The music pulsed over loudspeakers stack haphazardly somewhere in the house. Teens milled around the living room where he sat, most of them intoxicated in one way or another. Austin was getting annoyed. By now the air was probably more marijuana than oxygen. He moved over hastily as a couple fell down beside him, making out passionately.

On second thought, he stood and walked into the kitchen where he found his friends coupled off and laughing harder than they should at some stupid joke.

Ok, so he was being bitter. He approached Josiah, who had his arm around the waist of some blonde volleyball player.

"Hey man, I think I'm going to head out." The host frowned somewhat at his friend.

"Come on man, you just got here!" He turned to the fridge and pulled out a beer, extended it out. "Here, have a drink and loosen up. Stop being such a pus**! Just because your girlfriend bailed on you doesn't mean that you have to have a crappy night."

Austin almost winced. He'd hoped no one would put two and two together as to why he was in such a bad mood. He should've known that Josiah of all people would see through his lie.

Jamie was the reason he wanted to leave; because she was off doing who knows what while he was stuck surrounded by his friends who all seemed to be happily paired off and having a great time. Not that he envied them, he was dedicated to his girlfriend. Thus why he was so put off by the fact that she'd blown him off for the 3rd time this week for some vague commitment.

"She didn't blow me off, she's just busy. I'm sure you're not too stupid to realize that university actually counts for something, unlike high school."

Josiah grinned. "Get off it, we're on break! No one's busy with anything until September. Besides, if she's such a great girlfriend then why is it that we've seen you with her only once since you got back from P.E.I.?"

By then the two had migrated over to a side hallway, the blonde being abandoned back in the kitchen. Austin, frustrated, ran a hand through his blonde hair.

As always, Josiah wasn't as dense as he made himself out to be. After all, he didn't make it to Yale on a scholarship because of his looks.

"I just, don't know what's wrong. Every time we Face-Timed each other she was so excited to see me. Ever since Sierra's party that first night, it's like she's been avoiding me."

Josiah seemed lost in thought for a minute, before his face sobered a bit. "Look man, I didn't want to tell you this but I think something went down that night between her and Zach."

Austin opened his mouth to speak but Josiah continued. "Remember how you had to leave early and she got a ride home with one of her friends? Well, I heard that there was some drama between them."

This was unexpected. Zach was a year younger than them, still a senior in high school. Sure he'd given her a hard time when they first started dating (Jamie wasn't like all the other girls they hooked up with. She was outside their circle of friends from the start, when they were seniors) but he seemed to have gotten over it.

"Why didn't you say something? This is the first time I'm hearing about any of this."

"I thought it had blown over and it didn't seem important at the time. She and Zach aren't exactly best friends." Austin looked down at his shoes, resting his hand on the back of his neck.

"It all makes sense now." Suddenly, he clenched his hands into fists. "Dammit Ferguson. Why couldn't he just drop it?"

Josiah reached over to lightly punch his friend in the shoulder. "Don't worry about it, it's probably nothing."

"Where's the kid at? I'm going to talk to him." Josiah sighed, worried about what he'd started.

"He's upstairs in my room with Amanda."

Austin started in the direction of the stairs. Josiah called up after him. "Last I checked he was wasted! He could barely talk so what's the point?"

Austin ignored him and continued through the house, having no difficulty finding his best friend's bedroom. He wasn't planning on knocking, but stopped short reaching for the doorknob when he realized what state Amanda might be in.

He didn't want to embarrass the girl, just confront to the douchebag she was with.

"Amanda, are you in there?"

"We're a little busy, find your own room!" Austin recognized the slurred speech as being Zach's.

"Ferguson I need to talk to you so get your shit together and get her out of there because trust me when I say that you won't want her in there!"

There was a slur of cuss words followed by apologies on his behalf as appearances were unruffled and the drunken girl was escorted out. Austin stood by the door, merely pointing her in the direction of the stairs and hoping she didn't get into any more trouble.

A shirtless Zach stood in the doorway, annoyance and a bit of anger in his eyes. He wasn't happy with the older boy for sending his girl running but also knew him well enough to realize that Austin wasn't fooling around. Something was up.

Without a word the aforementioned teen shoved Zach into the room.

"What the fuck man? What the hell is your problem?!"

"You're my fucking problem Ferguson! Josiah just told me about what happened with you and Jamie last weekend! What the hell did you do?"

A few moments of silence passed as the two boys breathed heavily, staring each other down. Slowly, an arrogant smile crossed Zach's face.

"Oh, so this is about your little slut of a girlfriend! Why didn't you just say so?"

Austin lost it and launched at him, his fist narrowly missing the younger boy's face. There was a short scuffle as he attempted again and then tried for a headlock.

"Don't fucking talk about her like that!" He fumed between swings.

Zach was quick enough but the alcohol running throw his system was making his moves sloppy and Austin was high on adrenaline. Finally, he landed a well-placed punch to his side and Zach keened over, grunting in pain. Austin stood with his fists clenched and his breath coming in short bursts. He moved to swing again when a two sets of hands grabbed his arms and shoulders, holding him back.

He turned to look and saw that in the chaos Josiah had come up to see what was going on, with Harry in toe. Austin Shields and Finn stood near the door, with the girls standing further out in the hallway in various states of shock.

No one expected this from Austin; he was usually the pacifist.

Zach was slowly recovering on the floor He looked up at Austin as he clutched his side.

"For your information, the reason she isn't here and wants nothing to do with you is because she and I hooked up that night after you left. Seems like she was feeling lonely since her dickhead boyfriend abandons her for 6 months in a different province and then ditches her at his friend's party without even bothering to check if she had a fucking ride!"

He was up on his feet by now, in Austin's face as he spit out the hateful words. He seemed to have sobered up a bit and was pissed.

"She was crying so I asked her what the fuck was wrong and next thing I know, we were upstairs and she was taking my fucking clothes off. So fuck you Austin McDonald! And fuck your girlfriend!"

He smiled darkly.

"Oh wait, I already did."

The boys holding Austin back were caught off guard by his sudden movement and he lunged at Zach, effectively knocking him out with one blow to his jaw. They reacted a split second too late but were quick to pull their friend away before he could do any further damage.

Austin shoved them off roughly and stormed out of the room, ignoring the shaken expressions on his friend's faces who quickly rushed to see whether Zach would live.

Josiah called down after him, but he was underwater and nothing made sense.

~OoOoOo~

He was sitting in his car, head on the steering wheel, looking down at the matted rug under his feet. Two hours had passed and with them his anger. Now he was only miserable and disappointed, a feeling of emptiness in the pit of his stomach.

His girlfriend had cheated on him. The girl that he'd been in love with for two years had slept around with another guy. One of his friends.

He slammed his fist down on the armrest.

What was killing him was that she was a virgin when she'd met him (or so she claimed, her word was not something he would care to rely on right now) and had now rubbed in his face the fact that she would sleep with anyone that wasn't him.

Her first time was supposed to be with him. He had wanted to make it special, meaningful. It was tearing him apart that it would never work out that way.

So there he sat, parked outside her friend's house at 3:00 am. His phone had been buzzing almost none-stop for the first hour, his friends frantically attempting to make sure he didn't do anything stupid. He'd finally thrown his phone in the back of the car. He didn't want to listen to reason.

Slowly, the buzzing died out. Now, he rummaged through the random clutter on his backseat for it, not missing the pain that came when he encountered one of his sweatshirts that smelled of Jamie's perfume. It was her favourite, and therefore his.

She'd been wearing it almost every time they'd Face-Timed while he was away, saying it still smelled like him. It'd been sitting in the back of the car since the night of Sierra's party, when she'd taken it off before going in with him. Then he'd left before giving her a chance to take it back.

Tonight, she'd been editing Sarah's essay for some class and later decided to sleep over. He remembered being impressed when he'd first learned that she'd already had one of her novels published as an e-book. Looking back it seemed to him that she was just making herself out to be superior to him. He couldn't knock, the girl's younger brother and parents were home.

Instead he settled for texting her that he was outside, waiting for her reaction. The reply was delayed by a few minutes, which she attributed to the fact that she was a heavy sleeper and missed the first notification.

She assured him that Philip was sleeping over somewhere else and Sarah's parents had night jobs, so he could come in if he wanted. She would meet him at the door.

May didn't disappoint, with only a slight nip in the air as he made his way onto the front porch. The stained glass distorted the figure of the girl standing on the other side, making her outline appear fractured and ghostly in the ill-light reflection.

With a slight whine, the door opened to reveal Jamie standing barefoot behind it. She was clad in spandex shorts and a baggy t-shirt, her dark hair pulled up into a messy bun at the top of her head. She was smiling.

He went to speak but she held a finger to her lips and reached instead for his hand. Austin cursed himself when their hands made contact, feeling that familiar spark of excitement at her presence. He allowed himself to be led through the threshold, closing the door behind him.

The lights were off but she knew where to go and he blindly followed. She went gracefully ahead, down a set of stairs while he stumbled along behind her. Once again, he made sure that the door was shut after them.

When they reached the bottom, she let go and he felt that emptiness again which made him frustrated.

Flicking off the lights, she jumped onto the couch and tucked her legs underneath her. She patted the seat beside him, indicating that he should join her. Austin made no move to sit.

"Where's Sarah?"

She didn't seem to anticipate the question, disconcertedly answering that her best friend was still sleeping on the 3rd floor.

There was an awkward moment of silence where he looked at anything but her.

"Why are you here Austin?" Her tone was off – she sounded exhausted and slightly annoyed. He made eye contact with her and decided that there would be no indirect conversation.

"When were you planning on telling me that you slept with Zach?"

He waited for guilt to show on her still-beautiful features but instead he got confusion and then she was indignant.

"What the hell are you talking about?" So she was going to play dumb. Fine, he knew everything and she was out of moves.

"Ferguson told me that you hooked up with him after Sierra's party, after I left. That he found you crying and you practically jumped him. Did you think I wasn't going to fucking find out?"

She climbed to her feet, anger now being the only clear emotion on her face.

"I don't know what that kid told you but it's not true. I would never cheat on you!" He scoffed stepping closer to her.

"Right. How long have you been "lonely" huh? How many other guys – my friends – have you slept with? Or has it always been Zach? Is that why you pretended to hate him, so I would never catch on?"

"You're being ridiculous Austin." She brought one hand up to rest on her heart. "Like I said, I don't know what kind of bullshit Zach told you but I never slept with him. I'm a virgin and you know that!"

She looked close to tears, but whether they were tears of anger or pain Austin couldn't tell.

"I can't believe that you wouldn't even try to get my side of the story first, just go blindly on some (probably) drunken story he's told you!"

Pain. There was a brief pause and she seemed to deflate, looking down at the ground. Her next words were quiet, almost devoid of emotion.

"But what can I expect from someone who cheats on me. Nothing."

Anger. And there was something else, something he couldn't decipher. The accusation hit him like the blow he'd landed on Zach earlier.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

She stepped back until the back of her knees came in contact with the couch, where she collapsed with her head in her hands.

She was definitely crying now and Austin felt his breathing become constricted. He'd seen her cry before but he was always there to comfort her. Now she had no one.

"Sierra, Austin, I'm talking about Sierra."

Jamie looked up at him and his heart broke, because he could tell hers already had.

"I saw you. I saw you with her! I went looking for you to find out when you were leaving and you were there, in her room with your shirt off and hers was obviously long gone. You were holding her and kissing her neck and I lost it."

"I'd been waiting to see you for so long, and then you did that to me. So yes I was crying and that's how I Zach found me but whatever the idiot says happened next is a lie. I pushed him off since he was so drunk he was actually trying to grope me and he got mad, swore, and he threw the beer in his cup at me. I watched him stumble into some random chick with black hair who he probably hooked up with. He was so drunk I wouldn't be surprised if he remembers the whole thing being with me. But I didn't cheat on you Austin. I left right after, ask Sarah. She came to pick me up and I was a mess."

She laughed bitterly. "I still am."

Austin was reeling. He had no idea what to believe anymore. He didn't remember hooking up with Sierra. He couldn't remember anything from that night other than going into the party with Jamie and leaving without her.

Why couldn't her remember? Was she telling the truth? Was Zach telling the truth?

Without a word, he turned and staggered up the stairs and out to his car.

As he started the ignition, he turned to look at the house. Jamie's silhouette was well-defined as she went to close the front door, which he'd left open in his haste to leave. Then the door was closed and she was gone. Austin drove away.

~OoOoOo~

Austin tapped nervously on the tabletop. The coffee shop was empty, which was unsurprising for a Sunday morning.

Josiah was meeting him there.

After he'd left Sarah's house, he'd checked his phone to scroll through those many text messages to find Josiah's, which merely read: WE NEED TO TALK.

Needy girlfriend much, had been Austin's first thought. The irony was not entirely lost on him.

The wait now was agonizing.

Finally, Josiah's car pulled up to the parking lot and Austin watched him climb out and walk up to the door, until he was sitting down across from him. They sat in silence for a moment.

Then Austin said, "You look like you just got hit by a truck." Josiah laughed, shaking his head. "I'm so hungover right now you don't even know."

He looked over his friend's appearance. "Can't say you look much better than I feel man."

In that he would be right. Austin hadn't slept. He'd just restlessly laid in his bed until the clock turned a decent hour, at which point he'd gotten into his car and driven to the coffee shop to wait for his friend. He hadn't even changed his clothes.

"What happened last night?" Josiah asked.

Austin rubbed his face. "I don't know, you tell me."

Josiah sighed and sat back in his seat.

"Ok, the first thing you need to know is that Zach did not sleep with Jamie. I was there that night, and you can confirm with Harry or Finn or Shields or any of the girls: nothing happened." Austin breathed a sigh of relief.

"Zach did find Jamie crying, but he was just being stupid and shit so she shoved him off and left. He ended up hooking up with some random girl who actually looked a lot like her so he basically made everything up. You have to cut him some slack though, he was beyond wasted last night and was pissed at you for making Amanda leave."

He would consider being merciful later, or maybe never. Right now, all that mattered was that Jamie wasn't lying about Zach. Which left the terrible possibility that she wasn't lying about him and Sierra either.

"Fine. That's great."

Josiah looked closely at him. "There's something else isn't there?"

He debated internally about whether he should own up to his girlfriend's accusation or not. Why not, I've got nothing to lose. "I went and saw her last night."

Josiah looked visibly concerned. "Please tell me you didn't do anything stupid." You tell me.

"I accused her of sleeping with Zach and she told me the story that you just did."

"And then?"

"And then, she told me why she's been avoiding me."

"So? Come on man stop being so damn dramatic and tell me what happened!" Austin couldn't look him in the eye.

"She said that she saw me the night of the party, that first night, in with Sierra."

"Well, it was her party. Don't tell me she's becoming one of those jealous bitches who complains whenever you're-"

"You don't get it! She saw me and Sierra shirtless and I was kissing her on the neck and doing who knows what else!"

Josiah was stunned into silence. Austin let his head fall into his hands.

"The worst part is I can't remember. I can't say that I didn't do those things because I don't know for sure!" He looked up at his friend.

"Why can't I remember?"

It was meant as a rhetorical question but Josiah turned ashen in response. He began to twist his watch, showing Austin that he was nervous.

"Josiah… what the hell is going on?"

"It's my fault that you can't remember."

"What-"

"I spiked your drink after you told me that you had to leave early because I thought that you would loosen up and stay longer. I guess it was stronger than you're used to because you got really weird after that. You disappeared and then after I heard someone say that they'd seen you leave."

"You let me leave like that?"

"I didn't see you leave! I would've stopped you but you were already gone!"

"Dammit Josiah! What the hell is wrong with you? I could've gotten into a fucking accident!"

"I'm sorry ok! I didn't think about that!"

"Well, did I or did I not hook up with Sierra?!"

"How am I supposed to know? I told you, you disappeared!"

Austin squeezed his eyes closed in attempt to stop the oncoming headache. It didn't work.

He opened them and looked at Josiah. "Well, if I did then I'm screwed because her boyfriend is going to kill me." Josiah stopped to think.

"If you did hook up with Sierra, he would've already kill you because that girl cannot lie to save her life. Plus, she doesn't drink and would never cheat on her boyfriend sober, especially not with one of her friends. So, it's highly unlikely that you hooked up with her."

"But what about what Jamie saw? She doesn't drink either so we can't saw she was too drunk to understand what was happening."

"Maybe she confused you with someone else like Zach did with her?" Austin shook his head. She would never have jumped to conclusions unless she was absolutely positive it was him.

"Ok… maybe she confused Sierra for someone else!"

"Who looks enough like Sierra that she would've mixed the two up?"

Josiah looked off to the side and then froze. When he looked back at Austin, it was obvious that what he was going to say wasn't going to be good.

"Sierra's cousin was visiting that weekend. They look enough like each other that they could pass for sisters, maybe even twins."

"So?"

"She's a big drinker, and she's into casual sex. Later, after you left, she was bragging about how she'd hooked up with Austin and how she was the best thing that had ever happened to him."

Austin felt the floor slip out from beneath him.

"I thought she was talking about Austin Shields, but I guess that it was actually-"

"Me."

~OoOoOo~

Austin drove like a maniac, barely parking the car before jumping out and racing up the steps to knock frantically on the door. It opened shortly after, revealing Jamie's best friend.

Before he could react, Austin's face was burning from the slap she'd just delivered.

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Ok, yes I deserve that and more I know but-"

"Yeah you do!"

"But I need to talk to her! Please, I need to explain."

A smug smile crossed Sarah's face. "Can't do that. She's gone."

"Ok, so tell me where she went and I'll go find her!"

"Peru." "Great, thanks!" He turned to leave before he realized what she'd said. "Wait, what are you talking about?"

"She starts her 4-month international co-op exchange today. She was going to tell you the night of Sierra's party but… you were busy." Austin was lost.

"So, she's gone?"

"Yeah, so just stop making things worse and just leave her alone."

With that, she shut the door in his face. He walked back to his car in a daze. This wasn't real, this couldn't be happening. He would call her right now and she'd pick up the phone and they'd laugh and talk like always.

The phone rang loudly in his ear, each echo driving the knife deeper into his heart. Suddenly, her voice was on the line.

"Hi!"

"Jamie! I need to tell you-"

"You've reached Jamie Mathews. I can't take your call right now but leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!"

The dial tone left him speechless and he sat there stupidly staring at his phone for a few seconds before hanging up. She was really gone. It was all over.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he almost missed the phone call. Her name flashed on his screen and his heart jumped.

"Hello?"

"Oh my gosh Austin! I thought that you were going to do something stupid! Why did you leave me a message with no words? I thought that was a freaking suicide note!" He smiled at this.

She was always so dramatic. Too many books, too many movies, he'd tease. Then he realized what was happening.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry for everything! I never meant to do or say anything to hurt you and I was drunk because Josiah spiked my drink and Sierra's cousin is insane and I never meant any of it and I'm sorry!"

The line was silent, just her breathing on the other end.

"I forgave you that night Austin. I love you too much to hold a grudge against you over anything."

Austin was confused, then elated.

"I love you too, so much! Where are you? I'm coming to get you."

Once again a pause.

"I forgive you… but I can't do this anymore. I can't be in a relationship living in fear that you might cheat on me again. It wouldn't be fair to me, or to you because I can't love you unconditionally. At least, not now." She sighed then continued.

"Please be happy. Don't let this take away from any of our beautiful memories together. Don't be afraid to move on either, it's probably what's best for you. I only want what's best for you. Goodbye. Flight 23 to Lima, Peru is now boarding at Gate 4. All passengers please make your way to-"

The announcement sounded in the background from wherever she was calling from. It was the last thing Austin heard before she hung up the phone. He sat there in silence. So that was it.

She was gone. He'd lost her.