"You're nuts," Nick replied. "What are you going to do? Walk up to her and say, 'hi. I know you probably hate me, but I'm still madly in love with you for no apparent reason. I wasn't in the neighborhood, but I thought I'd drop by?'"

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

"No, you're simply crazy!" He sighed. "Look, I'm not interested in being mean. But I'd like to point something out: she broke up with you. Isn't that a sign?"

Brian muttered an obstinately and walked away.

* * *

"You know," Nick said, thinking, "that's not actually a bad plan."

Brian smirked. "Give credit where credit it due."

"But really, what makes you so sure she hasn't moved?"

"I don't know. I doubt she did. I mean, it's so easy to switch to a PO Box and just change your phone number, right? But why move? She knew I'd be on tour."

"What happens if she rejects you?"

He didn't answer. Nick took his silence to say that rejection wasn't an option. Brian cleared his throat. "So ... we've got time during the morning after?"

"If you skip out really early, you might be able to get out. Kevin thinks we're entitled to a night in a hotel after so many days on that damn bus."

Brian laughed. "Too bad he doesn't know how we're going to take advantage of him."

"He is so going to kill you."

"Like, way teenyspeaky!"

"As if!"

They resorted to laughter to take the focus off the problems that were to come.

* * * * *
The guy who put his hands on you
Has got nothing to do with me
And the bruises that you feel will heal
And I hope you'll come around
'Cause we're missing you

Malia quietly slid off the covers. She'd lain on the couch all night, not sleeping, not thinking. A book lay on the floor, and she knew the spine was being ruined in that position.

She shuffled through her morning routine. Within the hour her hair, now a dulled red, was pulled up into a tight bun. Ruffling through her clothes, she rejected things that normally would have been fine, because the betrayed her scars. Settling on a pair of jeans and a long sleeved white tee under a blue sweater, she brushed on a coat of mascara and debated whether showing up two hours early for class would seem bizarre. The library opened an hour before classes started, she remembered. Exactly fifty-nine minutes and six--now five--seconds to kill.

Lying back down on the couch, she rolled to her side to prevent in inventible ruination of her hair.

-

Brian took the first set of stairs two at a time. 'Excited' was an insignificant word. By the time he hit the second set, fear had started twisting up his stomach, and he slowed down. By the time he hit the last flight he was prodding along the stairs slower than a sullen cow led astray.

What was he so scared of? Come on, who would be scared of their ex-lover? The fear he had wasn't that she was welding a knife behind her back.

It was fear of rejection.

-

Five minutes later Malia was asleep. (Gee, what a surprise.) Brian stood outside her door, with his knuckles hovering just above the wood. It looked like a scene out of a really bad movie.

After another thirty seconds passed, her slid down the wall next to the door. He folded his arms across his knees and rested the side of his face there. Thirty agonizing minutes passed. The sounds of other students and households getting ready were clearly heard through the thin walls. He counted off another sixty seconds. Thirty-seven minutes had passed since he'd come. It was time.

Holding his breath as he knocked. He couldn't hear a thing over the sound of his own heartbeat. Idly, he wondered if others could hear it too. Half a minute went by. He had to exhale. Knocking again, he thought he heard a shuffling of feet.

A somewhat disgruntled girl opened the door. Her eyes were down at the floor and it took Brian a minute to register that this was Malia. She was, in a word, completely different. Fine. Two words. No matter. He drunk in her figure and tried not to gasp.

"Malia?" He breathed, more than whispered.

She held up the universal 'one minute' sign and shut the door.

* * * * *

Ten, rather than two, minutes later she emerged. The sleep had been rubbed out of her eyes, and she smelled of a fresh coat of lotion. A black messenger-type bag was crossed at a diagonal over her chest. She looked years younger and older all at the same time.

Brian was perplexed. So far, she'd avoided saying one word to him. Now, they were trapped in the narrow hallway. She was leaning against the door, meaning at any moment she could raise her middle finger and slip off. Neither knew what the other was capable of.

"Look ... my car is outside." He needlessly pointed backwards. "Do you want to go for a ride or something? I could drive you to school or for a cup of coffee, or ..." Running out of options, he let the sentence trail off.

"How about coffee and a ride? There's a spot close to campus," she replied in monotone, gazing at a spot on the floor.

"Okay, fine, have it your way," Brian muttered sarcastically as he watched her walk towards the stairs. Not bothering to wait for an answer. That wasn't her.

Actually, as he thought, nothing so far was her. Everything was neat, orderly in her appearance. Her nails were cut to perfect arches, he noticed as she sipped from a carryout cup and he wouldn't have been surprised if she did something as over-the-top as iron her jeans. She seemed so ... controlled.

Yeah, right.

* * *

Brian heard her slam her door shut as they left and he flinched. A burning curiosity wanted him to ask how her life was going, but he couldn't. The entire time she'd asked in-depth questions on the tour. Questions a reporter wouldn't ask, but nonetheless interesting. She had sat across from him the entire time, staring at the marks left by her lipstick and nodded as if she approved.

What Brian didn't know was that just trying to sit there was sheer torture for her. All she wanted to do was to lean over and kiss him until they were breathless. Of course, both of them were lily-livered cowards. That sure wasn't going to happen.

He stared over at her, her face cupped in her hand, staring out the window. For some reason, a rage began building up inside him. How dare she? He'd waited so long. How dare she? He's tried so hard. No. She wasn't going to get the upper hand. He was tired of playing her stupid mind games. Which, unfortunately, were the words he said.

Her eyes flashed and for the first time she turned to look at him. "I play mind games? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!"

"Cute."

"Yeah I know I am."

"I didn't come here to trade sarcastic insults with you."

"I didn't ask you here."

Her statement rang around the tiny interior. As soon as the words had been spoken she wanted them back. 'Great going Malia, you just hurt the person who cares the most about you!' She forced herself to stop breathing, to try to make him think she was invisible.

'Bitch' was the word on the tip of Brian's tongue, but that was a cheap shot. No point in hurting her. It would be just like hurting himself. He heard her gasp, and it sounded like she would have started a coughing fit but there was a choking sound and she placed her hand over her mouth. Just like a girl--always trying to be dainty.

"How's school going?"

Choosing not to question his motives, she replied with a simple 'good.' A few other fill-in-the-blank questions followed. She tried to become lively, to draw him out, but this time he shrank back.

And you used to speak so easy
Now you're afraid to talk to me
It's like walking with the wounded

She watched him pull into a deserted lot, which reminded Brian of his last ... 'escapade.'

"What are you doing?"

She swore she heard him reply, 'kissing you,' before his mouth overtook hers and his hands unpinned her hair.

* * * * *

Within three seconds Malia found herself under Brian, lying in an akward posistion, but not really caring. He must have done this with Leighanne a couple hundred times.

Brian didn't break contact with her body the entire time. He'd managed to get the stupid bag she was wearing off, with much difficulty. The whole time he had been staring into her eyes. She looked so vulnerable under him. His five years were obvious, as well as the slightly harder glint in his eye. She had yet to completely shut out the world.

Her arms were being held up; he'd put his hands over hers and made her lie back. They'd lost themselves together there, for a minute. Taking his hands away, Brian reached down for the hem of her sweater, wanting to feel her skin.

Malia, on the other hand, wasn't as stupid and innocent as she probably looked. Brian had put her in a compromising position, but there was still a way out. But God, when he put his hands on her stomach.

Her stomach.

The burns. The 'scrapes.' The 'accidental bumps.' In one fluid motion she sat up, broke the kiss, and pulled down her sweater.

"No."

"I wasn't going to do that," he replied, blushing.

"This was a mistake."

He blinked incredulously. "A mistake?!" Voice rising, he fought the urge to yank her and repeat what had just happened.

-
You were my lesson
I had to learn
I was your fortress
You had to burn
Pain is a warning that something's wrong
I pray to God that it won't be long
I want to go higher ...

"So that's what I am to you," he said bitterly. "A mistake."

"No, not exactly ... Look, when I ended it--"

"--attempted to end the relationship."

"--I meant for it to be a clean break. Something simple. I thought that if I hurt you in the kindest way possible you'd just get over it." Staring out the window again, she added, "judging by what just passed, I take it that didn't happen."

"And what about you?" He challenged. "You seem a tiny bit hypocritical."

"I wouldn't be if you'd never come!"

"Oh, so it's all my fault?!"

"Yeah, it is all your fault!"

Their voices rose until nothing but their mindless words could be heard.

There's nothing left to lose
There's no more heart to bruise ...

* * * * *

They'd been silent for nearly ten minutes now, not speaking, not looking, not touching. "I have twenty more minutes, and then I've got to be back at the hotel."

"Good for you."

"Let's try to work this out."

"I am trying. I am trying to make a nice, clean break so you never walk back into my life again and ruin it."

Her words stung and he flinched. "There's no reason why can't be together."

"And I thousand why we shouldn't."

"Bet you can't give me ten."

"Try me."

"Go ahead then."

"One: you're a Backstreet Boy. Everything else is self-explanatory."

He buried himself deeper into the seat. "You just can't get over that can you?"

"It's not me getting over it, it's just part of life."

The conversation continued along the same vein for half of Brian's time.

"... I give up! You're just not going to see reason, are you?" Her voice was thin, and Brian knew she was moments away from crying.

"I'm not going to see your idea of reason."

"Then you're stupid!"

"You're stubborn!"

"I'm stubborn? If a guy broke up with me and changed his phone number so I couldn't contact him, yet I was still hell bent and dead set on the idea of finding him, I'd call that stubborn!"

He tried doing what had worked the last two times: pulling her into another kiss. Their hunger for each other overwhelmed the fight--for the moment

There's nothing left to try
There's no place left to hide ...

"New York City. August 17. Plaza Hotel. 1AM. The lobby."

"Deal."

She climbed out of the car and he drove away.

* * * * *
Your heart is not open
So I must go
The spell has been broken
I loved you so ...
There's no greater power
Than the power of goodbye

| Chapter Twenty |