A/N: Eee~ :] A new chapter for Blue Ersatz! Thank you all so very much for the reviews! This story isn't one of the ones that I take very seriously, but it's nice to know that you all like it! (: Keep on reviewing, everyone! It keeps me going.

| ~ | ~ | B l u e . E r s a t z | ~ | ~ |

5
"When it all Falls Apart"

-SuzieQuaKes-

"Everything is eff-ed up, straight from the heart. Tell me what do you do, when it all falls apart?"

In my entire life, I had imagined love would come easy to me. You know the usual Prince Charming meets Cinderella? The fast heads over heels love that stroke like lightning, leading to quick marriage and a happy ever after. Maybe all girls were like me when they were young: spending summer days lying on the front porch, watching the clouds and the sky, all the while secretly hoping that a boy would walk up and say "What are you doing here, all alone?" Maybe they imagined dancing without any music and kissing in a blizzard. Or maybe they dreamed of a bad boy, secretly hoping that as summer ended, her love and the cold air would rush his hard heart away.

I certainly did.

It was all in vain though. There weren't any kind of nice boys in my neighborhood and there were few moving in's. When new people did move, they were all usually old and retired with grown up children. I came to realize that life didn't turn like it did in fairytales. I learned to forget about all the dreams because sometimes forgetting is easier on the heart.

Bur now . . . now when I least expected it—fate decided to bring me Drew's wallet. I saw it as a kind of foreshadow. A foreshadowing that soon Drew would sooner or later, be making a grand appearance back into my life. I mean—how clear could it get? He would obviously notice that he lost his card and in some 'Drew' way of his, find out that I had it and then come walking back like nothing had ever occurred between us.

I know, I know. Nonsense. But life was usually nonsense anyway.

"You should call him." Dawn's advice came ringing back into my mind as I stared at his card. There was a little piece of paper in his wallet with his personal information. I guessed it was for when he should lose his wallet the way he did right now. His number was scribbled there. All I had to do was to grab my phone and punch in those ten numbers. I kept on reconsidering the idea. I could be all cool and aloof. You know—like I only called because I had to. I could act as if I had already moved on . . . or maybe I could even act like I forgot him. Sort of like "Andrew Hayden—who?"

I smiled to myself. I liked that idea. It could work . . . and if it did, he would definitely be sure of the fact that I was over him. Regardless of whether or not that was really true. I reached for my cell-phone, proud of myself for the idea. (303) 534-7880 went into the rectangular neon screen with a few beeps. He had changed his number—that I knew of. I had his old number carefully stored in my brain.

My heart was pumping hard as the dial tone rang on. I was pretty confident with my idea of sounding aloof—sort of like Princess Diana in her photo shoots. All smiling, chin tucked in, hands folded, looking completely sure of herself.

"Hello?"

A female answered. I was so not expecting that! Was she his . . . girlfriend? A pang of jealously slipped through my heart. Come on, May; I chided myself. You have Danny too, you know. The voice on the other end repeated the 'hello'. I took it as a cue to start speaking.

"Um, hi there. May I speak to . . ." I paused for the effect. To make it sound like I had to glance down at the card to remember his name. "Andrew Hayden?"

"You mean Drew? Sure! But who is this, exactly?" the woman's voice was soft and melodic. The jealously grew.

"Oh I'm just somebody who picked up his wallet at a Starbucks." It was better not to reveal my name.

"Oh, oh!" Her voice was genuinely surprised. A mixture of surprise and amusement, to be precise. She laughed a little in pleasure. "That's excellent. Drew's been freaking out, literally, because he lost his wallet. He has some important pictures, you see. Anyway I think I'm talking too much!" The woman laughed again. "My name's Posy. I'm Drew's . . . friend."

I knew that pause that women did. They do it to sort of say "I'm his girlfriend but I don't want to make it seem obvious!" I was right, I concluded to myself. He had a new girlfriend now.

"It's nice to meet you." I said cautiously. I was still not going to reveal my name yet. "Can I speak to . . . Drew?"

"Of course! Sorry. I've been known to speak irrelevantly. He's having a shower, but I'll go and knock. Please wait, all right?"

"Sure."

I sat down at my desk chair. From downstairs I could hear the sounds of Max and my parents talking about something on TV and laughing. A commercial was on at full blare. Suddenly I remembered what that woman had said: Drew was taking a shower. Now, I knew that it didn't seem like anything important at first sight . . . but it meant that they were living together. Because people don't usually shower when their girlfriend was over for a visit . . . not unless they had done something rendezvous. The thought made me shudder.

"Hey."

Oh crap. Crap, crap, crap! It was him. How could I not remember that voice? That deep and husky voice that brought me goose-bumps. I panicked. The thought of acting like Princess Diana vanished. "I-I have your wallet!" Oh my God, how straightforward could I get?

"What? No hello?" A chuckle came from the other end. Drew hadn't changed. Charming, self-assured, confident—everything that I clearly wasn't. Mr. Vegas, I used to teasingly call him because of his effortless Rat Pack charm. He was the sort of guy that everybody was drawn to—men, women, children, dogs and even cats.

. . . Bastard.

It took me a while for my brain to register that I was actually on the phone with Drew Hayden again. That we were connected by a mere telephone line. When I didn't reply, Drew talked again. "Anyway, Posy told me you're a chick that found my wallet?"

"Excuse me?"

"Oops. My bad. I know girls don't dig being referred to as chicks. Anyway where can we meet?"

I opened my mouth. And closed it again. "W-what? Meet?" I hadn't thought of that. How would I feel, just seeing him again and talking to him—face to face? How would he feel? What would happen? Too much questions.

"Um, yeah. You have to give me back my wallet you know. I had exactly six hundred dollars in there. Hopefully none is missing."

His tone was amused. There was something about how Drew talked exactly. A mixture of sharp wit, arrogance and humor. I suddenly got angry. "I didn't even touch your money, thank you very much."

A laugh responded before it broke off thoughtfully. There was some hesitance in his voice when he spoke again. "God, your voice is so familiar. I think we've met before . . . I think I remember you . . ."

My heart sped faster. He remembered! Or thought he remembered. Blood rushed to my face, making it throb with heat. "You should, Andrew Hayden. You should."

"Wait! Don't tell me!" Drew's voice held the eagerness of an eight year old wanting to go the supermarket with his mom. I could feel his smirk on the other end. "Um . . . Kathy! Right?"

. . . What? I hadn't expected that at all. How rejected I felt. He didn't remember me. He really didn't remember my voice. He wasn't pretending like I had planned to do—he was being serious. It was as if we really weren't engaged before. "No," I managed to choke out.

"Shit, no? Wait!" He was still eager. It broke my heart. The remains of it anyway. "Jane? Wait . . . no, she's way out in Mexico. Britney? Daniela?"

I coughed awkwardly. I was really that special, wasn't I? He didn't even remember my voice. I decided to save him the suspense of guessing. Bye-bye, Princess Diana. "May. My name's May. It's nice to meet you, Drew."

A silence came on the other end. An uncomfortable silence—one that was filled with demur. He was probably trying to remember who the hell I was. And when he did remember, he would think back of the time he called off the wedding and smirk to himself. That was Drew, no doubt about it. "May?" his voice was soft now. The confident and charming prince was gone. "Oh my God . . . May Maple?"

I waited for the shock and anger to writhe inside me. I expected to feel mad, to feel angry, to swear at him for calling off everything, for shattering my heart with a mere phone call and then disappearing off the face of earth. Instead, there was only an oddly hollowed out feeling. Perhaps I had been expecting it all along. Perhaps I knew that he would list all the girls that he's been intimate with, perhaps I knew that I would have to tell him my name in order for him to remember. Maybe we weren't just meant to be.

Right at that moment, my bladder throbbed. I swallowed. "I have to pee," I finally said and clicked off the phone. I stared at it for a second, in my hand before rushing to the bathroom.

I held my posture, walking stiffly out of my room and turning to the little curve where the bathroom was. I didn't run into any member of my family like I was expecting. Silently I entered the bathroom, closed the door softly and flicked on the lights. When I reached the sink—that was when the crying began. I held back from sobbing but my vision blurred with my tears and my face soon became a puffy, red and disgusting sight. I blew my nose hard into rough toilet paper.

When I had finally calmed myself down, my bladder throbbed again. It was no lie when I told Drew that I had to pee. Suddenly I regretted that more than anything. I wished I had the poise and quickness of mind to think up a Dorothy Parker quip.

"I have to pee."

It had to be the worst exit line in the history of scorned women.

We finally met at the same Starbucks that he dropped his wallet, Drew and I. He called me back and we shared an awkward, fast-paced conversation. ("Come to the same place at twelve tomorrow?" "Yes, sure." "See you there." "See you.") I hurriedly left the boutique at lunch time, telling Laura that I owed her one. She really didn't like the idea of Drew coming back into my life just like that—but I promised her that after that little meeting we were sure never to cross paths again.

I drove there myself, borrowing Laura's car. The roads were pretty jam packed with traffic and I was unsure whether or not I would get there in time. But I dismissed the idea of calling him to inform about the traffic. For all I knew, he could pretty much be in the same situation that I was. And aside from that, I didn't want to be the one calling him. Knowing Drew, he might think that I was trying to find an excuse to ring him up—and that was definitely not the case.

My eyes flicked over to the red numbers lit on the dashboard clock. If I got there right at this minute, I'd be only five minutes late. Unfortunately, the coffee shop was two miles away and the traffic had slowed down to a crawl.

My cell phone started to sing—"Dancing Queen" by ABBA—and I fished around in my purse for the tiny silver phone, trying not to drive off the road as I did so. I finally grabbed a hold of it, checked the caller ID, and smiled when I saw who it was—Danny. Ever since the quite awkward confessions the other day, he had called me regularly through his tight schedule. I hadn't told him about my reencounter with my previous fiancé. It was just extra information that he needn't to know.

"Hey Danny." I answered the phone call with a stressed cheeriness. I didn't want him to know that I was sort of, kind of, a little bit, freaking out about seeing and talking to my ex fiancé face-to-face once again. I didn't want to even imagine how awkward the situation would be.

"How you doing, May-o?"

I had to grin at his voice. So relaxed, so carefree and always friendly. "Pretty fine. Just bored at the boutique." Okay, so that was a half-truth. Or full lie. Whatever.

"Me too."

"Oh, really?" I smiled and used a teasing tone. "You're bored out of your mind, sitting at the wooden counter at Blessed Blue too?"

To that Danny laughed. I always loved to hear his laugh. It was so warm and never failed to make you want to smile as well. "You know what I mean. Man, your dad never gives us a break! I'm calling you in the bathroom, by the way."

I was about to reply before a Ford Explorer zipped in front of me, nearly hitting Laura's red station wagon as it did so.

"Shit!" I cried on, stomping on the break. "Ugh! Asshole!"

"What was that?"

Oh no! I thought to myself in despair as I pulled back into the road again. Did I just give myself away? Now Danny would surely think of me as a lying idiot. How wonderful was that!

"Um. Sorry." I racked my brain to think of an excuse on why I would randomly swear like that while sitting at Blessed Blue. "I accidently pricked myself with a needle while sewing on a blue heart."

"What?" Danny repeated. His voice sounded far, far away—like he was taking at the end of a cave. "I'm sorry, sweetheart; I think the line is breaking. Do you want to call me back later? I have a meeting in a few minutes."

Oh dear Lord. I was saved! What a rejoicing thought. Thank you, telephone line; I thought to myself. The first time I had ever thanked a bad line. "Okay. Don't overwork yourself. See you later!"

The line went dead and I heaved a sigh of relief, throwing the phone onto the passenger seat. There you go. I wouldn't be facing up to my bad conscious . . . yet.

I got that squirmy-stomach feeling when I walked into the coffee shop that afternoon. Each step I took was bringing me closer to the moment of my confrontation, to the moment with Drew Hayden. I took a few deep breaths to center myself and then searched for a table with the green-haired man. It wasn't too hard to do. There weren't many people I knew who possessed the odd color.

He was seated at a table near the window. He looked thoughtful and with a whisk of sunlight half bathing his face, he looked idealistic—like a poet or writer or some sort of dreamer. As I approached him, I noticed that he wasn't lost in thought like it appeared to be at first sight. He was staring down at his little Blackberry—rapidly texting somebody. With a wry smile, I betted a million dollars to myself that whoever he was texting was a girl.

I hovered over the table, not sitting down yet. An oddly cold feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I was trembling, I knew it. Finally, he looked up from letting his fingers dance over the small keyboard. A little piece of me died inside. His green eyes were just the way that I left them: bright, full of color and beautiful.

An awkward grimace of a smile crossed over his face. I could see that he was trying to remain polite. He set the phone down on the table and stood up with a grace matched by no other. His hair fell softly over his face as he did so.

"Hi May."

I stared at him. Since we were over, Drew had unmistakably stumbled onto somebody else's fashion taste. Gone were the plain-front khakis, the neatly trimmed green hair, and the quintessential 'good but bad' boy that most women were drawn to at first sight. Now his clothes looked expensively hip, and his hair was slightly on the longish side. A soft-looking black jacket embraced his lean body and he had on jeans that were torn at the knee. The little bit tanned skin revealing there made me want to swoon. I wanted to rub my face against that jacket. God! What was wrong with me?

"Hey."

I wasn't sure what the greeting protocol was supposed to be, and I could tell by the way Drew was clasping his hands together that he didn't know either. Were we supposed to hug? To exchange cheek kisses—mwah, mwah—like a pair of socialites? Maybe I should have written up Miss Etiquette at the Cosmo magazine for behavior guidelines on greeting your ex fiancé after two years.

Dear Nervous Dreamer, I imagined her reply. What a trying situation! But now, more than ever, Miss Etiquette would stress the importance of conducting yourself gracefully. To wit: it is always socially acceptable to clasp hands in a firm and congenial handshake. Do not feel it necessary to engage in an unnecessary kissing and grappling.

I stuck my hand out awkwardly, and Drew just stared at it long enough to make me feel like an idiot. But just as I was withdrawing my hand—stupid Miss Etiquette—Drew grabbed it and swung our arms between us. The touch was intimate enough for me to feel butterflies in my stomach.

Was there anything weirder than shaking hands with the man who once promised to love, honor and cherish you for the rest of his life?

"Thanks for coming." Drew gave me that uncomfortable smile again before releasing my hand and pocketing his. He motioned to the seat in front of him and then sat down himself. I awkwardly took the seat.

"Would you like anything? Coffee?" he motioned to his own steaming paper cup. "For once the place isn't packed."

"No thanks. I had lunch." I nervously moistened my lips and ran my hands to smooth the satin skirt that I was wearing. "Um. How have you been?"

"Good. I'm a sales manager now."

I nodded to that piece of information—not surprised at all. Drew had always been a top salesman—another justification to prove that he was full of shit. I felt the awkward silence set in again. Quickly I dug out his wallet from my purse and pushed it across to his side of the table. "Here's your wallet."

Drew accepted it gratefully and ran a finger across the smooth leather. Was this over? I thought to myself. I had given back his wallet. Do we go our separate ways now?

"It's such a big coincidence, May," Drew said, finally starting to talk. He stared into my eyes and I looked away. I didn't want to get mesmerized. "I mean—you finding my wallet and everything? I'd never have guessed that in a million years this would happen."

"Me neither. Quite a surprise, huh?" My tone was bitter. I hated how cold he was forcing me to become. "Now that you're back in town, Drew Hayden—would you mind telling me what your reason was to call off the wedding at the last moment?"

Drew looked stricken; like a deer caught under headlights. He snapped out of it a second later and musingly sipped his cup of coffee. "I told you, May. I couldn't handle that type of commitment yet."

"Then why the hell did you ask me to marry you? Why did you wait until the day of the wedding to cancel it? Why Drew? Why?" My voice cracked as I croaked out all the questions that I had been wondering of all my life.

He sighed, placing a hand to his head and looking as if he had just witnessed a mind boggling headache. "I'm sorry, May."

"Sorry isn't enough!" I yelled and caused almost the entire shop to look my way. Tears were now falling freely down my face. "Do you know how much humiliation you caused me? Do you know how hurt I was? Do you even care?"

"May, you have to calm down." The calm and cool façade faded off of his face. He now seemed pale, sickly and old. "I'm sorry. I really am. I . . . I just . . . There's a good reason why I had to leave."

"Mind telling me?" I sniffed into a Starbucks napkin. My thin voice sounded desperate—even to my ears.

"I . . . I can't . . . I really can't, May."

"Drew Hayden! You are such an asshole! You left me on the day of our wedding and you can't even bother to tell me why? How low can you get?" I couldn't control myself anymore. I was such a train wreck. All too different from the collected and calm Drew.

He had his eyes closed now. It seemed like he was thinking these over in his head. Finally he opened his eyes, the bright green looking stressed.

"I had to leave this town, May. I had to. I . . . I'm a criminal."

Author's Note: Haha, I decided to be evil and cut it off at that. (: You'll find out soon enough what he meant by "criminal".

So, what did you think? It really didn't take me much time to write this—about two days. I don't know how I write so fast but when I get myself into a story I can't seem to tear myself away from it. I don't know whether that's good or bad; good in terms of updating and bad in terms of school chores. A lot of homework piled on my desk. :x Oops.

Please review! I love each and every one of you that does. :] Now what could be better than getting Suzie's love? LOL. ;)

-Suzie x

Edited: 4th September '10