"Where's Taryn?" Matt asked Jessa, Jessa and Greg lounging like newlyweds enjoying a young morning together in his bunk, blue flannel sheets decorating their bodies with softness with the curtain open, Louie's rules. Jessa fluttered her eyes open, having drifted into a light sleep over Greg's heart, his cotton black wifebeater like silk against her skin and his hand resting comfortably on her back.

"She's sleeping in our RV," Jessa informed Matt, Greg's hand fishing through her hair as Jessa smiled, his fingers stimulating against her scalp. "What do you need her for? She's probably slipped into a grief-enduced coma."

It was true, even thought Taryn apologiesed reluctantly with a gruff, surprise, surprise, she still was a walking zombie, her eyes bloodshot, but not from tears, from some other addictive stimulant she hid deep under her bed, eyes and heart. Ashley seemed to be consoling Taryn's every whim in a snap and Jessa and Celeste didn't know why.

"Frankie and I have a surprise for her," Matt replied with a shifty smile, retracting to the kitchen table and tapping Frankie on the shoulder, who was deeply involved in consuming Lucky Charms. Frankie glanced up at him a little dazed and the same underhanded smile appeared on his face. They both charged for the door, positive their surprise would cheer Taryn somehow........

"Should we wake up Taryn?" Ashley asked uncertained as she grabbed her pink adidias backback, Taryn's face averted from Ashley, the strap of her white wifebeater slipping from her shoulder as if on ice, her red hair tassled over her eyes, signafying the dire need for a haircut

"Let her sleep," Celeste urged, squatting down to the little clothes left to be put away in proper places near the door to clutch her black pocketbook in her hands in a warbly stance. She fished through her blue wallet and heard a knock at the door. Tumbling on her side like a turtle, she giggled to Ashley, "Can you get the door?"

Ashley trudged over Celeste and clicked the door open. Frankie and Matt stood before her with million dollar smiles, something they all needed on their faces, dark clouds washing into the sky and the temperature dropping faster every minute like raindrops from the sky. "Is Taryn here?" Frankie asked, glancing inside the RV.

"Here physically, yes," Celeste began, her voice shooting over Ashley, crawling on her knees to the door before rising to her feet, her face saddened as she peered to the right at Taryn, "But emotionally, who knows."

"We're off to Dunkin' Donuts," Ashley piped in with brightness, licking her lips at the thought of a chocolate Eclair, as if nothing was troubling her.

"Fat and sugar will make us all feel better," Celeste continued with a depressed sense of optimism, rubbing her thumb up and down the edge of the door as Ashley scampered down, parting Frankie and Matt like Moses with the Red Sea and Celeste did the same. Suddenly, she clamped her hand onto Matt's meek arms, Matt jumping at her jolty touch, "PLEASE lock up when you leave."

"Yes, Maim," Matt assured her, Frankie saluting Celeste in a playful manner as Matt patted her cheek. A sympathetic smile slipped onto his face, the backlash of last week's burgulary shown in all of the girls' dull eyes and overplayed cheeriness. Matt knew the girls wouldn't be the same and he wished he could do something to help all of them, not just Taryn. Frankie and Matt climbed into the RV, grimacing at how much they noticed it changed, not even what was missing, the items including Ashley's CD player, a few photographs, the TV, and other accessories, but just the air that floated through their hair and round their ankles was stale and dead. They tiptoed to the back where they saw Taryn roll over in profound sleep, her hands cupped under her head. Matt bent down and shook her shoulder violently, her face tightening before her eyes popped open like the T-Rex in The Land Before Time, her eyes sparkling with that constant fire. After her foggy vision cleared to see Frankie and Matt before her, she mumbled, "If you were one of the girls, I would have probably tore your face off by now."

"Now that's what you want to hear next to you in the morning," Frankie joked, tucking his hands in his back pockets of his jeans. Taryn forced an amused chuckled as she sat up in bed, rubbing her hands like windshield wiper over dirty glass.

"So what bring you kids over here a the early hour of..." Taryn leaned back by the TV stand without a TV and glanced at her cell phone and rubbed an itch twitching in her cheek, "Noon?"

"We've got something for you," Matt informed her, Taryn's eyes widening through the gloom clouding them over like the death of a loved one.

"What is it?" Taryn asked intrigued, noticing Frankie taking something out of his pocket. Frankie offered it to her and she reached for it, but Frankie snaped it back like a whip, Celeste pouting. "Don't tease me!"

"You're coming with us to the Warped Tour over in Jacksonville," Matt told her, Taryn's body freezing into stone, her head cocked foward to make sure what she heart was correct, not figments of her dreamy reality.

"I am?" she asked quietly, spreading her hands along her disheveled purple sheets. Before they could reply with an answer, Taryn jumped to her feet with a sharp wail of appreciation and joy, hugging her arms around Frankie and Matt so suddenly, they all tumbled to the ground like children playing Tag and landed with a thud, Frankie grappling at his back with pain, Matt and Taryn laughing as Taryn wiggled off of them, Taryn's day looking immediately more bright.........

Locking themselves in the backroom, abusing Louie's privaleges because he was in town for a meeting, Jesse or Chris banging on the door once in a while in attempt to get to the TV in time to watch Dawson's Creek, Jessa and Greg dined on pasta and pleasuring conversation, two candles romantically and strategically placed in between them and the plastic bowl of spagetti, the yellow flame fickering on their faces. They plopped on bashe body pillows, very comfy. A soft blue glow emitted off the moon to light up the dim room, both of their eyes' twinkling with contentness.

"My kind of guy," Jessa cooed, slurping down her pasta with pesto sauce dripping off it onto her chin, "He can cook and knows my favorite sauce."

"What are boyfriends for?" Greg asked nonchalantly, guzzling some Dr. Pepper from his can and whipping it from his lips with the back of his hand.

Boyfriend, Jessa thought, her eyes swimming in her bowl, that sounds nice. It was never announced to the public or the fans or anything. They were never referred to as boyfriend and girlfriend, but it was a mutual silent implication that everyone understood. And Jessa liked that. No special attention. No high expectations. No fake people. Just them. Together.

"Tell me about your family," Greg pryed, reaching foward for another bowl of steamy pasta, wanting to know all his brain clould take in about Jessa.

Jessa cringed slightly, her nails scratching into the sides of the bowl, her grandmother's ring clanking. "I'd much rather hear about yours."

"What don't you know about them?" Greg questioned with a chuckle and a lift of his eyebrows, twirling snakes of carbohydrates around his fork.

"Well," Jessa started, placing her bowl securely on the floor as she began to count out on her fingers..."3 sisters, Danielle, the one engrossed in makeup, Nicole, the girl in love with NSYNC and chocolate, and Amanda, who loves books and her favorite author is Patricia Cornwell. Mom and Dad, MaryAnn and Octuvio. MaryAnn knocked out her two front teeth when she fell off a seesaw when she was 8...I guess I do know a lot." She smiled sheepishly, brushing sauce from her chin as Greg's smile widened.

"Then it's your turn," Greg urged, leaning back in his elbows, his stomach well satisfied at his cooking deed.

"In my eyes, I don't have family," Jessa whispered, her eyes diverted to her nearly clean bowl as her tounge ran swiftly across her lips like a snake's, moistening them so her tears wouldn't. But Jessa could feel the tears coming from deep inside her hallow heart, climbing up her throat and battling toward her eyes. Covering her eyes, a concerned Greg scooted toward her and draping his arm on her shoulder, a sob creeping from her throat.

"Tell me about it," Greg said softly, grazing his fingers over her soft cheek.

"I can't," Jessa muttered, shrugging away from him to try to gain some composure, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling as if to fix a contact lens, a deep sigh making her shoulders rise and sink like the ocean's tide.

"But you can tell me anything," Greg informed her, thinking that her problem wasn't extremely consequential, thinking his world still was rainbows and sunshine, rubbing his hand in gentle, soothing strokes along her shoulder, "Anything at all. Don't you know that?"

"I know," Jessa cried, bolting from his embrace and wrapping her arms over her stomach, nibbling on her bottom lip as Greg was left on the floor confused. "But I can't tell you this...it hurts too much."

"You'd rather keep it inside?" Greg asked, his eyebrows lowering, standing up from the floor and cautiously approaching Jessa's back, his heart beginning to prickle painfully. "That's not healthy. You'll get yourself sick."

"Greg," Jessa sniffed, a tear staining her black tank top printed with cherries. She turned to him to show him what she was doing to him, forcing her to tell him about everything, her past, her family, everything she left behind, the reason for this trip.

"Please don't cry," Greg begged in a gentle tone, Jessa's knees bucking beneath her strain and falling into his arms, her cheek pressing hard against his chest, his breathing massaging her spirit as tears flowed like waterfalls from her eyes, "I didn't mean to hurt you, honest. I'm just a little upset that you feel you can't talk to me about what's bothering you."

"I don't wanna lost you, Greg," Jessa wailed loudly, pushing away from him in a burst of anger and remorse, her cheeks as red as the cherries on her shirt, her breath short and heavy. "I don't want to hurt you. I don't want you to leave me. And if you do, I deserve it."

Greg was paralyzed for a few moments from Jessa's admittance and shock, his eyes blinking to concentrate on what she was saying, his body from the waist up pitched foward. "How can you say that, Jessa?" Greg demanded at Jessa's skeptics, a little more heat charging his voice than he intended, his eyes enraged with passion, grabbing her arms and pulling her into him, Jessa's eyes glazed over in a low level of fear. "Do you know how much I adore you, enjoy being with you, how much I love you..." Greg's mouth shut immediately as if zippered closed, a cavern of dark surprise aggrandizing from her mouth, her eyes widening with simular speed. He said it, Jessa, Jessa's mind echoed through her body, her body getting prepaired for the fight of flight tactic. Say something. Anything. Jessa tore herself from his hands with sparkles of hate stinging her eyes and walked to the door, unlocking it swiftly before Greg said, "Don't you have anything to say?"

"No," Jessa's mouth spurted out without thought, Greg running over to the door and slamming it close with a mighty thrust courtesy of his palms, Jessa backing away as if threatened.

"C'Mon, Jessa," Greg pleaded, caressing her face as she continue to back up into the couch, plummeting down on it as she gazed up at Greg like a frightened animal, Greg morphing into a monster before her clouded eyes. Greg crawled on top of her, her eyes veered to the bashe floor, a simular situation she was positive that happened in her mother's past enfolding on top of her. A tear rolled down her right cheek as Greg gently pushed her face toward his. "Tell me what you feel. Don't be scared."

"I am scared," Jessa's voice quivered in her throat, only parts of words traveling far enough for Greg to hear, Greg's mouth dipping into a frown. "I am scared to love. I'm scared to admit it. I'm a fucking coward."

"But why?" Greg asked, despiration straining his voice, his hands clamping on her shoulders, his eyes resting on the scar shaped like a "V" crisscrossing the corner of her mouth, wanting to kiss it so badly, his mouth salivating because of how Jessa made him feel, alive. Jessa's face charted in lost thought, her eyes shielding tears from surfacing and staining her face with constant blinking. Abruptly, Taryn, Frankie and Matt piled into the room, Taryn cladded in a newly-purchased black New Found Glory T-Shirt, the conversation sparking between the three about MxPx's new stuff premiered at the concert ceasing, cutting short at the predicament displayed before them, Taryn's face slightly skewed with disgust as she arched her head down to get a better view.

"Sorry to...interrupt," Matt apologiesed with uncertaincy, Greg immediately receeding from the couch and running his fingers through his hair in fustration, Jessa sitting up and brushing at her tank top nonchalantly as if it was covered with dirt.

"Hey guys," Greg greeted them with a fake chipper smile, glancing back at Jessa, Jessa looking up at him with those lost eyes, coiling her legs into her chest, "Uhh...how was the concert."

"A fucking blast!" Taryn shouted with glee, Frankie and Matt nodding in harmony. "There were a lot of bands I knew little about there, but Good Charlotte and New Found Glory were the best, by far. It was so entertaining watching Matt in the mosh pit."

"He looked so scared," Frankie confided, the image of Matt curled like a ball and looking paler than normal in the midst of Converse sneakers and plaid wear obliging Frankie to laugh.

"I was pushed in, Man," Matt testified, his brows conjoining above his nose, "I wasn't ready for that kind of violence."

"He could snap like a twig," Greg responded, puching Matt lightly in the shoulder, Matt cringing in a joking fashion with a smile.

"Are you OK, J?" Taryn asked Jessa, Jessa still perched on the couch with a face sprinkled with worry and upset, Taryn advancing toward her with concern, Taryn raking a piece of Jessa's hair securely behind her ears.

"Yeah," Jessa said softly, recoiling a little at Taryn's touch before standing up, her eyes locked on Greg as if hypnotised. "I just need to think." With that, Jessa paced past Greg, self-conscienceness flooding the air, Taryn oblivious to what was ailing Jessa. She thanked the guys for the dozenth time for taking her before scurrying to Jessa, Jessa's secrets slowly leaking into the mainstream of her and Greg's relationship.