*Some Peddie moment for you guys (even though it's Peddie, it's still important to the story).*

*Quote at the beginning is from Rascal Flatts What Hurts the Most (I do not own this) and / means the end of a line and … means that I have skipped part of the lyrics.*

Chapter Seventeen- A Hole in the Heart

"… I can take a few tears now and then and just let them out/ I'm not afraid to cry every once in a while/ Even though going on with you gone still upsets me/ There are days every now and again I pretend I'm ok/ But that's not what gets me…/ It's hard to deal with the pain of losing you everywhere I go/ But I'm doin' It/ It's hard to force that smile when I see our old friends and I'm alone…/ Getting up, getting dressed, livin' with this regret/ But I know if I could do it over/ I would trade give away all the words that I saved in my heart/ That I left unspoken/ What hurts the most/ Is being so close/ And having so much to say/ And watching you walk away/ And never knowing/ What could have been/ And not seeing that loving you/ Is what I was trying to do…" Rascal Flatts What Hurts the Most

Patricia broke out of the hug and started up the stairs while Eddie continued to stand at the bottom of them. It took her a moment to realize that he wasn't following her, so she turned around and gave him the 'are you coming or not' look and he followed her up the stairs. She walked to her room and sat on the bed.

Eddie pulled himself next to her and wrapped his arms around her. They were quiet for a minute and then Patricia finally said, "I'm sorry for not telling you about Sami. I just…" She didn't know what to say. She was stuck because she didn't know how to explain the situation to him. It's not that she didn't want him to know, she just didn't want to talk about it. She felt like if she admitted she was happy and Sami wasn't here, she was somehow betraying her. There was always a little voice in her head that said 'how dare you be happy when your sister is dead' and she felt like she was an awful sister for being happy without Sami. It got to the point where she just didn't talk about it and she tried not to think about it. It didn't work. Every night, just when she was going into the stage of deep sleep, Sami crept her way through the fogginess of sleep and the memories and guilt flooded through her mind.

He saw her frustration because she felt bad about keeping Sami a secret. "Joy talked to us about, Yacker. It's ok," he said in a very understanding voice.

"I wish you could have met her; the real her, not some ghost of what she used to be. She would have really liked you," Patricia said, her voice sounding very far off.

She laid her head on Eddie's shoulder and he said, "I really wish I could have met her too. She seemed like a great sister to you and Piper. But, I feel like, by knowing you, I know some small piece of her that lives on in you."

She smiled up to him and put her hand in his. She let out a small sigh and said, "The only thing that upsets me is that she will always be seventeen, no matter what that will never change. She will always be a seventeen year old girl. There are sometimes that I just wonder what she would have done if she had lived…" She sounded as if she was going to say more, but she didn't continue.

"It feels like my heart is breaking again. I finally got over the fact that she was gone, and then she comes back, and now she's gone again," Patricia sighed and Eddie knew that this was her talking more to herself than to him so he just kissed her forehead and held on tighter.

"How does it feel?" Eddie asked.

Patricia looked up at him with a confused look on her face, "What do you mean?" she asked him.

"Like talking about her in the past tense? Moving on without her? How does it feel that she's gone? I don't mean to be pushy so if you don't want to…"

She interrupted, "It's okay Eddie. I feel like since I saw her, it's let me push some of my anger away. I want to share her with you." She began to answer his question, "You get used to thinking of her in the past tense, maybe not at first, but over time. When it first happened you want to talk about her all the time because it makes you feel like she's not really gone. Then, for a while at least, it hurts to even think about her because you know that she's never coming back. Finally, there's a point where thinking about her makes you happy because you still have the memories of when you were with her."

She paused for a minute and stood up. For some reason she felt like she had to stand with her back towards him to talk about this, not that she was uncomfortable, it just seemed easier to stand, to give her some space. She then continued, "Some days are easy because you remember all the good things that happened and you're happy to think about her. There are other days you think about the bad things and you feel bad because you can't take back what happened. Then there are days where you only think about that last day with her. All you feel is sadness and you feel like it's not fair that you live while she's gone. And sometimes you feel like the last few moments you shared together weren't enough."

She took a breath and said one final thing, "There are also times when you feel like being happy is like being a traitor. You don't understand how you can be happy when she's gone, but you are. In the beginning happiness is a foreign concept, but after a while you can accept it back into your life and you learn to live with the fact that she's gone.

"One thing's for sure, there will always be a hole in my heart where she should be." She stopped talking and he came and wrapped his arms around her waist as a few tears fell. Eddie was the only other person besides Piper that she felt comfortable letting her guard down, and even then she didn't do unless it was a time of extreme circumstance.

After a few moments of silence she said, "If you tell anyone about this I'll deny it." She gave him an 'I'm serious, don't tell' look.

He smiled down at her and said, "Cross my heart and hope to die," then kissed her.

She smiled through the kiss and broke apart to say, "That might just happen if you told." He smiled at her and kissed her again.