"What is going on here?" asked Debbie once she entered the garage. She had expected to see the guys at their respective instruments or huddled around the table writing a song, but instead she found all four sprawled out on the couch and chairs. All had hopeless expressions on their faces.
"Go away Mom," Ryan mumbled into the cushions of the couch which he was lying face down on.
"You guys. . .you all look like death," she said. "What happened? Did someone die?"
"No difference," said Jon.
"Melissa's gone. . ." said Dan.
"Tori's moving. . ."
"I got nothing. . ."
"Jodi's seeing someone else. . ." All eyes turned back to Jon's direction, unsure of what he had just said.
"What?" everyone asked.
"She what?" asked Tori.
"Yeah, she's staying in England. And apparantly Jodi was cheating on Jon," Ryan repeated.
"That's just crazy, I never thought that Jodi would do something like that. But then again. . .it was a long distance relationship and all. . .I guess I could kind of understand how something like that could happen."
"Tori what's gonna happen when you move?" he asked suddenly.
"Huh?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to catch you off guard like that, but what's going to happen after you're gone?" he paused. "What do we do?"
Tori sighed and cradled the phone closer to her ear. "Ry. . .I really don't want to think about it right now."
"We gotta talk about it regardless of whether or not we want to Tori. The day is going to come and there's nothing we can do about it, you leave in three weeks!"
"I know!" she yelled, and then sighed. "I know. . .and I don't want to do this."
"Do what?"
"I don't want to do a lot of things. I don't want to go back to the States, I don't want to leave you, I don't want to break up, I don't want to do any of this. I'm so stressed out by everything thats going on right now that I barely even want to live."
"Don't say that Tori, don't say anything like that. I can't even imagine how stressed you probably are, but you can't let it get to you like that."
"I thought that moving out here. . .a completely different country where I'd never been and where I didn't know anybody, I thought that was a fate worse than death. And now I don't want to leave. . .now the States seem like a completely different place. I just want to stay here with you guys."
"But you can't, and you know that."
"Yeah I know. . .and I also know that it probably wouldn't work with me back in Texas."
"So basically. . .three weeks and it's over?"
"You're forgetting one thing. . .the mini-tour. You guys leave in ten days." She sniffed and a small tear ran down her cheek.
". . .oh God no." Ryan choked. He wished she was with him right then, he longed to feel her nestled in his arms at that exact moment. Instead, he just hugged his knees. "Tori. . .I don't want this."
"And you think I do?" she wiped the tears from her cheeks. "We have no choice. It just can't work out the way we want it to. Can you honestly tell me that you can keep up a long distance relationship across the continent?"
"But Tori. . ."
"Ryan, you know that you can't. Don't even try to convince yourself otherwise."
"There has to be some way we can work this out." He pleaded with her.
"There isn't Ryan. I've thought, I've racked my brain to the point of exhaustion. There's nothing we can do except to accept our fate and deal with it."
". . .But I love you."
Tori sighed. "If only that was enough."