I can't possibly apologize enough for my absence, I blame the holiday and work. It threw everything out of whack. But I'm posting both chapters that I missed now, and the new chapter will be up on Monday as scheduled. We're back in Syler's world! Though be forewarned, it won't be the Syler you all remember. I've many plans for this young lady, and I hope they all come out exactly as I want. But for now, I want you to see the opposite side of her personality. The one where she isn't confident, and where she needs someone to be looking out for her. Believe me, I want to be out of this place as fast as possible. But reading all of my previous chapters, I almost felt like her character became very one sided, and so I wanted her to become 3 dimensional.

She rubbed a thumb over the screen of her phone again and felt the vice grip of her self-inflicted pain tighten over her. She placed herself in an entirely unwinnable situation. Telling everyone she loved that she was fine and didn't want them to worry or fuss over her. That she didn't want their help, advice or comfort. Yet she often found herself clutching her phone, hoping someone would defy her. actually that one person in particular would defy her, and hoping in equal measure that he wouldn't. Hearing his voice would do her in. It had almost happened with her text. The moment she was to far away to go to him, to run into his arm and tell all. She should have known that he would text her back. That he would tell her he loved her, that he always would, and whatever was so terrible they would work through it together. What she didn't expect, was an apology.

'I'm sorry. Whatever it is I said, I didn't mean it. Whatever it is I did, I'll fix it. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry you feel like you can't come to me about it. I'm sorry.'

The last text had come in as she climbed into her fathers truck. He didn't speak, didn't comment on her tears. Or the unexpected want to return to Montana, without notice, or reason. He just drove. They sat in silence in his old, beat-up Chevy. Watching the sun set behind their house.

She had cried many time since that night, one month prior. She went to bed crying, knowing that dreams of his face awaited her. She cried every morning when she reached for the other side of her bed and found it cold, and empty. The moment when she remembered everything. She knew this kind of stress was bad for the baby, but she was in too deep and couldn't find a way to get out that got her everything she wanted.

A soft knock at the door roused her, and she threw her phone to the other end of the bed like she had been caught doing something she shouldn't. Lucas appeared around the door. His blond hair lying flat against his head as though greased there, from being under his hat all day. His usual toothy grin was absent, but at least he didn't look at her pitifully the way her own mother did, "Momma said to come get you for dinner."

"I'm not hungry." The words were flat and still raw with the emotion she had stirred up. She didn't eat very much and what she did eat she only threw up later. She hadn't told anyone about the baby, but everyone knew. They also knew, by her own presence here and his lack, that she hadn't told Don.

He moved further into the room, standing with his hand around the doorknob, "Ya gotta eat somthin'"

She shook her head at him as he came to sit down at the end of her bed, "I'll only throw it up later." She said and he nodded sympathetically to her.

"Still," he continued, a stray eye cast down to her stomach, "You're eating for two now."

The words almost broke her, but she wrapped her arms around her stomach and leaned forward to cover her stomach from view. She knew she should eat, but the only thing her stomach seemed to want was a reuben. Not any reuben, but the one Don made. He knew his way around a kitchen, though you would never hear that from him. The only ounce of culinary prowess he would boast about was his beloved sandwich. She had been craving almost as much as she had been craving him; and she didn't see it going away any time soon.

"What are we having?" She asked though clenched teeth, already trying to hold the bile at bay.

"Pot roast."

The thought rolled over her stomach in a most unpleasant way, all that meat and potatoes would hit her stomach like lead; and it would be none too kind coming back up.

"You should call him." He said quietly after a long moment.

Syler looked up so quickly that she hurt her neck, realizing that she had absently been staring at Don's phone, "I can't." She choked out.

"He's not Levi." Lucas didn't say it maliciously, but it hit her as though he had. Her whole body seized, that was a whole other can of worms she didn't feel like popping the top on. She knew in her heart that Don and Levi were polar opposites of each other, from their treatment of her all the way down to height. She knew that Don would find out and do the right thing. But he had been raised that way. to be honorable, and self-sacrifice for the sake of what was right. She would rather raise the baby alone in a house full of love. Then a house of animosity and resentment, and a divorce permanently at the edge of every argument. It wasn't fair to do that to anyone.

"I know he isn't, but he won't want me; or it." Her voice wasn't bitter the way she wanted it to be. It was broken and hollow.

Lucas balked, "He most certainly will, Daddy'll hold a gun to his back for the whole ceremony if he has to." The mental image might have amused if she hadn't know that Don would hold a gun to his own head before he did something dishonorable.

"No, I know he will. But he won't want to." She stressed the difference to her brother. After Levi, just before she moved to New York she decided she didn't need things in her life that weren't real. She didn't want someone who stayed with her because it made sense, or it was the right thing to do. She wanted someone with her, and her with him, because the loved each other. Because they wanted everything about one another.

Her brother looked at his hands for a long moment, quelling anger and gathering his thoughts, "Did he say that to you?" His voice was tight as he asked.

Syler shook her head, and reached to touch his taut arm to steady him. Don would never say that. That was part of the problem, he would convince her that this is what he wanted. Maybe even convince himself, it could take years for the quiet resentment to build in his heart, before the dam broke, and he wanted nothing to do with either of them.

"Had ya'll ever talked about kids?" He asked more relaxed.

Again she shook her head. They had never discussed it. The same way they had never discussed his panic nearly a year ago, as they stood in the aisle by the pregnancy tests. As his mind wandered through the possibility of her carrying his child, at first he had reached for her, then he had recoiled away. Taking a step back as panic over took him, and he glanced down the aisles around them, as though someone might have heard. Now everything from that day was thrown into a sharp light. She had been kidding herself falling in love with him. A man who didn't want her children, she was supposed to be a means to an end. The woman you date for years to have someone to come home to until you find your One. The One you can really love, the One you want to spend the rest of your life with. The One who you can have 2.5 children with, townhouse, white picket fence and all. She hadn't been that girl with Levi, and she wasn't that girl with Don.

"Then you can't know what he does or doesn't want." Lucas said quickly, talking over her protest, "Deny all you want, but I've seen the way the two of you are together. I've seen him look at you, and you at him in a way that it never was with Levi. I know he messed you up something fierce, but it was the biggest mistake of his life, and the best thing that ever happened to you. Because that asshat doesn't deserve your love." Syler watched him carefully, and felt his words begin to penetrate the wall that shielded the heart she, herself, had broken. She tried to stop it by talking over him. By debunking the kind words and idealistic vision of her life, but she was interrupted.

Her father's head appeared around the door sans his usual scowl when his children held up supper. He spotted his children and nodded to Lucas who stood and walked passed him in silent obedience. His eyes turned to Syler and opened his mouth, but she held up a hand to him and rose, "I'm coming."

He nodded and back away from her door. Syler looked again to her phone and sighed. This is what she wanted, she reminded herself. Moving for her door without her phone, hoping the distance from it might repair the crack her brother had etched into her façade. But with each step it jarred her, spreading the fissures a little wider, enough for a single thought to slide through.

I don't want to do this alone.

She knew in that moment, it wouldn't matter the distance from a phone or from a state, or from the very planet. It was only a matter of time before her walls came crumbling down.

Are we all okay still? Don't be too disappointed in her decisions, she'll get there eventually. Where is there you ask? Well I'm glad you did, but you'll have to stay turned to find out. It won't be easy, and I'm thinking now that it won't be swift. But things like this never are.