A/N: Hi guys! New story! Ahh! Exciting. Another flashback story that's slightly alternate storyline-ish because I feel like this definitely diverges from the original backstory. But what the heck...right?

If you enjoy a good romance, this one's for you.

Hope you enjoy!

Elizabeth Adams—the studious girl parked in her bedroom with a book cracked open, or the stressed girl running through flash cards one last time on the walk down the hall to her classroom, or the disappointed girl for receiving her political science paper back and receiving a 92 (an A-). This Elizabeth Adams aced her ACTs. She'd received an acceptance letter to Stanford. She had considered going to UCLA where they were going to give her a full ride to join their Political Science program, on a fast-track to earn a master's degree and a bachelor's in only five years.

When she saw the letters of acceptance laying on her bed, she reached for them, and she dug underneath UCLA and Stanford to find the paper with the header "University of Virginia." With one person on her mind, she grabbed the other acceptances and trashed them, and pictured the boy in her head—the boy who she could be closer to.

In her mind, he was still her kid brother. She still ruffled his hair every chance she got. She flicked his ear whenever he would mouth off. Though he's sixteen years old, off at Houghton, he's still that little twelve-year-old kid who she saw bloodied up in the hospital, crying inconsolably while she tried her best to play his mother for a moment. Though no one was there to play her mother, she did her best, and she still isn't sure it was enough.

If her mother were to see Elizabeth now, she might not recognize the once-studious daughter she had known so well.

"You want to get out of here?" She yells over the music, her beer accidentally flipping over the side of the cup and onto her fingers. She briefly switches hands, wiping the beer absentmindedly on the back of her dress.

"Babe," Andrew says, laying his hands on both her hips and leaning down—moving from being a towering shadow over her to his lips being on her neck. He peppers kisses upwards from the top of her collarbone to the lobe of her ear, giving a nibble.

She awaits his answer, though not patiently as her head is starting to feel swimmy from the loud music and quite possibly the double shot of tequila she'd just done a few minutes prior. She cranes her neck and pushes him backwards slightly, "Andrew," she prods, "Do you want to leave or not? I'm—"

"Andrew!" She peeks around his shoulder and groans when she sees some of his basketball player friends. He turns around and gives them a hug, and she knows then that she's done for. In a moment of drunken rage, she looks down in her beer cup at the liquid tainted by the smell of smoke, the lights, and God only knows what else. Her eyes go up to the back of Andrew's head again slowly, and in that same moment of drunken rage, her arm propels upwards and forwards, splattering all the beer out on his back.

She turns and runs immediately.

"Elizabeth!" She can just barely hear his booming voice over the speakers, and the way she turned so quickly is making her feel dizzy.

She's tempted to stop for a moment, to turn around and laugh as though she were being frisky and playing a joke on him. But the truth was, she'd put up with his bullshit for too long.

Just before summer break last year, he'd seen her at a party where she was mostly hiding away in a corner. She didn't know anyone here except her freshman roommate who had gone into the kitchen with some guy she'd just met, leaving Elizabeth all alone with a mostly-empty cup of some sort of cheap liquor. He hadn't even said hey, he just came up to her and brushed her hair behind her ear. "What's a pretty girl like you doing all alone?"

All she could do was bat her eyes at him, and then as though the alcohol hit her veins all at once, she thrust herself up, smashing her lips onto his.

The next morning, she woke up with a throbbing headache and in the bedroom of whoever's house this party was held at. She looked at Andrew who had also just been waking up, and from there, she was hooked on the thrill of him—the thrill of dating a basketball player at a big state school like this and all the popularity perks that came along with it. Popularity was something new to her, and she was eating it up.

But now, she's running out of the Virginia Beach club, pushing people out of the way and crashing through a rolling cart of tees that read "Virginia Beach Spring Break 1989." She hears Andrew tripping over things, and by the time she rounds the corner outside, she doesn't hear him anymore. But she keeps running just in case he catches up to her—just in case he's as angry as he sounds.

She turns the corner to head toward the cheap hotel she and her friends were staying in, but she's met with an abrupt stop, knocking her backwards to the ground.

"Oh my God," she hears, and she's leaning over onto one hip to try to dust herself off and stand up at the same time. She's too dizzy to see straight, and too out of breath to move much further. "Are you okay?"

She feels a hand wrap around her wrist, and she finally looks up at the man whose voice had been speaking to her. "Henry?" She asks, furrowing her brows and squinting her eyes to focus in on him. "Henry McCord?"

He chuckles a little as though he's been caught somehow, "The one and only," he says shyly, helping her steady herself on her feet. "Are you alright?" He asks again.

She looks down where she feels a burning, seeing that her leg is bleeding a little. "I think I'm alright."

"You're bleeding," Henry says, and he leans down but she swats him away.

"I'm fine," she repeats more sternly, "I was just trying to get back to the hotel." She can hear her words slurring—she's aware of that much, but she can't keep herself from doing it. She blinks once, her eyes feeling too heavy to open back up. But she peels them open, looking at Henry again who's spinning in front of her.

He shakes his head, "What hotel are you staying at? I'll walk with you," he says, then turns to the man he was with, "I'll catch up with you guys later."

Without agreeing, she finds herself walking next to him and leading him to her hotel, his arm wrapped around her hips to keep her upright. She trips once and he catches her, and she glances over at him and feels like she's going to throw up. "Where were you going?" She asks him, trying to get her mind to focus on something other than the swirling of her eyes.

"Me and my buddy Jeff were going to go do a little night fishing," he says, "I kept telling him we weren't going to catch anything—the waves are too big."

"You fish?" She asks.

She must have slurred her words again because he laughs, "Yes, I fish." He says.

They walk in silence a little longer before he finally breaks it again, "Why were you running like that?" He asks.

She can sense the concern in his voice, but she shrugs it off. "I threw beer on my boyfriend." She says.

"Andrew?"

His voice sounds shocked now. "Yeah, the one and only." She mocks his earlier statement, even impressing herself on her ability to remember it. She looks over and smiles at him, laughing, "See what I did?"

"Oh yeah," Henry says, "I see what you did."

They're rounding the corner now, and Henry looks up at the sign. "Is this you?" he asks. The bright light from "The Chateau of the Sea" sign is shining down on her too much, and she shields her eyes with her hand before nodding. "Can you make it up to your room okay?"

"Yeah," she mumbles, digging through her purse for her room key. Though she thinks he's about to leave, he gently prods her to continue walking, and she just steps in the direction he's taking her.

Opening the door for her, he gently pushes on her mid back to get her to go in. "Goodnight," he says, "See you around."

"See you 'round." She murmurs, finally finding her room key and heading up the stairs.

She makes it to the third step before she crawls the rest of the way.

A rude amount of sunshine fills her eyes, and she immediately shuts them and yanks the comforter up over her head, groaning at the cruel daylight. "Damn you," she mutters.

"Elizabeth," it's her friend's voice, Amy, and it's higher pitch than normal. Elizabeth wonders if it's actually higher or if she's just annoyed to be awake. "Elizabeth! I've been trying to wake you up."

Her eyes open underneath the blanket, "What?" She asks.

"It's your brother," Amy answers. The way her voice shakes makes Elizabeth immediately pull the covers off her head, her vision partially blinded by her hair coming over on her face with it. "He's been in a bad car accident."

She sits up in the bed immediately, her eyes filling with tears. Probably a trauma mechanism, but also the sudden-ness of everything this morning has her shaken. "What time is it?" She scrambles out of the bed, noticing that Amy is dressed already.

"It's 6:23." She answers, "I got the call at, like, 6:00. I was just coming in."

Elizabeth turns to look at her friend again, noting this time that, yes, she's dressed, but it's her partying outfit from last night. A bit more disheveled than it was last night, too. She might have asked her or even teased her about that another time, but right now, Elizabeth was throwing on clothes and tying her hair back into a sloppy ponytail. "Where is he?" She asks frantically.

"They flew him to Bellevue." She says, "I don't really know any more information, I'm sorry, Lizzy." She says.

Elizabeth takes a sharp breath when she realizes Amy's use of the word "flew." He had to be life flighted. What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he thinking? He better have a good story. She looks over at the clock again and confirms the time—6:24 now. "It's going to take me hours to get there." She laments, sliding her sandals on and grabbing her keys.

"Good luck," Amy says, "Let me know if you need anything."

Elizabeth leaves their room without another word, scurrying down the stairs and into the lobby. She cranks her head down and watches her feet, careful to not miss any steps even though her brain is functioning on alert mode right now. When she reaches the bottom, she takes two steps and hits a solid force, looking up. "Henry!" She yells. "What the hell—"

"What are you doing up so early?" He asks, dumbfounded.

She's not sure in that moment if he's dumbfounded because she's awake or because, yet again, she's hit him at a higher speed than she should have been moving if she were in a normal state of mind. Both times she's seen him now on this trip, she's not been in her normal state of mind, however.

"M-my brother," she stutters over her words, running her hand through her ponytail and slicking it back against her head the best she could. "He's hurt. He's at Bellevue in New York City. I have—"

"Let me drive." Henry says, grabbing keys from his pocket as though he were waiting for her to tell him to get his keys. The speediness of this man. She sighs.

"No," she says, "No. I'm fine. I can drive."

"You're not fine." He argues.

"Henry, you don't even know me."

The way she says it even makes her recoil a little. But it's true. He doesn't know her. They were in the same freshman orientation and they chatted once while waiting in line for the dining hall during that orientation—that's when she found out he was military and had already served a couple of years before coming back to school. After that, she only saw him briefly in the halls or in the cafeteria. She never spoke to him until last night when she rammed into his chest.

"I don't care," Henry answers, "I'm taking you. Alcohol aside, Elizabeth, you're panicked." He says.

She swallows thick and glances over his shoulder at the reflection in the glass window, noting how disheveled she looks, too. She runs her hand through her hair again the best she can, but it doesn't help matters at all. She tugs at her shirt and finally nods, "You better step on it," she begs, walking past him and out the door. She realizes, though, that this was a mistake—she has no idea what he drives.

When she pauses, he catches up to her and leads her to an F-150. He opens the passenger door for her and she climbs in before he shuts it, and then he rushes to his side and starts the truck. "I've never been to New York City before." He admits.

"I know the way." She says, her arms curled around her midsection. "You'll get on the interstate and just keep driving until I tell you to exit. I'll pay for any tickets you might get."

She feels his eyes on her momentarily, the way they keep flashing back and forth from the road to her, and she wonders why. Is he scared of her? Is he worried for her? What is it? She wants to ask, but her voice is starting to feel like it's being strangled again, along with her neck. She leans her head to both sides, trying to crack her neck, and then she turns to look out the side window as he's getting onto the interstate. Again, she sees her reflection, but she feels the tears before she sees them.

Her mind is focused solely on Will now. She closes her eyes, tightens her grip around her body, and she takes a sharp breath in as though she's been punched. "God," her mouth doesn't move, but she's speaking the words clearly and loudly in her head as though somehow if she yells at God it'll make everything better. "Please keep him alive. Please. I'll clean up my act if you keep him alive." She'd learned as a child to not make ultimatums with God, but she didn't make an ultimatum the day her parents died. Maybe this is the time it works.

"Where's my exit?" Henry breaks the silence.

Her neck feels stiff, and she looks over at the radio first to see the clock. 7:59. "It's not for a little while longer." She says after seeing one of the mile markers. She sniffles and wipes at her cheek—it's dry now, but it feels cold and sticky and salty from her tears before.

Some more silence passes as she finds herself counting the reflectors on the road.

"What's your brother's name?"

The voice startles her as though she forgot her were sitting right next to her in this single cab truck. She catches her breath and looks at him, "Will," she whispers, then clears her throat and swallows thick. "It's just me and him." She announces as though it were a confession, and she bats her eyes a few times to keep the tears away. "We're all each other really has left in the world, so he's…he's my responsibility and I…I let him down."

"You didn't let him down," Henry assures.

She stares at him, "I feel like I did." She whispers, then turns her head back to the road in front of them.