“What’s your problem, Grace?” I began in a firm voice, even though I would have preferred to turn on my heel. “I’ve never done anything to you. Never.”

“You are my problem, Madelin,” she hissed, pointing her index finger at me. I felt like the green crystal around her neck was sparkling, but I’d probably been out in the sun for too long.

“Just the way you are. Even back then... The Sunshine Girl...” She drew quotation marks in the air. “I should have known that was your cheap exterior before you went behind our backs like that.”

“Grace...” Julie began cautiously, but her cousin interrupted her straight away.

“No, Julie. You should be just as mad at her for allowing Nash to bully us like that.”

Startled, I looked into Grace’s upset eyes until I couldn’t hold her gaze any longer.

She was right. All that Nash had done for me had made me repress that he hadn’t treated the girls well. However, Vivienna and Grace had also contributed to the fact that it had escalated so often. So many times, I hadn’t understood why they were literally banging their heads, and neither Nash nor his friends had been willing to give me a comprehensive explanation. Every single time. Since I had lost my circle of friends for Nash, everything had gotten worse. I should have seen it coming, but I had been blind. My time with Nash had blinded me, but I knew that without him, I would never have gotten out of that hole.

I looked at the blonde girl who had eventually become the most innocent victim of all these rivalries. “I’m sorry, Julie.”

“Too late, Madelin!” Grace snapped at me in a rage. “You chose him, and something like that is permanent for us.” She took a step toward me. “You think your sorry is going to change anything about the way that asshole treats us?”

“I can’t help your hostilities, Grace,” I tried again in a calm voice, but inside I knew it was too late.

“Go now!” she bluffed back. For her, this discussion was over.

I looked at the cake with remorse. “Let me see Bayla, please.”

“She’s not here.” Confused, I peeked around the corner and sure enough... The bed was empty. “Take your cake and go. And best never come back.” I felt tears gathering in my eyes, but quickly managed to stifle them. “Bayla won’t want to see you in the future either, so I’ll say it right now.” She snatched the cake out of my hand like an upset child. “Stay away from all of us!” And with those words, the chocolate cake with the heart sprinkles landed in the trash can next to the door. The frosting layer shattered.

My throat tightened, and I wanted to scream at her, but I just took a step back, ignoring the shocked face of Julie in the background, and stared at Grace, stunned.

I really wanted to say something, but nothing came out. I couldn’t just let out my anger like they all did, because there was none. All I felt was bewilderment, sadness, and regret. Regret that I kept trying.

I turned and rushed down the stairs, leaving the house as if after a robbery. I just ran through the woods back to campus toward the parking lot, where I leaned against my car, out of breath. My gaze fell through the windowpane to the gym bag adorned with lilac-green flowers that I had packed into the back seat.

Actually, I should have been going to cheerleading practice. Instead, I’d been sitting in the university library for two hours now, on my third cup of coffee, wondering why my concentration had waned so much over the years. Added to this was the urge to just lie down and sleep. However, I was sleeping way too much. The medication I was taking certainly had a part in it, but I didn’t want to find out, because without the pills I could completely forget about my psychology studies along with a normal life.

I tried to forget the conversation between me and the Blairs by turning back to the flashcards I had just made. But after only ten minutes, I caught myself drawing green hearts in the margins, and my mind went back to the cake.

Sighing, I rose to my feet.

When my concentration faded, exercise helped. I probably should have gone to cheerleading practice after all, but seeing Vivienna and her friends there would probably have given me the rest. So, I just decided to take a few laps around the huge library.

Columns of stone lined a walkway that carried the second open level of the hall, and statues of gods unknown to me adorned the stairway entrances. There were also dark wooden shelves and pretty candlesticks that had been converted into lamps.

It looked like the National Library of France, lumped together with the library of Trinity College in Ireland, and placed in an old temple.

Someday, I would travel to all these beautiful places that literary fanatics had created before my time. Until then, I had to make money somehow, and that only worked if I made something of my scholarship and forced myself to study.

I roamed the hallways lit by warm green lamplights and marveled at the old copies that adorned the caramel brown shelves.

Somehow, I had ended up in the Classics Department, far too far from Psychology and Economics. But whatever. While I was here, I might as well see if they had any works by Edgar Allan Poe. Maybe even some first editions?

Since my parents were gone, I had managed to lose myself in mystery novels and horror stories, and even though my passion for literature was limited, I also enjoyed the seminars with Professor Copeland.

I let my finger glide over the gold engravings on the spines of the books, felt the fibers of the old leather, and whirled around the shelf, landing in the next row.

My good mood dissolved into thin air when I saw who was sitting there on the floor, leaning against a shelf, burying his head in a book named The Song of Achilles.

“Nash,” it escaped me far too quickly, and I regretted it right away. And since he immediately looked up and shock spread across his mine, I got the urge to defuse the situation. “You’re still reading?”

Nash slammed the book shut, looked around the hallway, and rose jerkily, as if stung by a tarantula, to place the book in front of him on the completely wrong shelf. Finally, he looked around one last time and then turned to me.

“Damn it, what are you doing here?”

His hostility hit me differently once again. It was like a person to whom you gave everything to, but he couldn’t see your love. And it just hurt, because the feelings for the other were just there, only they had no use, eating you up from the inside, greedily, looking for reciprocation.

“Learning...” I began but realized how this must be affecting him. “Listen, I’m not spying on you. I’m...”

Nash lowered his voice. “Stop it, Mady. I’m not stupid...”

He bent down to reach for his things, and I grabbed his arm. Another mistake.

“Please, listen to me for once.”

Nash looked down at my hand, squinted his eyes as if the conversation was causing him pain, and finally tore himself away from me.

“We broke up, Mady.” The stomach ache returned. “So, get that image of us out of your head and stay away from me for good.”

He didn’t say it in a loud voice, but quietly and thoughtfully, the way I knew him. And his words, that pain in his undertone, along with that haunting look, made old feelings well up inside me.

But I had promised myself not to think about that time. Never again.

So, I turned around, not even allowing myself to look at him again, and ran through the library far too frantically. I didn’t care that all the studying students looked up. I just packed up my stuff and stormed out of the building.

To make matters worse, it was raining, so I sprinted all the way to my dark green Beetle with my bag over my head.

Once in the car, it just burst out of me.

First a tear for my parents, then one for all the friends I had lost since their deaths, and finally countless for the last two years with Nash. The memories of his smile, his warmth, all his words that had mended my soul piece by piece.

“Hang in there Mady, I’ll be there if you need me. I’ll always be there.”

I sobbed softly. Because Nash was gone. We were gone.

“I need you back...” I sobbed louder and more insistently, and as if the rain wanted me to stop, it whipped against my windows. “I need you...” my voice broke, and I pulled my knees up onto the seat to rest my head on them. “I gave up everything for you. Please don’t leave me alone... not now.”

He had thought he would be able to let me go, like a bird that had learned to fly. Only he had forgotten that my wings were broken. I was a wreck. And he had known it. He had tried to fix me. But I wasn’t fixable.

“My Sunshine Girl.”

I didn’t know what hurt more. That after all the drama, I was still trying to live up to my high school reputation and failing miserably at it, or that people had ever thought of naming someone that.