When I come down for breakfast the next morning, I'm disappointed to find only Liam sitting there. Despite the mounds of food on the table, the thought of eating makes me want to vomit.

Liam doesn't pick his head up from his plate and continues to poke at the remnants of his eggs, completely and purposely ignoring me.

"Where's Jacob?" I ask as I pull my seat out to sit. Someone has to break the ice, and we both know that it's not going to be Liam.

"Sleeping," Liam responds, still looking down at his plate, and I just nod. Guess it's going to be one-word answers from him today, but I don't want to be around his attitude. So, I grab a blueberry muffin, wrap it in a napkin and proceed to get up from the table.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asks.

"Relax, Liam. I'm going to do some work by the pool." I turn away from the table to get on my way but decide to walk back and say something to him because enough is enough.

"Look Liam, I'm sorry, okay? Truly. I'm sorry for lying to you over the last couple of weeks, and I'm especially sorry if I hurt you by lying. That was the last thing I wanted to do. But I didn't expect any of this to happen. I didn't expect to fall for Noah."

He picks his head up and chuckles; his condescendence boiling my blood. "You think that's what this is? You think that you're in love with Noah or something?"

He takes the napkin from his lap, wipes his mouth with it, and throws it onto the table before pushing his chair out to get up and make his way towards me. "Let me tell you something about the life you live, Fee. Whether you like it or not, you are not one of him. He's not one of you. And I'm not going to sit here and let you tarnish your reputation for some lowlife loser who has nothing going for him."

My jaw gapes at his cruel words. "How dare you talk about Noah like that? You don't even know him. If anything, I'm jealous of the life he gets to live."

"Are you serious right now?" he scoffs. "If you're jealous of his life, Fee, then you seriously need a reality check."

"Why? At least he has the freedom to make his own choices. He wants something in life, he goes out and gets it — no one or nothing stops him."

"You see, that's not entirely true, Fee," Liam counters, waving his index finger at me. "In fact, that's where you're wrong. You think I don't know him, but I know everything there is to know." My forehead creases and Liam goes on to explain. "You underestimate me, baby sis...and my resources. Don't think for a second that I didn't ask around the night that I showed up to his house. Fuck-up of a father left when he was a child; his mom's the town whore. Your precious boyfriend's not even going to college. So, trust me when I say that someone like him isn't getting the finer things in life."

"You looked into his background?" I ask in a disgusted tone. "You're unbelievable," I shout, dropping my hands to my sides. "Newsflash, Liam, you're the one who needs a reality check, but I'm not going to sit here and wait for that magical day to happen. I'm done talking about this with you, with Cassie, with anyone who refuses to see that there's more to this world than just the family that you're born into. When you're ready to change, you know where to find me. Until then, I can't help you, and I don't want to be around you."

With that, I head out of the dining room and proceed for the door that leads to the pool. On my way, I cross Jacob in the hallway.

"You okay?" he asks.

"I'm by the pool if you need me," I simply state.

***

I can't concentrate on a single word that I'm reading in my book, so I place it down on the table beside me and grab my journal instead. I flip through to a blank page and come across the last entry that I wrote, which also happened to be on the same day that I got back from the warehouse with Noah.

July 14

The moment that I laid eyes on Noah at Val's I knew he was going to be someone special to me — someway, somehow. I guess it is possible to feel strongly for someone you've just met. What I've come to learn over the past few weeks is that it's not about time. Time is just a number on a clock. It's just seconds in a day, days in a week, weeks in a year, years in a lifetime. It doesn't define what your heart's capable of feeling. And what I feel for Noah is something that I've been struggling to put into words. It's something that I've been struggling to accept. I'm falling for him — hard. After being with him tonight, I know that my feelings are one-hundred percent valid. Tonight, Noah brought me to this warehouse to watch him fight. I don't think I've ever been so scared for someone in my entire life. In the end, he came out on top, but those minutes in between where something bad could have happened to him hurt my heart.

I'm scared. I'm scared that we barely know each other, yet I feel so safe with him, and tonight he opened up to me in a way that I never saw coming. He told me about his childhood, his fears, his hate for vulnerability. It made me want to hold him in my arms and tell him that everything was going to be okay. If only he could see himself through my eyes.

If only.

What tomorrow or the day after that looks like, I don't know. But what I do know is that I want to be with Noah for as long as I possibly can.

My eyes stay fixated on the passage as I clutch the pen in between my fingers. I don't know that I can write something to follow that right now. My mind is blank even though my head pounds and my heart hurts. Which is why I set my journal to the side.

My journal. The thing that once made me so happy is now just a physical object that holds no meaning anymore. The words inside no longer matter. They're just words.

They're just a reminder of something that can no longer be.