"Do you know why you're here, Cindi?"

Cindi looked around the police station and thought of every bad thing she'd done in the last 16 years.

"Um... no." she replied slowly, still thinking it through.

Cindi was the class president and valedictorian at her upscale, Beverly Hills highschool; bad wasn't exactly her first language. The cop looked a little let down, as if he had no clue either and was hoping Cindy would be able to clear it all up for him.

"Do you know a Vanessa Willis?"

"V? She's my girlfr- I mean, she's my ex-girlfriend," Cindi's mind started to race and her heart dropped, "Why? What about her?"

"Vanessa is missing. Apparently, she and her mother had a rather heated argument about you and her. Her family thought you might know where she was."

Cindi just sat there in silence for a few minutes. 'This bitch,' she thought, 'Where the hell could V have disappeared to in the middle of the night?! Wait… a fight? About me?'

"Are her parents here, sir?"

"If you know anything, now would be the time to tell me, Miss Dezmund."

"I don't know. I haven't talked to her in two weeks. Do you know what the fight was about?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm not at liberty to discuss this with you. Are you sure you don't know?"

"Positive."

The policeman rubbed his face, as if Cindi had been his last resort.

"Alright. If you could please go wait in the hallway for a moment I can drop you back off at home." Cindi headed to the hallway and was left alone with her thoughts.

When the officer dropped her at home, Cindi walked inside to her kitchen. She leaned up against the countertop and began to zone-out and think of places this girl could be. After a while, something outside caught her eye. There was a light coming from inside of her tree house. Without hesitation, Cindi grabbed two Pepsi's and a bag of Twizzlers and headed outside. She climbed the ladder that leaded to the top of monster oak tree and went inside the tree house without even having to check who else was in there.

She looked down at Vanessa and couldn't help but notice how glassy and raccoonish her eyes were, an obvious sign of another fight her idiot mother started out of the blue that ended up bringing her only child to tears. Cindi got down on the floor next to her and opened up the snacks she had brought. The two girls sat in a comfortable silence for a short while. V quietly broke it.

"So... I told my mom," she whispered, then turned Cindi, "I told her everything."

"Wow…" she replied, surprised, "What did she say?"

V swallowed and turned to the love of her life, "Why does it matter? I don't mean jack to her, and she doesn't mean squat to me. The only thing that matters is you, and I couldn't take us not talking."

She grabbed Cindi's hand and spoke directly to her soul, "Cindi, you are my everything. I realize now that having us sneak around, lying to my mom and having a fake boyfriend... I made you feel like some cheap 'other woman', and that was wrong of me on so many levels. Do you think that you could find it in your heart to forgive me?"

Cindi took her hand back and used it to put some of V's neon pink hair out of her face. Her emotions were going crazy and even as she nodded, she could feel tears spilling over her eyelids. That was all she wanted to hear. All she even truly wanted. She was so overwhelmed with joy, she planted one right on V and jumped into her lap, wrapping her arms around her neck and holding nothing back.

After a while, Cindi sat back, "Spend the night here."

V's eyebrows shot up as she thought the most timid girl in the entire world was about to make a big move, but Cindi continued, "I'll call your mom and tell her you're here. She's got to be worried sick to go to the police. In the morning we'll go back to your house and talk to her. Together."

V hesitated, but agreed. The two spent the rest of the night spooning in bed, watching movies and feeling each other's heartbeat.