A hand reached out and grabbed Brooke tightly but gently on the shoulder just before she reached the car that sat along the darkened street.   Her head fell in a dejected slump, what could she say to him?  Just looking at him was hard enough on her.

    "What?  What do you want from me?" She finally mustered up the courage to say.

    "I want you to stop." He begged.  Brooke spun around facing him,

    "Don't you understand Kevin?

    "Understand what?"  He said holding her by the sides of the arms, a touch that was as loving and gentle as she remembered it being.

    "Why I can't do this!" She said shaking out of  tender touch of his hands.

    "No I don't." He said, mirroring her rejection in his voice.

    "Because every time you are near me, or speak to me, or look at me.  I hear it."

    "Hear what?" Kevin's voice filled with questioning curiosity, he had no clue what she was talking about.

    "I hear you tell me that you don't love me!"    She yelled angrily and bitterly into his face, her eyes closing the moment the words left her lips.   "And that part of me dies over and over again."  She looked back up at him, both their eyes rimmed with tears.   "I can't take that kind of hurt anymore.  You could have buried me in the cemetery right alongside David that night for all it mattered, because....it felt like you killed me."

    Kevin flinched again at her statement, turning his head from her eyes.  She began moving closer to the door of her car, just wanting to flee the scene, but turned back so she could finish what she'd been wanting to say to him for so long.

    "Kevin, don't you see?  The one person I cared about more than anything, more than almost anyone in my life; a person  I thought cared about me the same way, and who I thought I could turn to when I was sad and distraught over David's death, caused more pain in my life in ONE moment,  than I've ever felt before.   I don't know if I could go through it again."

     "I do care about you Brooke, if I didn't I wouldn't be here right now, begging you to forgive me." The sad tone resonated from his voice, but she ignored it, months of frustration and confusion coming to a head.

    "That's just it, I don't know if I can forgive you." Brooke cried.  "Please just go back to whatever you've been doing since David died, and let me go on with my life.  I've spent too much time being sad and unhappy over a relationship we never should have started in the first place."  Brooke turned away from him and continued on to her car, a car that sat so close yet seemed a million miles away.

    "How can you say that!?"  Kevin's deep loud voice boomed from behind her, making her jump in fright yet stopping her again, much  to her own frustration. "How can you say we shouldn't have had what we had Brooklyn?  As short and as fucked up as it was, it was right and it was love, I know you felt that love.   So how can you say that?" He reiterated.

    "The same way YOU said you didn't love me." She said with coldness in her tone.

    "That was low." Kevin sighed, stepping in front of her.

    "Yeah?  Well I learned from the best." She spat.

    "Do you still love me?" The deep seeded emotion in his voice returned.

    "It doesn't matter Kevin." She proclaimed shaking her head. "You made up your mind four months ago about us and the relationship you wanted with me, you can't take it back now.   I'll never forget the coldness in your voice and the blankness in your stare when you looked at me and said what you did.  If you can dismiss your love for me so easily, I can dismiss mine too."

His face held no emotion, but she watched as a tear slid from his grayish green eyes, followed by another, and another.  He looked down at the ground, his hands sliding into the pockets of his jeans.

    "I-I thought I was doing the right thing." He said in the most fragile voice she had ever heard, his foot kicking at the gravel on the side of the road as a car zoomed past them.  "I felt so guilty about David dying.  He blamed me ya know, told me on the night he died he'd never forgive me for taking away the one person he loved." His voice spilled with emotion over the memory.

    "That was the only thing I could think about from the moment I heard he was dead.  That he died hating us.  Hating me.  The only thing I could think of that might make things right, to make the guilt go away, was to end the us he hated so much."  He looked up at her again, eyes rimmed in dark pink and his teeth clenched so tightly she could see the deep lines in his cheeks.

    Kevin swallowed hard, his adam's apple moving swiftly up and down.  "I was wrong Brooke.  That's all I can say about it.  When we met, all I knew was that I wanted to love you.  I never imagined I'd hurt you the way I did."

He reached out and grabbed her hands, she wanted to pull away but she couldn't.   Brooke was held in place by the eyes he looked at her with, eyes that reflected  a soul she still loved so deeply, and that, unlike four months ago, now poured with feeling and emotion for her.    His nose scrunched up and his forehead creased at the brow as more hot tears fell from his eyes, crying out his anguish over the situation he put them in.  He squeezed Brooke's hands lightly, sniffing softly as he met her eyes once again.

    "Do you know what my mother said to me, to make me understand just what I was giving up by denying the way a felt for you?" Brooke shook her head.  "She said, 'Don't you think if I could have one more day with your father, I'd take it'"  His eyes shut tight and large tears fell fast from them.  "My father was gone too soon from my life, and I'd give anything to hear his voice, or see his face again.  I had the chance to tell my father how much I loved him and how much he meant to me, I don't want to regret not telling you how much I love you, how much I need you and how desperately I want you in my life.   I didn't want to lose you without you knowing how I really felt, and that's how I really feel Brooke.  I've never loved like I love you......and now you know."

    Kevin let go of Brooke's hands, leaving a lingering touch as her arms fell to her side.  He turned away from her with a deep breath and walked with a familiar shuffle back to his house, hands plunged deep into his pockets and his head hung low.  Brooke watched him until he was blocked by the trees and the darkness of the night.  She lifted her right hand, opening the clenched fist that held onto something he had placed in it, and fell down to her knees on the gravel next to her car, sobbing uncontrollably as she looked at the small silver star  that she had left dangling from his doorknob so long ago.
 
 

        Annie's head was resting on Nick's shoulder and she could hear his soft heart beat.  She inched down further on his chest and listened to the rhythmic beating for a while.   Nick began moving a little and mumbled something that she couldn't understand, she lifted her head to get a look at Nick's face and her heart sank.

    “Nick?” she said.  She brushed some hair out of his face and realized it wasn't Nick's face she was looking at.  “Ohmygawd,” she whispered almost pleadingly.

    “Baby, what's the matter?”

    “What's going on?” she said through tears.

     “Baby, it's okay,” he whispered.

    “No, it's not okay.  Where's Nick?”  He grabbed her by her arms.

    “Nick's dead baby.  He can't hurt us anymore.” He kissed her on the forehead and laid back down.

    “Paul,” Annie whispered.  Paul lifted his arm and whispered,

    “C’mere Anns, I'm cold.”  Annie began shaking.  What the hell is happening? she wondered.  Annie laid down, closed her eyes and continued to shake.  Tears rolled down her face.

    “Shh, shh, it's okay baby,” Paul whispered.  “It's just you and me now,” he said as he kissed her forehead tenderly.
 

    “Ann! Wake up honey,” Nick said, shaking Annie out of her  nightmare.

    "Annie, wake up!” he said again as he shook her out of her sleep.

    “NICK!” Annie said as she sat up quickly.  She was bathed in sweat and  was shaking uncontrollably.

    “Honey, what happened?” Nick said as he brushed some matted hair out of her eyes.  Annie looked him straight in the eyes and opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.  She wrapped her arms around his back laying her head in the crook of his neck.

    “Baby? What happened?”

    “Nothing, but could you just hold me for a little while?” She sighed.

Nick squeezed Annie tight and laid back down on the bed, taking her with him as he went.  She was still shaking but she wasn't pouring sweat anymore.

    “Can you go back to sleep?”

    “Yeah, but right now, I just need to feel your arms around me.  I just need to know we're okay,” she said.

    “What kind of dream did you have?” Nick asked.

    “A bad one.”  Nick sighed and kissed the top of Annie's damp forehead.

    “Well, I'm here.  It'll be okay,” he whispered.  "It'll be okay."
 
 

        Brooke stared at the star that sat in the palm of her hand, the small sliver of the moon above, the only thing illuminating it as she sat on the edge of the road.   She ran the tip of her finger over the thin engraved letters that were barely visible.  Why did he have this?  Why did he keep it?  Her mind screamed as she thought long and hard about Kevin and how she felt about him.   She folded her fist over the necklace and brought her hands to her face, the endless tears she was crying spilling through her fingers.  What am I going to do?  She thought.

    It wasn't until another car sped past her honking his horn loudly at the girl who sat on the ground in the dark of night at four thirty in the morning that  Brooke got up.    She dusted the dirt and gravel from her jeans and started to get into her car, she had sat alone on the side of the road for awhile and was cold and tired from crying so much.  As she opened the car door her mind shot back and forth between the choice she had to make, in one hand she held the necklace, Kevin and all her feelings for him,  in the other, she held the door handle, a quick escape from reality and an endless amount of heartache.   Before she even set one foot in the open car door, she slammed it shut again, clutching the necklace, beginning the walk back to Kevin's house to face her fears.

Her mind scoured through her own feelings and emotions, as well as everything they had said to each other tonight.  Brooke was terrified, never before had she felt so unsure of  what she wanted to do or feel and every step she took closer to that house only made it worse.  She glanced up at it as she neared his front door,

    "The lights are off." She said to herself.  But she didn't turn back, instead she took the frightening steps up onto the porch and stood in front of the screen door yet again.  He wasn't pacing the living room like he had been earlier, and no music played in the background.  Music she knew he had been playing to calm himself, it was something they both did and right about now Brooke could have used some calming melodies.  It was eerily quiet in his house, the only sound came from the hinges of the screen door as Brooke opened it slowly, stepping inside and knowing exactly where she had to go.

She knew where he'd be.

Holding tightly to the necklace, and wiping the never ending trail of tears that slid down her cheeks, Brooke began her ascent up the staircase, the same staircase she had walked up almost a year ago, a walk that had changed her life.  She entered his bedroom and saw his silhouette standing on the balcony, the place she knew she would find him.  He held onto the bannister with both hands and stare out into the night.  She walked to the balcony's door, her footsteps muffled by the plush carpeting, not knowing what to say, but she smiled slightly to herself remembering his first words to her when she had stepped out here so long ago.  He had asked her if she was going to be sick, somehow that didn't seem like the appropriate thing to say to him.

He moved to sit down, not turning enough to see her standing there.   Her hands shook with nervousness, and her heart was beating so hard and fast she was sure he had to be hearing it.  Slowly Brooke gathered up her courage and stepped forward, her head hung low and the tears still falling as she stepped out into the night air.  She heard his intake of breath and she looked up at him.  He sat bent over with his elbows on his legs, hands clasped in almost a praying position beneath his chin, his beautiful eyes staring up at her with hope and longing.

Brooke was silent as she  leaned against the frame of the balcony, her mouth suddenly dry and the words she wanted to say trapped within her heart.  She looked out at the moonlit trees as he had just been doing,  taking a very deep breath to calm herself.

    "I was so crushed by what you said to me..." She began, turning around to face him.

    "Br.."  He started, but she hushed him.

    "Please, just let me finish."  Brooke fidgeted with the chain in her hand as she continued.  "I realized that what you did to me......I had done to David.  I made him feel that way, I hurt him like that and look where he ended up.  I made it through the pain, the heartbreak and the nights where I couldn't do anything but cry myself to sleep, and I just didn't think I could do it again.   I was scared that if I let you do that to me a second time, maybe this time I'd end up just like David, and that thought terrifies me."   Brooke wiped the hair from her face, tucking in behind her ear and swallowing the lump that was lodged in her throat.  He sat silently, peering up at her, tears in the corners of his eyes as she paced on the balcony, finally sitting down next to him.    Her bottom lip quivered as she began speaking again.

    "But as much as that scares me, there's only one thing I'm more afraid of."  Brooke's  shoulders shook as her emotions skyrocketed.

    "What?" He asked, his voice as choked up and emotional as her own, barely even audible.

   "Living my life, knowing I gave up on us."  He closed his eyes briefly at her words, knowing he had.  She held out her hand exposing the necklace that sat in her palm.  He ran his finger across the star he had spent hours looking at, hours spent missing her and wishing things were different.  "I don't want to hurt anymore Kevin, I just want all my fear and worry to go away, I just want to be happy again."

Kevin ran his finger down Brooke's hand, pulling the small silver chain with it.  She was silent, but spilled her first happy tears in a long time when he reached around her neck and clasped the necklace back where they both knew it belonged.  He ran his hands along her neck, cupping her face, his thumbs wiping the tears from her cheeks.  Kevin leaned into her, his forehead pressed against hers for a moment, taking a breath and pulling back from her face.  A slight smile appeared on his face, his eyes lighting up,  the tears in their corners shimmering with relief.   Brooke ran her hand along the line of his square jaw, tracing the line of hair from his lips to his chin, finally returning to feel his breath on the fingers that lingered on his lips, a touch that remained even as he spoke.

    "You know I'm never letting you go again." He said softly and sincerely, the only words he had really spoken to her since she had come out here.   Brooke smiled, the hand that seemed to have her heart in a vice released its pressure, letting back in the love she hadn't felt in a long time.  His thumbs still wiped every tear that fell, his caress so gentle.

"That's good, cause I don't want you to." She sniffed.  "and Kevin.....I do still love you." She said, responding to his earlier question.

He stood up and pulled her with him, his hands returning to the sides of her face and his forehead resting on hers.  Slowly and with much anticipation from both of them their lips met with a gentle kiss.  They both breathed a heavy sigh,  their tears joining with one anothers.

    "I love you too Brooklyn." He finally said, speaking her name with thanks and happiness, kissing her lips again and pulling her into a healing embrace.  She hugged him tight, her face buried in his shirt, holding on for dear life as his hands ran comfortingly up and down her back.

They stood for the longest time, absorbing every emotional word they had said that night,  both of them being comforted by the fact that it was over.  Kevin's months of guilt and heartache washed away just as Brooke lost all her fear and trepidation with every rise of Kevin's chest, and every beat she heard of his heart.   Finally he pulled back slightly, kissing her on the forehead, his lips lingering as she smiled.  They sat down together on the bench and stayed until the sun had risen, her head resting on his shoulder and gazing into the eyes that gazed into hers.  Not a breath of sound being uttered, because none was needed.