanted. She wanted to lie in her bed and wallow in her own self-pity.

"Sutton," Emma called, "I know last night didn't go the way you wanted it to go and Mom said he was here today and by the look on your face it didn't go any better."

"What's your point?"

"What happened? I mean things seemed to be going really well with you and Thayer. What changed?"

"Nothing," Sutton admitted, "That was the problem."

"What do you mean?"

"We kept trying to get back to the way things were before," she explained as she pushed herself into a seated position. It was the first time she dared to look her sister in the eye since she'd come in. She'd expected to see pity, but all she saw was a desperate need to understand. She looked away again as she continued, "But, the reality was that was never going to happen. Too much has happened and too much has changed for it to ever be the same. I just finally stopped trying to deny it."

"You sound like you've really thought this through."

"I've spent all day thinking about it," Sutton answered, hearing her own voice crack under the strain of fighting off the tears, "Trying to figure out what went wrong, and that is the only thing that makes sense to me. We both went through a lot and we came out as different people, and no matter how hard we try to force it, we just don't fit together like we used to."

"So it's over?"

"It's over."

"Are you okay?"

Sutton choked on a sob and she felt everything crumble underneath her. The tears burst from her eyes like they'd been held behind a dam. Her whole body trembled with the level of emotion she was feeling. She felt Emma wrap her arms around her and for a moment they just held each other.

"It's okay," Emma whispered over and over again. It didn't help, but she was glad that she had someone there to say it.

"It just hurts so much, Emma," Sutton said through her sobs.

"I know, Sutton."

"Does it ever go away?"

"It's got to," Emma assured, "No one would be happy if it didn't."

Tears continued to roll down her cheeks and Emma just continued to hold Sutton close. So this is what heartbreak felt like. This is what it felt like to lose the one thing that made you feel whole. She just kept crying and Emma just kept holding on until she felt the exhaustion overcome her. The tears stopped. The sobs silenced and Emma let go of her.

"It will be okay, Sutton. It has to be."

Sutton didn't respond. She just curled back up on her side and listened to the door click closed as she drifted back to sleep, praying that her dreams would not be about him this time.

Emma slipped out of Sutton's bedroom and made it twenty feet down the hallway before she pounded the wall in frustration. What the hell happened? Things were going so well between them and suddenly everything had changed without warning. It didn't make sense, but Sutton and Thayer never really made sense.

"Are you okay?"

It was Laurel's voice that crept up behind her and Emma had to control the urge to jump ten feet in the air when she heard it. She wiped the tears from her eyes and composed herself before turning to face her, "Yes," Emma breathed, "Actually no…I don't know. When did things get so complicated?"

"I take it you're talking about the Sutton/Thayer situation?"

"He came by today," Emma explained, "I'm still a little fuzzy on the details, but things are finished between them."

"What do you mean?"

"They're not even friends, Laurel."

"Seriously?"

"Deadly."

"How's Sutton?"

"Heartbroken."

"Oh come on," Laurel exclaimed in disbelief, "You really think Thayer is capable of breaking Sutton's heart?"

"I think he's the only one who could."

Thayer sat on the couch in the living room trying to hold back everything he was feeling. His first and only love had just told him that not only were they never going to be anything more, they weren't even friends anymore. How could she do this to him? How could she continue to break his heart and never feel an ounce of pain from it? How could she be that heartless?

He heard the click of Mads' heels on the floor and then saw her standing over him looking like he'd just killed her puppy, "Just got off the phone with Emma," she explained, "What the hell were you thinking going to see Sutton today? I told you last night she needed space."

"I was trying to make things right," Thayer defended.

"How'd that work out for you?"

"It's not my fault, Mads. She's the one that turned away from me."

"And I'm sure you did nothing to cause her to do that," Mads responded sarcastically.

"I was honest with her," Thayer responded, rising to his feet, "She just couldn't handle it."

"And what exactly were you honest about?"

"You know what, Mads. This is none of your business."

"Bullshit this is none of my business. What's going to happen when I invite Sutton and Emma over to the house and you're here? What's going to happen when we run into them at the club? What am I going to say to her when she gets back to school? Whether you like it or not, both Emma and I are a part of this and we just want to know what happened."

"Why do the details matter? She decided we couldn't be friends anymore, so we're not. There's nothing more to it."

"There is so much more to it. The two of you seemed to be doing so well and all of sudden everything just went to hell. Something had to have triggered it."

"To quote Sutton 'we're different people and no matter how much we want to deny it, we just don't fit together the way we used to.'"

"Did you really expect it to be the same?"

"I wanted it to be, but I think there's a part of me that knew it couldn't be the same. I mean we slept together because she was trying to get back at Ethan. Last night I finally admitted it to her and she just walked away."

"How exactly did you admit that to her?"

"She kept pushing me to talk to her and I don't know I just sort of lost it. I got so angry and maybe I took it too far, but that's why I went to see her today. I wanted to make things right and show her that I didn't mean what I'd said, but she wouldn't listen to me. She just ended it."

"So you tried to act like nothing had happened?"
"Well yeah. Is that such a bad thing?"

"Not when you what you're ignoring doesn't actually matter."

"But it doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter to you, but maybe it matters to Sutton."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that your feelings aren't the only ones that count in this situation.

Despite what people want to say about her she actually has a heart and it can break like everybody else's can."