The fair is over and the alumni game wasn't as bad as I thought. I still have my skills in softball intact thankfully from the occasional times I play with my friends since we left high school. It felt like old times seeing my friends from my old team and this time not seeing the looks of rage or weirdness based on my high school experience. The only person who was missing had been Luna Rouche, my ex high school/sports best friend who ended up hating my guts when her triplet brother forced himself on me and ended up with a record. She always thought I lied about that part of my life and never saw me the same way again. Their family moved away right after we graduated and never looked back to coming to this town again. That was a bonus for me of course because she became a nightmare from all the bullying she used to do with her other brother and their friends. They made me hate my life more than I already did with everything I had been through throughout the few years since my family's death in the car accident.

After being with Mona I go to meet up with Aria as promised. It's around 11 at night and I'm slightly drunk from drinking more than I planned, which had me end up even walking here by myself instead of calling for a ride or having someone walk with me. That's when you know I'm not thinking, walking anywhere alone with my history and the fact that I literally flipped out from seeing a dark figure the night before has me knowing that I'm not sober at all.

"Hello, Jellybean!" Uncle Byron calls out my childhood nickname that he and my dad used growing up as he stands at the open door.

I smile and laugh at his outburst because he's always so excited to see me despite the fact that I'm the only one out of the 3 kids who didn't move away, so he sees me all the time. He may not be my actual blood uncle, but he'll always be close to family for me. Him and Aunt Ella being my parents best friends made it bound by law that they would be like family and I've been absolutely grateful for them. After living with the Hastings for a while my aunt and uncle took me in, because it was written in my parents legal papers to have them be my guardians. I couldn't have asked for better people to take care of me after everything that happened.

I lean my hand onto the frame of the door to keep myself steady. "Hi, Uncle Byron."

He now tilts his head a bit, then raises an eyebrow while his face goes into dad mode. "Please tell me you're not drunk."

I press my lips together and half smile, "Would you believe me if I said that I'm as sober as they get?"

He sighs gently, still getting the hang of the fact that I'm old enough to drink without being lectured now. But it doesn't stop him from having that fatherly look on his face. "Not as far as I can throw you, Jessie."

I smile and half laugh, "Pretty sure that would hurt."

He shakes his head and then moves aside so I can come in. He doesn't look too happy but he also doesn't argue. "Aria isn't back yet."

I slowly nod, watching him carefully for a second. "Technically she shouldn't be here at all."

His face drops a bit and he looks to be thinking, "Jessie, please…just come inside. I'll get you some water and we'll talk."

I press my lips together and then wobble my way through the door, managing not to land on my face. Then I see his stern look and I sigh, "Don't look so disappointed."

"Disappointed? Pretty sure this is my normal look." He tries to joke but I know he would rather yell at me. Doing crazy things was part of my old habits growing up, especially when I'd get drunk. Obviously he never knew about those days but now that I'm legal to drink I know he feels I can get worse when I'm at my low points.

I half smile at him as he closes the door behind us and then I watch him head to the kitchen. He grabs a bottle of water for me before ushering me to follow him to the family room at the back of the house and we sit down on the couch. For a bit it's quiet while I sip on my water, sighing from the cold liquid helping my thirst that I didn't notice till now. Beer dries up my throat so much that I don't realize it until I'm too deep into intoxication to ask for water instead of more liquor.

"Aunt Ella's sleeping?"

He smiles a bit and nods, "She's been feeling a little more drained out recently. So she took a pill and went to bed."

"Well it can't be from wedding planning because you haven't asked her to marry you yet." I whisper to him playfully.

He laughs now, "Oh you're truly hilarious, Jessie."

"Hey, you need to hop on that. It's overdue." I smile a bit, knowing that he hasn't told Aria or Mike yet. So other than having to keep this little detail away from Aunt Ella I also can't tell them. Which is eating me up inside, but slightly more easy to do when Mike is living on campus at Penn State, and Aria is out of the state completely.

"It's all about timing."

I smile more, laughing a bit even. "As if you've never done this before."

He laughs, "Doesn't mean it's any different than last time."

I laugh again, leaning my head back into the cushion for a few seconds to relax the pounding of a headache coming to the surface. Then I hear him take a breath and I bring my head back up.

"So…" he says awkwardly and it makes my heart sink slightly because now the real talk is coming, "You're upset that I asked Aria to come home."

My eyes shift to him beside me, leaning back into the cushion a bit more. "Well…yes, because you didn't give me a heads up."

"She's my daughter, Jessie."

"I understand that, Uncle Byron, but things between us aren't the same. So knowing she was coming would have been a fair warning."

He watches me for a few long seconds, his arm resting on the top of the sofa. "You two have been best friends since you were practically in diapers. Do you really think that can change?"

I half laugh now, because that sounds ridiculous. "After high school we drifted apart, everyone noticed that. Once she left she never made sure I was okay from what we went through, and she has barely even talked to me in over a year." I stop for a second and watch him to see if he'd say anything, "Does that seem like something a best friend does?"

He gives me back a sad look, "We both know you all struggled through that situation." There's a bit of a stern sound to his voice, almost like he's trying to make sure I know that Aria isn't to blame for what happened.

I shake my head, "I'm not saying we didn't. I just..."

"You're upset that she shut you out."

"More like she scraped me aside."

He sighs softly and gives a soft smile to show that he gets it, "She has her way of coping, Jessie. Just like you have yours."

"Doesn't mean I didn't need her." I say slightly annoyed.

"Oh, so you do want to let out your anger on me." Aria's voice seeps through the doorway behind me where the study is and into the room. She doesn't sound mad, just sad..or even tired.

My heart sinks from her voice but I keep my eyes on my uncle, seeing that he has his own on her from standing behind me. "Aria, she's drunk. She can't be having this type of talk right now."

"But she's able to have it with you?" The sarcasm in her voice makes it obvious that she's slightly upset. But I can't tell if it's towards me for opening up to her dad, or if it's aimed at him for trying to stop us from talking.

He presses his lips together, "She's venting to me. If you have a drunk conversation with her about a serious issue it can escalate."

"We are old enough to figure out our problems, dad." She says with a stern voice now, "We're not kids."

"I understand that but do you really want to start down memory lane this late at night when she might not remember it in the morning?"

"I…"

"I'm right here." I cut off their conversation when Aria was about to answer, turning myself to look at both of them in turn. "I'm not a child and I'm not invisible." They both stare at me when I talk, seeming taken off guard. It's almost as if they didn't expect me to say anything. "I can speak for myself."

"Then say what you are thinking." Aria blurts out, her arms flapping a bit as if frustrated but still not raising her voice at me. "Because you act like you're not mad at me and I know you are. Don't hold it in."

"Aria…" Uncle Byron starts, turning his gaze back to her. "Enough."

"No, she needs to talk to me." she says in slight annoyance with him now.

"Uncle Byron I'm fine."

"Jessie, you don't have to do anything you don't want."

I see Aria give him a look when I stare at her but then I look back at him and I smile gently, "It's okay."

He watches me for a while, as if not sure whether to leave or not. Then he nods and sighs before getting to his feet, leaning in quickly to kiss me on the top of the head. "I'll be upstairs if you guys need me." He says in his dad voice while walking towards Aria, giving her a kiss to her forehead even though she doesn't seem to want him to from being upset and then disappears to the front of the house.

I watch where he walks off for a few long seconds before shifting my eyes back to Aria. She is looking at me with a mix of emotions from what I can tell while being intoxicated. "I'm not mad."

"Could have fooled me."

"Aria, come on…"

"Jessie, I know you. I wasn't there for you and you shouldn't take that lightly."

"I'm…I'm not. I just know the reason behind it is because of what we went through. Why would I blame you for that?"

She watches me for a while, shaking her head. "I just want to know your actual feelings, Jessie. Not whatever nonsense you've made up in your head to justify why you shouldn't be upset in any way."

"I don't see why it's so important after all this time to know."

"Because being there for each other should have been my first priority to make sure we were okay." She says simply, "Instead I shoved my feelings aside and forced you to do the same."

I shrug now, giving a soft shake of my head. "I don't have the strength to talk about what happened anymore, Aria. I still go through nightmares and bad days that never truly went away all the time. I went through my emotions a million times when it first happened and I'm constantly being asked to talk about those feelings when my mood shifts even now. I can't anymore."

"Jessie…please. One more time for me." She watches me for a few long seconds, "Because I should have been the shoulder you cried on back then."

I suck on my lip and stare at her for a while, hating that she's doing this right now. But to humor her I just say the first thing that pops into my head, "You missed my graduation."

Her face slightly slacks, because I don't think she thought I'd start off with that. "I had to work, Jessie."

"I get that, but I struggled to get through school, Ria. I almost didn't even graduate."

She gives me a sad look now and nods, "I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you, I swear."

I press my lips together, my eyes glued to her and now my mind is racing even more than when she walked in. Then I sigh and rub my nose with the palm of my hand in the way I tend to do when I don't want to cry. I can sense myself feeling rushes of emotions now and it's making me more vulnerable because I know it's too late when I finally blurt out what I really wanted to say, "And you abandoned me." My tone is child-like, almost in a way of a kid needing their parents, which in reality I do because losing them in my teens is not the ideal way to live. Not to mention that I am also drunk, so that probably sounded slightly odd.

She gives me a soft stare, this is the conversation she wanted. Then she sighs before walking closer and sits beside me, "I know. I didn't mean to. I really didn't."

For a second I don't say anything, playing with my sweat pants while my fingers graze my leg. Then I shake my head slightly, "I don't understand what happened between us. I know things weren't great, and we knew it would be tough after... after A, but…it shouldn't have done this. Not to us."

Her eyes are glued to mine, hearing my words for the first time as I finally get out what I'm feeling. "All these years we held in our emotions to keep the other from breaking." She says softly, "Me because I couldn't handle talking about what she did to us. While you...you had no choice but to hide it because I didn't give you the option to come to me. None of us gave you that chance."

I grind my teeth a bit and then lean back onto the couch to try and relax, "She ruined our friendship."

"Jessie, no. I ruined our friendship. You had all the right ideas and I left you to drown." She takes a breath and shakes her head, allowing me to see her vulnerable side for the first time in years. "You needed to talk and I shrugged off your feelings like they didn't matter. And yet you still were there for me regardless."

I take a soft breath, rubbing my eye a bit and set my elbows on my thighs now. I stare down at the floor because my drunken state is making me extra emotionally exhausted. I can't bring myself to look at her, feeling slightly bad for making her feel bad. Neither of us had a choice in the matter we got thrown into and to guilt trip her into not checking in isn't fair.

It seems she can sense the battle in my head because the next thing I know she's shifting herself out of her seat and kneels down in front of me. She sets her hands to my cheeks and holds my face in her soft grip. "Jessie, it's okay. We're both okay and I should have been there the way best friends always are. Don't shut me out now that I'm here."

I gulp a bit, now looking at her from the gentle way she is comforting me. This is what we both needed all those years ago and neither of us got that closure from each other. So I lean into her touch now after being taken off guard by the sudden move, not used to her being here or feeling that familiar best friend vibe anymore. "I'm not the same person I used to be."

"I don't expect you to be. You went through a lot and you've grown up since. Being different is okay."

I shake my head, "Not like this, Ria." I take a breath, "I got bad. I mean, I had really bad depression after it happened. It wasn't like when mom, dad and Jeff died, and it wasn't like when Mona took me. I was worse."

She nods slowly, listening to my words with her eyes on me the whole time. Then she gently shifts her hands off my face and holds onto both of my hands to relax me. "I know. Mom told me and I still couldn't bring myself to help you. I'm so sorry."

I shake my head now, gripping onto her hands like a lifeline. She knew what was happening and still chose to be away, which hurts to hear but I can't be mad at her. I've never been able to bring myself to be mad at her. "We went through too much to be normal. I knew it, still know it, but I hoped we'd be us."

"We still can be. We grew up, we've figured out our feelings, our lives, things that needed to be handled before fixing ourselves. Now we can work on being us again."

I press my lips together, eyes glued to hers. The same hazel eyes that has always looked back with love for her best friend, with the need to protect and needing to be there. Despite not seeing each other for a long time and not keeping in much contact if any I still see the same girl I grew up with watching me with that worried look on her face. So finally I take a breath and nod gently. "I need us to be us again."

She smiles softly and gently pulls me into a hug, "Me too."