Isaac did not want to be there. Seeing Jade just reminded him too much of his brother, which was why he had tried to stay away for so long. Why Nick had insisted he come over was beyond him, all he knew was that it was going to be really painful to see her again.

He hadn't been prepared for what Jade looked like. This skinny, almost gaunt girl who looked much younger than her eighteen years couldn't be the same Jade that Taylor had talked about insessantly. The girl that eat so much that Zac teased her that she must have a wooden leg. Their Jade hadn't looked like that.

Nick raised his eyebrows as if to say,"See?" Now Isaac could see why he was there. There was something wrong with Jade. Everyone was sad, but Jade looked sick. And no matter how much it hurt, he was just going to have to stick around until he helped her.

****

Jade was sitting upright on her bed, knees pulled up to her chest, as she held onto them tightly with her arms and rocked back and forth, back and forth. Her hair didn't look brushed, and her eyes were rimmed with red, like she'd probably been crying recently.

"Jade?"Isaac whispered."Are you okay?"

She didn't respond. All she did was stare straight forward and keep rocking.

****

"Jade?"she knew exactly whose voice it was, even before he came into her sight. Maybe he will leave if I ignore him, she thought. It had certainly worked on Nick. She just didn't want to see anyone. Nobody could accept that she didn't want to see anyone. Nobody at all. All she wanted was to be alone. Apparently that was too much to ask.

He continued talking."Jade, you have to talk to somebody. You can't just keep everything bottled up inside, if you try you'll burst. I miss him too, Jade. God I miss him. I need to talk about this, too. I miss him so much,"he whispered, beginning to cry.

She hadn't realized how selfish she was being until she looked over and saw Isaac with his head in his hands, sobbing. She reached over and clung onto him, pulling his head onto her shoulder. They cried together, letting their tears mingle together.

****

Jade had never seen a guy cry besides Taylor. Taylor had always been the sensitive one, the one who cried over Titanic and when his dog died. But she remembered the first time she'd ever seen him cry the best.

She had been sitting in her room, much the same as she had when Isaac found her.

"Jade, what's wrong?"he asked.

She wasn't able to answer but he caught sight of the newspaper article laying on her bed, already dog- eared from being read by her over and over in an attempt to disprove it. She already knew what it said practically by heart. Her father was dead, killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver while he was away on business in South Carolina. He was gone forever and she'd never even had a chance to say goodbye.

Then he had cried. Big, wet, tears just freely streaming down his face, not caring who saw him or what they thought. He just cried, and Jade found herself crying along with him, knowing that he was the one person who could truly understand.

****

When Isaac himself stopped crying, he looked at Jade closely. She'd had so much sadness in her life, he couldn't blame Taylor for wanting to keep that from her. She was so delicate, and all alone. Nick cared about her, but she couldn't see that, and Nick would never understand how to show it. The way he could see it, he was her last hope. If he deserted her, she'd just cease to go on living.

That thought sent a chill up his spine. Jade had felt that life wasn't worth living once before. It was up to him to prove to her that it was.