Author's Note: I have a little poll at the end of this chapter/on my profile!

Day One-Hundred Twenty-Two: What Can I Say? by Carrie Underwood feat. Sons of Sylvia

The sound of her slapping him was so loud that it echoed throughout the house, even throughout the storm and the thunder.

The sound still haunted her.

He had left soon after she went upstairs. She couldn't even look him in the eyes. She hadn't even realized she was crying over him until she saw her own red-rimmed eyes in the glass window. Looking out the window, she saw him drive away in the rain.

Her heart felt empty, like everything inside had been sucked out. As angry as she was at him and as much as she wanted to blame him and only him, she knew she was also at fault. It was her fault, too. She should've seen the signs. She should've realized something was wrong and put an end to it. She chose instead to remain blissfully ignorant.

Knowing what she knew now, she wasn't sad to see him go if he lied to her anyway. But she was sad to see it end like this. It couldn't end like this. Deep down, she knew he wasn't a bad man. She wasn't scared of him. She was never scared of him. She knew he wasn't the one to fear.

She wondered what any of them ever did to him to make him hate them so much. What did she personally do to him to make him hate her so much? Did she make him cry? Did she ruin him? Where did she go wrong?

And what did she ever do to make him hurt her like this? That was her main question when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her eyes were tinted an angry color red. She felt as though she did nothing to deserve this indescribable pain.

She walked into her kitchen.

Knives. Matches. Liquor.

She chose the liquor. Her parents would never notice. Her parents never noticed anything.

Beer wasn't strong enough and her parents might notice if there were three bottles instead of four. Wine wasn't strong enough, either.

She moved slowly towards the liquor cabinet to see what else there was. If all else failed, she'd drink a bottle of wine and her parents would never be the wiser; they had so many bottles of red wine that they wouldn't notice one less merlot or pinot noir.

She settled on a half-empty bottle of cognac. She had never tasted it before, but she heard it was strong. It wasn't typical teenage fare when it came to liquor—tequila, beer, and vodka came to mind—so perhaps her parents wouldn't even suspect her.

She took one sip and immediately felt a little drunk. To say it was very strong would be an understatement. She figured perhaps mixing it with coffee would make it taste better.

When she put the bottle down after playing with it for a moment, she noticed something new on the island in the kitchen.

There was a stack of letters sitting there. They were tied up with a blue ribbon. As she pulled it closer, she realized that they were all addressed to her. It was Toby's handwriting.

Hesitantly, she untied the ribbon and tore open the first letter.

I don't expect to read these and I don't expect you to listen. But if you came this far, maybe there's still hope. I've never been much of a speaker, so I hoped these letters would offer more catharsis than any explanation I could ever give you. I wanted to give it to you, since the only other alternative I had was to throw it into the river.

This is everything I have.

That was all that was written in the first letter.

She took another sip of cognac and her vision felt bleary. She didn't even care. She tore the second letter open.

I've wanted to tell you this for a long time. Every night was just picking up the phone to call you. I never knew what I'd say. Sometimes I would call you, just to say I loved you. Other times, I really did want to tell you everything. Every little bloody detail. The days are long when your whole life feels like a lie. They're achingly, heartbreakingly long. You don't have to believe me, but I thought you should know.

She tore another letter as she took a swig of cognac and coffee.

I wish I never agreed to this. I wish you never fell and never cried and never hurt because it's all my fault. That's not an excuse, but you don't deserve to cry over me. I deserve to, though. And I do. All the time. I wonder what you're thinking if you really are reading this. I wouldn't know what to say.

And what was there to say?

I hate that all you have of me are these dumb letters (which will probably be thrown into the river or burned anyway) and these bad memories. I hate that you have this mess and all I ever did was run away.

She threw them back until she lost count. She was probably somewhere on the cusp of death from the amount of liquor she drank. But there was nothing else to take the pain.

Somewhere deep inside, those words rang in her head.

All I ever did was run away.

He ran far, far from her. And he was never coming back.

Fanfiction is currently not working, so I am unable to respond to reviews at this time, but if you have a pressing question, please ask again and I'll answer tomorrow! Hopefully!

Onto the poll. I currently have about 108 more one-shots in this collection and probably over 50 chapters left of my other Spoby fanfiction. Along with that, I take prompts on Tumblr. But since I'm just a little bit crazy, I would like to know what you'd like my next project to be. There's a poll and further descriptions on my page, but basically, I just want to know which fanfic you'd like me to write next. I have four choices, all of which I really would like to further develop:

By the way, they're not all Spoby.

Revenge of the Little Liars: Alison is getting married to someone you might not expect and the PLLs are going to act as Karma for the time being...did I mention there's a wedding involved? AU.

How to Be a Heartbreaker: Hanna and Spencer are involved in a...shady and rather controversial profession and two decent guys fall in love with them. Haleb-centric with Spoby as a secondary couple. AU.

And So It Begins Again: A canon future-fic that takes place about 15-20 years later, when all the PLLs have children. Couples include: Hanna/Caleb, Spencer/Toby, Emily/nobody (as of yet), and Aria/?.

Lonely Hearts Club: Spencer, Hanna, and Aria are three totally different girls. Aria is a married homemaker who is just a little ignorant about her husband's business activities. Spencer is an independent, strongwoman who happens to be a lawyer. Hanna is a carefree, funny model who doesn't have a plan in life just yet. But they all have something in common: they're all being screwed over by the same guy. AU.

So if you have any opinions on these ideas and if you'd like a little teaser, just let me know via review, poll answer (you can choose either 2 or 3 answers, I think), or PM!

The next one-shot is going to be Never Let You Go by Colbie Caillat. Thanks for reading! -Kayson