Carmen's POV

Twenty-four days.

Is it sad that I'm counting? Maybe it is, but it really can't be helped. For a while there everything was about him and now suddenly....

I know it's my own fault. I could have just talked to him if I wanted, tried to figure everything out but it was all too much. Whatever was happening between us wasn't going to work anyway, so it's better to deal with this much milder heartbreak than to go through it a few months down the line when we're both far more invested. I didn't want to have to deal with any sort of heartbreak at all, which is precisely the reason I never wanted any of this in the first place. Yet here we are.

"Carmen?" Kayla calls, knocking once on my door and letting herself into my room.

"Hey," I reply glumly from my desk.

"He was here again," she tells me. My whole body tenses. "I told him you were gone."

"Thanks, Kay."

"I know it's none of my business, but don't you think you should at least talk to him? It's been weeks and he's still trying to see you."

"He knows everything he needs to know." I sigh and turn to look at her. "He'll give up eventually. They always do."

"He's different," she says quietly.

"Yeah. He is."

---

"Fuck," I mutter. Another serve straight into the net. My game has been off ever since...ever since the party.

"We've got to do something about this," Austin says. He's losing his patience with me, I can tell. Especially after we lost our game last weekend. He told me that he's really depending on me being in my position and I'm not performing well at this point. It'll only take so long before he sits me on the bench.

"I don't know what's wrong with me!" I exclaim. This is beyond frustrating.

"You seem distracted," he says.

"I'm not," I snap quickly.

"That's convincing." He takes a ball off the ground and hands it to me. "Again. Focus on where you want the ball to land."

As if that's not what I was doing before. Going through every motion slowly, the same routine I use before every single serve. What is he doing right now? Will he come by the house again? Will I see him walking around campus? That's not something I could handle, not when I can see so much in those green eyes of his. Everything he's feeling is right there at the surface and one look would break me. That's a fact. Staying away is the only way for me to keep myself from getting hurt. Again.

"Carmen."

I snap out of my thoughts and look at Austin. He actually looks worried now, glancing at the ball still in my hand. How long have I been holding this?

"I'm giving you the rest of the week off," he says suddenly, taking the ball from me.

"What?" I choke out.

"You need to get your head straight. We don't have a game this weekend, so take until Monday to do whatever you need to do to fix this."

"No, I can't-"

"I'm not asking," he says simply. "Keep up with some workouts and if you want to come to the gym outside practice hours feel free, but take this seriously. If you don't get back to you again I'm going to have to put someone else in for you. Trust me, I really don't want to do that, but I will if I have to."

I stare blankly at him for a moment, trying to understand what he just said to me. What the hell am I supposed to do? Maybe my game isn't there, but volleyball is the only thing keeping me sane right now. What am I supposed to do without it?

My throat tightens and I quickly turn to go back to the locker room. When I get inside the tears start, not that I'm trying to stop them. This isn't me. I don't cry. People don't hurt me like this because I don't let them, and now it happens all the time! Like my eyes are the fucking floodgates that won't shut. It's driving me insane and the constant ache in my chest makes me want to rip myself apart.

The back door of the locker room leads out into the hallway instead of the gym. The girls are going to give me a hard enough time as it is, they don't need to see me walking out of there. Going home is the last thing that is appealing to me, so instead I head to the coffee shop where I know Ivy is working. There's room to do some homework there.

When the familiar bell chimes on the door I don't see a girl with brown hair, but a woman with greys. Marla looks up and smiles broadly at me.

"Carmen, what a lovely surprise," she says. She waves me over. "What can I do for you?"

"I thought Ivy was here tonight."

"Sorry to disappoint," she says, laughing a little. I quickly shake my head, a little guilty for that statement.

"No, no! I'm just surprised, that's all. You're working alone?"

"Ivy came down with a terrible stomach virus, apparently it's been going around," she says sympathetically. "Poor thing. Anyway, I came in for her."

"Do you want some help?" I offer. I'm not exactly dressed, but she's not in great condition to be able to run this place alone. That was the point of her giving it up to her daughter.

"It's your day off!"

"I don't mind, really. I don't need to punch in or anything, if there's customers I'll just come back and help you." I set my stuff at my feet by the bar counter and sit on one of the stools. She smiles gratefully and continues icing some cupcakes.

"So, anything new?" she asks.

"Austin told me to take the week off," I grumble. She looks up with surprised eyes.

"Why would he do that?"

"He thinks I'm playing so bad because my mind is somewhere else."

"Is it?" she asks, setting the icing utensil down. I shrug and look down at the counter. "Carmen, is something wrong?"

Flashback

"Are you having fun?" Harry asks me, lifting his drink to his lips. I convinced him to have just one; just because I can't drink doesn't mean he shouldn't.

"Loads," I say sarcastically. I'm not sure why I thought this would be a good idea, but now that we're here I wish I would have taken his offer to watch The Last Song.

"We can go if you want," he says. He puts his arm around me and pulls my body against his. "I'd rather be alone with you, anyway."

My heart starts to race and he kisses me quickly. The red cup in his hand goes to the counter instead and he stands up straight again.

"Yeah, let's go," I suggest in a shaky voice. He nods.

"Okay, I just need to use the bathroom. Don't move, I'll be right back."

He winks as he walks away and I can't help but laugh. Niall jumps in front of me then and scares the life out of me, his laughter ensuing far too loudly.

"You suck!" I shout, whacking his arm.

"Have you seen Harry? I'm about to leave and he has my phone."

"Why does- nevermind. He's over here."

I start to walk through the people towards the back hallway where the bathroom is. As we round the corner a girl in a tiny, skin tight red dress is knocking on it. When the door opens my stomach drops.

End of Flashback

The memories stop when I shut my eyes. Everything went wrong that night and I can't talk to anyone. Liam doesn't want to be put in the middle, especially now since I don't even talk to him anymore. We agreed not to discuss any of it since the whole thing is over anyway. As for the girls on the team, I've never talked to them about things like this. Ivy says I can talk to her if I want to or need to or anything, but she's officially with Louis now and it would be weird for her since she's over at their place a lot. Maybe I should talk to Marla, to get it off my chest at least.

"Yeah," I say finally, defeat taking over my body. "Everything is wrong."

---

"Are you sure you saw that?" Marla asks after I unload my story on her.

"Trust me, I stared long enough. That's definitely what I saw."

"But you didn't actually see him?" she asks. All I can do is sigh and she hands me my refill of coffee. "I'm sorry, Carmen. It's not that I don't believe you, it's just that Harry would never do something like that."

"I know, but then-" I stop short when something clicks. "Wait, Harry? I never told you his name..."

She laughs a little. "I never told either of you, but I knew about you two."

"What...how?"

"Peter and I are regulars at the Tomlinson's family restaurant," she explains."We always sit in Harry's section, we've known him since he came here his freshman year. He told us weeks ago that he was having girl troubles. When he said your name we just didn't say anything. For all we knew it could have been a different Carmen, but turns out it isn't."

She smiles at me and all I can do is stare at her. She knew this entire time about me and Harry and she never said a word. I'm not angry or anything obviously, it's just crazy. It's so random that they know both of us, that she actually knows him and can contribute to this conversation like one of my friends could. More, maybe.

"I didn't mean to blindside you," she says suddenly. She looks worried.

"No, I'm fine. Just a little surprised." I laugh a little and she continues cleaning a little.

"Harry is a fantastic young man." Her words send a pang through my chest. "What you say he did...I can't imagine he would do something like that. I could see how much he cared for you, Carmen."

"It's for the better, anyway. It never would have worked between us." I shrug and smile sadly. "Better now at the beginning than when it would hurt way more."

"Have you at least talked to him?" she asks.

"I can't," I say weakly. "I can't see him, not after..."

"Carmen, you should hear what he has to say at least."

"I can't, Marla. Seeing him would..." Chills ripple down my spine when I think about his face. Seeing him would break me. It would hurt way more or I would forgive him, but I refuse to do either of those things. My body is aching to see him, but that can't happen. And it shouldn't after what he did to me.

"It's your choice," she concedes sadly. "But I don't think Harry would ever hurt you like this. Has he tried to talk to you?"

I nod. "He's come to my house a few times, but I haven't talked to him. I told him I didn't want to see him again."

"And of course he's still trying," she says. The affection in her voice as she shakes her head, like she's talking about her own son. "If you're really finished with him, maybe you should put him out of his misery."

His misery. Frankly, that is the last thing I'm concerned about. Okay maybe not the last thing, but I don't want to care about how he's feeling. So I'm pretending that I don't.

---

"You haven't listened to one word I've said, have you?"

"Hmm?" I look up from my textbook at the disapproval on Liam's face. "Sorry, what?"

He rolls his eyes. "I know you're not that interested in your stats textbook. What's going on with you today?"

Today, yesterday, every other day before that. What's going on is that my mind is only in one place and it's the exact place I don't want it to be. The things Marla said to me last night about him are weighing on me, and now I'm thinking about him even more than I was before. Maybe I was wrong about what I saw. Maybe I should give him a chance to explain or at least apologize. If I see him and I don't like what he has to say, then I can officially end things so we can both move on with our lives. That would be the right thing to do.

"I need to see him," I admit. Liam looks confused for a moment before realization and distaste colour his features. "Just once, Liam, I need to talk to him."

"It's been weeks, Carmen. Aren't we past that?"

"Apparently he isn't. He came to my house again the other day to try to see me. It's not fair to him."

"I don't give a fuck about what's fair for Harry," he spits sourly. "You never told me what he did exactly, but he fucked up and he hurt you in the process and that's not okay with me. I've told you this a thousand times, you can do better than him!"

"This isn't so I can get back together with him!" I shout back. Everyone in the library turns to look at us and my face turns bright red. I look at Liam again. "I need some kind of closure. I haven't been able to focus on anything else. Exams are coming up and Austin told me I couldn't play this week, Liam. It's about me being able to move on."

"He's not worth the time or the effort."

"You're supposed to be his friend," I remind him, annoyed that he talks bad about Harry so easily. "You've known him forever."

"I don't care. I told him not to hurt you and he did and now you're a mess because of it."

"Get over it, Liam. He didn't hurt you and you aren't my Dad. I don't need you hating him on my behalf. You can be friends with both of us, this didn't have anything to do with you at all."

"How can you be defending him?" he asks angrily. "After everything that happened, how could you possibly be on his side?"

"I'm not on his side! You're being ridiculous!" I gather my things and shove them into my bag. "When you're done being a fifteen year old girl, you can let me know."

The doors swing open with a little more force than I intended, but the effect is the same. Liam doesn't need to act that way, not for me. I don't need him losing friends because of my poor decisions. Nothing was done to him anyway, he really has no reason to be upset about this. He doesn't even know what happened.

The more I think about it the more I wonder if I even know what happened. What if I was wrong? What if I didn't see what I thought I saw and I wasted all this time because of it? All of this hurting would have been for nothing and that would be the worst feeling in the world.

Without even realizing I get off the bus at the stop near the boys' house instead of my own. Looks like now is the time to do this.

When I step up to their door my heart is in my throat and my stomach is turning so much that I might actually throw up. The knock is so quiet that I'm sure no one even hear it, and as I'm turning around to run away it swings open. Slowly but surely, stomach still turning, I look back at the door. But what I see is definitely not one of the boys.

"Hi," she says. She's got black framed glasses and is wearing leggings with what appears to be a guy's shirt. When I look at the driveway the only car I see is Harry's, and everything in me feels like it's being crushed. I notice confusion crawl through her features. "Are you looking for someone?"

My silence is anything but normal, but all I can do is turn and start walking away. He's in there with a girl? He already found someone new? How is that even possible?

Notes

who was the girllll?????

next chapter questions will be answered

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