2 a.m.

"1420 – 1490," Nickie asked, her face challenging Jeffrey for the right answer.

"Original, graceful and free decorative detail from Rome," Jeffrey answered confidently. He looked Nickie in the eyes as his turn to ask came. It was 2 a.m. of the day of their Architecture History finals, their very last test for the semester. After this, they’d be free for their much awaited semestral break. So they didn’t mind still being up at this ungodly hour, quizzing each other at Nickie’s living room about the different periods of architecture. "1490 – 1550."

Nickie thought for a while before answering, "Classic, characterized by use of the ancient orders as motif. 1550 – 1600?"

"Late Renaissance," Jeffrey answered squarely, his game face on. Somehow, or rather, as expected, the two’s egos were clashing once again in what was supposed to be a friendly, non-competitive, study session. But in true Nickie and Jeffrey fashion, the little quiz was turning quite contentious. Jeffrey squinted as he challenged Nickie for the last question, "1600 – 1700."

Nickie looked him boldly in the eyes and answered with a serious look on her face, "The Baroque, at best grand and magnificent, though often marked by a decline of Renaissance style, with exaggerated orders, excessive, and bulbous forms. The latter half of the century introduces the Rococo, marked by lighter but over intricate decorative display such as scrollwork." She finished her answer with a triumphant, smug grin.

"Show off!" Jeffrey complained as he crossed his arms across his chest and his lips formed into his signature sulking pout.

Nickie laughed, "You are such a sore loser! What do you say we take a coffee break? We sure could use a full dose of caffeine at this time."

"What do you say we just forget this and go to sleep?" Jeffrey suggested as he yawned.

"You’re kidding right? You can’t be giving up now, it’s the last friggin’ test for the sem, after this it’s hello Miami beaches for us."

"We can still go to Miami even if we flunk this test."

"Me flunk? No way! Flunking isn’t in my vocabulary, never has and never will be!" Nickie replied violently. "C’mon Rhee, we’ll just have to go through the modern period and by 5:00 p.m., we’re on that plane heading to Miami."

"Okay, okay, you win, study it is," Jeffrey conceded grumpily as he got up and headed to the kitchen with Nickie following him. "But of curse, some waker upper first."

"Here, here," Nickie agreed as she reached out for the pitcher from the coffee maker and poured herself one steaming cup of java. "I’m pretty excited about this trip. I’ve never been to Miami before y’know?"

"Really?" Jeffrey, who was also consuming a cup of coffee himself, asked. "You’ll love it there, nice beaches, great restaurants, and lots of half naked chicks."

"I think I’ll pass up on the half naked chicks."

Jeffrey chuckled, "Still, you’ll love Miami, it’ll be a blast."

"You’ve been there before?"

"Uhm, yeah," Jeffrey replied nervously, "a few years back."

"With Grandma Millie?"

"Uhm, no," Jeffrey answered as he fidgeted on his seat, "just…just with these two guys that I knew."

….California

"Hey, thanks for stopping by to visit me."

"No problem man," Ike replied to his younger brother who was seated opposite him in a booth at a diner just outside Zac’s campus. "I just thought that I’d swing by since I’m playing a couple of shows in the area anyway."

"Where are you playing?’

"McFadden’s at around 9," Ike replied, referring to a bar right across the campus, a favorite hangout of the college crowd.

"Oh," Zac said as he registered a disappointed look on his face. "Id love to go and watch but I gotta study, it’s finals week y’know."

"It’s okay, I wouldn’t want you to do bad on your tests."

"Thanks man," Zac said and then took a gulp from his soda. Ike did the same as uncomfortable silence enveloped the two of them. For a while neither one of them spoke as they couldn’t seem to find anything else to talk about now that they had been done with the pleasantries. Although the two of them have always had a good relationship, the 5 year difference between their ages somehow stood between them. Zac always felt that Isaac seemed too mature to look at him like a friend, a buddy, the way that Taylor and Isaac were. Zac was always the kid brother to Isaac and they didn’t seem to have much common interests to bond over. But somehow, Taylor would serve as the bridge between the two of them. Now, with Taylor gone, the bridge seemed to have disappeared as well.

"So, how was Christmas," Zac asked to break the silence.

"It was fun, different, but I think that kids had fun."

"That’s good," Zac nodded.

"They missed you."

"I missed ‘em too."

"So how was your Christmas?"

"It was okay, a bit lonely, but I was too busy studying to notice anyway."

"That’s good," Ike answered. "I mean, that you got to study and all."

"Yeah, it is," Zac replied. Once again, they sat there face to face, yet eyes darted towards somewhere else, with nothing to talk about. Zac played with the fries on his plate as Ike looked outside the window. It wasn’t really that they had nothing to talk about. There was…him. But there seemed to be this unspoken rule in the family that says that no one is to talk about him, his disappearance. That topic was simply off limits. However, it did no good as it didn’t exactly eliminate him from their minds. Not because they weren’t talking about him didn’t mean that they weren’t thinking about him. How could they not, up to now, no one still knows what happened. It was still all a big mystery that they couldn’t figure out, a mystery that Zac felt he’d had enough of.

Suddenly, with his eyes still on the half-eaten fries on hisplate, Zac blurted out calmly, yet bitterness evident in his voice, "How I wish that they’d just find a body."

"Zac!" Ike scolded, his big brother instincts taking over him. Shock was written all over his face. He couldn’t comprehend how Zac could say that about Taylor.

"It’s not that I wouldn’t want him to be alive somewhere, but…it would just be so much better if he were just dead and we knew that he was dead," Zac admitted. "That way, we’d have some form of closure, we could all finally go on with our lives."

"Zac," Ike replied, too flabbergasted to even say anything else.

"At least, if he were dead, we wouldn’t be wondering where he is, what he’s doing. C’mon Ike, it’s true. Even though no one says it out loud, that’s all that’s on everyone’s minds. If he were dead, we could all close this mystery and go on living like we used to."

Isaac wanted to tell Zac that it wasn’t a total mystery to him, but he couldn’t. He knew that it wasn’t in his place to do so. He wasn’t the one who left, so he shouldn’t be the one to do the returning. It had to be him, he who left. "Zac, we’ve moved on, you’ve moved on. You have school, I have my music, our worlds didn’t stop revolving just because he left."

"That’s not true. We’re stuck Ike, we’re all stuck. Mom and Dad, they’re always so sad whenever I see them. They’re smiling and all, but I can see that they’re really sad. The other kids, they don’t talk about it but I know that they’re as troubled as we all are. They’re left in constant fear that someone else in the family might also just suddenly leave. You, you never acknowledge in your present career that we were once a group, a trio, you act as if Hanson never existed. And I, the only reason that I’m here in college is just so I wouldn’t have to be at home seeing all of us suffer."

Isaac looked at his younger brother. He never knew that he felt this way, that inside, he was angry, very angry. He looked at him and wondered where the carefree Zac had gone and who this jaded young man in front of him was. "Zac, it doesn’t have to be that way."

"But it is that way Ike," Zac replied. "I’m scared Ike, scared that we all seem to be disappearing as well like him. We may all be physically present, but we’re disappearing, disappearing into our own worlds and we’re left hanging in limbo, not knowing what to do with our lives. It’s been two years Ike, but like him, we’re still lost, so lost."

"We can find out way back, and hopefully, so does Taylor."

Zac sighed. "I don’t know how you can remain so optimistic about all of these," he said as he shook his head. "It’s like you know something that we don’t, something that keeps you hoping."

Isaac fidgeted in his seat as he heard Zac voice out his suspicion. "I just believe in him, you should too."

Zac stood up and picked up his books. "I’d like to," he said as he headed out of the diner, but not before adding, "…I’d like to believe that he’s dead." Ike sighed as he saw his disillusioned younger brother storm dejectedly out of the diner.

3:30 a.m.

"I wish I were dead," Jeffrey grumbled as he threw his book up in the air. They had evacuated up to Nickie’s room to continue reviewing while Nickie finished packing for their Miami trip.

"You are such a whiner," Nickie replied as she stuffed her clothes on a huge duffel bag for their Florida trip. She had to be done with her packing because Jeffrey and her would be heading to the airport immediately after their test ends at 4:00 in the afternoon to make it to their 5:00 p.m. flight. "You will never make it anywhere young man if you keep up that attitude," Nickie scolded as she threw a bikini top back at her closet.

"Hey, hey, hey," Jeffrey exclaimed as he dropped his book, immediately stood up and lounged towards Nickie’s closet to retrieve the bright orange top that she threw in. "You’re gonna need this," he said as he threw the top back into Nickie’s bag.

"What for?"

"Uhm, er," Jeffrey stammered as he thought, "to get hot guys?"

"I don’t need ‘hot guys’," Nickie answered as she threw the top back into the closet. "I already have one right here."

Jeffrey grinned, "Why, thank you! But you do know that our relationship is strictly platonic."

"Ha!Ha!" Nickie answered sarcastically. "Somehow that fails to amuse me because I was referring to Creedy if you care to know."

"No I don’t," Jeffrey replied as he plopped down on Nickie’s bed and sulked.

"Oh, and FYI, Plato fucked his little boy Philosophy students so I’ll squirm if you ever describe our relationship as Platonic again, comprende? And if anyone should be looking for a babe it should be you, you’re the one who’s loveless."

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious," he replied he replied dryly. "Anyway, I like to keep myself available to the multitudes of women out there who’re after me," he added smugly.

"Oh Rhee, I didn’t know that you owed so many women money," Nickie jested.

"Ha! Ha! Somehow that fails to amuse me," he replied sarcastically. He got his books again and tried to read but within 20 seconds he decided that he was bored so he got up and poked around Nickie’s room. "Hmmm," he mused as he saw a few VHS tapes on Nickie’s shelf. He picked up one particular tape, "Cute chick," he said upon seeing the cover. He then sat down in front of Nickie’s TV and plopped the tape on the player.

"Hey, what are you doing?" an annoyed Nickie asked when she saw Jeffrey plopped before the TV. "We’re supposed to be studying…y’know, killer archi history finals in a few hours?"

"We could use a movie break, can’t we?" he asked as he settled himself on Nickie’s bed and watched the opening scenes of the movie.

Nickie gave out a sigh of frustration as she conceded and plopped down beside him on the bed. She looked at the screen and figured out what movie Jeffrey had picked to view. "The Disappearance of Finbar!" she squealed as she saw Jonathan Rhys Myers on the screen and heard the all too familiar Irish accent of the actors. "Good choice, I have to warn you though, this movie might be a bit difficult for your puny brain to handle."

"Hey, I take offense in that."

"Oh sure, you did say once that ‘Dude, Where’s My Car’ was a cinematic masterpiece," Nickie reminded him.

"And so did you!" he taunted back.

"Hey, I was in love with Ashton Kutcher back then, that’s a valid excuse for my momentary lapse in sanity."

"Forgiven," Jeffrey smiled at her. "Anyway, I’ve never heard of this movie before. What’s it about?"

"It’s about this guy, Finbar, who mysteriously disappears one night and how the whole community deals with his disappearance. I bought this tape because I had a thing for Jonathan Rhys Myers before…well, actually I had a thing for Irish guys before."

"Really now?" an amused Jeffrey asked.

"Yup, aside from this guy, there’s also Ronan Keating, Westlife…" Nickie admitted.

"Westlife?" Jeffrey chuckled. "They’re a boyband!"

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious!"

"No, what I meant was that I never thought of you as a boyband fan, oh, there’s your New Kids obsession, I almost forgot."

"Well, actually, I was just really into one guy from Westlife, Nickie Byrne, he’s the blonde one who kinda looks like Ronan Keating. Anyway, I was just really impressed that he was dating a girl for 6 years. I mean, that’s pretty amazing considering he could probably get any girl that he wanted."

"I guess so."

"They’re married now. She was his best friend before they started dating and they met when they were like 12. Oh, and the girl also happened to be the daughter of Ireland’s Prime Minister back then, that makes it doubly impressive."

"Yes, I guess it would be fun to date that kind of girl," Jeffrey agreed.

"Well, I would fix you up with any one of Bush’s daughter if I could," Nickie joked.

"No, what I mean was that," Jeffrey explained as turned serious, "it would be fun to date someone that you’re friends with first. Y’know someone whom you really know well and who really knows you well. Someone that you can just be yourself with, hangout with and not have to impress at all because…because she likes you for who you are. Someone whom you won’t have to take to a fancy dinner, all dressed up in a fancy suit and see the opera with or some crap like that…someone who’s your best friend…someone…someone like you."

Nickie was breathless and speechless with a shocked look on her face. "Rhee?" She finally asked. "C’mon," she coaxed as she tried to chuckle, half hoping that this was all just a joke.

"Oh no," Jeffrey clarified when he’d realized what he had just said. "I meant, I wish that I can find someone who’s like you, someone that I can be friends with and date, y’know, someone that I can hangout with and date at the same time."

"Of course," Nickie nodded. "I mean, like you said, we’re totally platonic."

"Yeah, platonic," Jeffrey agreed as he shifted uncomfortably on the bed, he then pointed to the TV and said, "Uhm, we’re missing the movie."

"Oh yeah," Nickie nodded as she turned her attention to the TV screen, glad that the conversation was over.

5:00 a.m.

Nickie searched for the remote and turned off the VCR after Danny, the film’s lead character had said the infamous last lines of the movie and the screen had faded to black for the credits. "Oi, Jeffrey, we besht be stodying newh," Nickie said, imitating the accent of the film’s actors. "Oi, me lad," she called out once again as she noticed that Jeffrey’s eyes still remained glued tot he darkened Tv screen, his mood very pensive and distant.

"Do you think…" he started hesitantly as he continued to stare at the blank TV screen. "Do you think that people really disappear all the time, just like the movie said?"

Nickie posed a quizzical look on her face, "I don’t know," she answered, confused as to why Jeffrey had raised such a question.

Jeffrey continued to stare blankly at the switched off TV, his eyes hollow and worried, "What if…what if I don’t get back in time too?" He looked at Nickie, his face filled with fear. "What if I get back and they’d all disappeared too?"

"I don’t know Rhee," Nickie replied as she desperately tried to fathom what Jeffrey was talking about. "You know that I'm not the one who can answer that."

Jeffrey sighed as he immediately got off the bed and picked up his books. "I’ll finish studying downstairs." He then quickly got out of the room and headed down to the living room.

6:00 a.m.

Nickie sat in the corner of her bed, her knees curled up to her chest. The half-packed suitcase remained on her bed, a few pieces of clothing strewn haphazardly all over the room. In 7 hours, she would be taking her much dreaded archi history finals, yet she had hardly touched her book and notes since this early morning. She wanted to pick them up and being the obsessive-compulsive, grade conscious student that she is, go through the material once again until she could recite them in her sleep. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t be bothered with Gothic architecture or the renaissance period at the moment. Right now, only one word floated on her mind: Platonic. She tried to make light of the subject earlier. And she did think that it wasn’t such a big deal anyway. But the fact that it bothered her meant that it was a big deal. She tried to think rationally. "Of course Jeffrey and I are merely platonic," Nickie thought. "But, maybe, with all that we’ve gone through in such a short time, remaining platonic wouldn’t be that simple." Suddenly, she heard a soft knock on her bedroom door which caused her to bolt out of her thoughts.

"Come in," she hollered.

"Hey," Jeffrey greeted softly as he sat down beside Nickie.

"So, just about done with the modern architecture period?" Nickie asked.

"Hardly," Jeffrey answered. He then turned a bit pensive, his eyes lowered on his shoes. Nickie had seen this look quite a few times already. She knew that’s something was up.

"Yes?" Nickie prodded sensing that Jeffrey wanted to say something yet seemed hesitant to do so.

"Uhm, that movie, it got me thinking," he started, then paused as he grappled for the words to explain his sentiments. "You know that my life has really been turbulent. I’ve gone through a lot and through all of that, so many things in my life have changed…sometimes so rapidly that I failed to keep up. That’s why I’m here, just floating in limbo, not knowing what to do with my life." He looked at her eyes, reached out for her hand and held it tightly against his, "Nickie, I’ve become phobic to change, but I know that it’s inevitable. I want to ask something from you though, as my friend, could I…could I ask for our relationship not to change, to just remain this comfortable, this reliable, could I?" There was a pleading look on his face, almost that of infinite dread in anticipation of her answer.

Nickie looked at him and answered, almost hesitantly, "Of course Jeffrey, we’re not changing, we’ll always be friends."

Jeffrey let go of the breath that he had been holding and broke into a grateful smile, "Thank you."

"Now, can we continue studying?" Nickie asked.

"How about we take a short nap? The test won’t be until 1 p.m."

"A nap?! You have the audacity to suggest that when you haven’t even covered half of the material yet?"

"I don’t care, I’m tired," Jeffrey replied before letting out a long yawn. "I’ll see you in the morning!" he added and then plopped down on Nickie’s bed, immediately dozing off the minute his head hit the pillow.

"But it is morning!" Nickie cried to no avail as Jeffrey had already ventured into slumber land. "Sloth!" Nickie grumbled as she let out a long yawn herself. Sensing that her body might give out soon as well, she decided to take a short nap too. She lied down next to Jeffrey, "I guess a little sleep won’t hurt." Pretty soon, she had dozed off to sleep as well.

"…thing is, I’ve been in love with you since the very moment I laid my eyes on you."

"Oh Jeffrey," Nickie could only manage to say as she could hardly believe what she was hearing from her best friend. "I don’t know what to say."

"Say you’ll marry me," Jeffrey replied as he grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a long, passionate kiss. "We’ll get away from this place and start a new life together. We’ll get a little cottage with white picket fences and have a pet shitzu. We’ll have 2 beautiful children, a girl and a boy, and we’ll name them Donnie and Marie. We’ll make them pop stars so that we won’t have to take sucky day jobs. And of course, we’ll live happily ever after…until you wake up."

Nickie registered a look confusion on her face, "What?"

12:35 p.m.

"I said, wake up!" Jeffrey screamed into Nickie’s ear as he shook her violently to wake her up. "It’s 12:35 p.m., we only have 25 more minutes before our finals, we have to get going!"

"Rhee?" Nickie asked drowsily, only half-awake. "Where’s Donnie and Marie?"

"Huh?" a perplexed Jeffrey asked. Shortly, he turned panicky once more as he resumed screaming on Nickie’s ear. "Wake up! We’ll be late for our finals. I don’t want to repeat that subject again! I wanna go to Miami!" He then dashed around the room to pick up his coat and place his books back on his bag.

"No fucking way!" Nickie cried as she finally got up and joined Jeffrey on this panic fest. She then headed to the bathroom, screaming hysterically. "This is all just a nightmare, just a nightmare!"

12:52 p.m.

"8 minutes!" Jeffrey announced as the car made a screeching halt at the school parking lot. "If we make a mad dash to the classroom, we’ll get there just before the bell rings."

"Geez, couldn’t you have somehow found a parking spot nearer the building?" Nickie complained as she unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car.

"Well I’m sorry," Jeffrey retorted. "That was the best that I could come up with in such a short notice."

"I swear, if I flunk this test, I won’t let you live this down!" Nickie snarled as they ran across the parking lot towards their building.

"Hey! If not for me you’d still be snoring loudly on your bed till now!"

"I do not snore!" Nickie shot back angrily as they entered the building and cut through the crowd of finals-anxious students. "Besides, whose idea was it to take a short nap anyways?"

"It’s not like I forced you to sleep with me!" Jeffrey retorted.

"You slept with him?" a shocked Creedy who had appeared on the hallway just before their classroom asked.

"Creedy!" Nickie exclaimed. "No, no, no! It’s not what you think!"

"Definitely man, not that at all, I meant, like sleep slumber you know? Not that sleep sleep," Jeffrey explained.

Creedy seemed unconvinced, "Sure."

"Whatever," Jeffrey answered as he started to head inside the classroom. "Go believe what you want to believe. I’m goin’ in."

"Creedy, believe me," Nickie persuaded her boyfriend after Jeffrey had gone inside the classroom. "C’mon," she said as she gave a forced laugh, "I mean, me and Rhee? You gotta be kidding?"

Creedy sighed, "Okay, I believe you."

"Thank you," Nickie smiled as she started to go inside the classroom as well. "I’ll talk to you later, right now I have to finish this killer archi history finals."

"Wait," Creedy said as he grabbed her by the shoulders. "I need to tell you something."

"Can’t it wait? I have a test."

"No, it can’t. It’s one of those now or never kind of things," he explained nervously.

"Okay…but make it quick, bell rings in two minutes."

Creedy took a deep breath as he looked straight into Nickie’s eyes. "I’m asking you not to go to Miami with Jeffrey. Come with me instead, we’ll have our own semestral break together."

"Creedy…I can’t. I mean, Rhee and I planned this a long time ago."

"Okay, I understand," Creedy nodded. "I knew you’d probably say no but I just had to give it a try. I mean, I couldn’t just give up the girl that I love without a fight, right?"

"Creedy," Nickie said in surprise and confusion. "I don’t know what to say."

Creedy sighed and gave a reassuring smile, "Well, I would’ve wanted you to say that you love me too, but I knew that that ain’t happening ‘cus you already love someone else."

"What?" Nickie exclaimed as she forced a chuckle, "Who?"

"Nickie, you’re smart, you should know the answer to that," Creedy replied as he looked over at Jeffrey, who was fidgeting nervously in his seat at the classroom, anxiously waiting for the test to start.

"Jeffrey?! You gotta be kidding?" Nickie said as she shook her head.

"I’m not, maybe you are, you’re kidding yourself, you love him, you know it, but you don’t want to believe it." Nickie remained speechless as Creedy’s words started to sink in. "You have to tell him, y'know? I don’t mind not having you, even if it pains me so, just as long as you’re with someone who makes you happy, completely happy. He makes you happy, and I can’t even begin to compete with that, I tried, but I just can’t. You should be with him, I know that, you know that," Creedy finished before walking away, leaving Nickie confused and a bit dazed with her newfound realizations.

Nickie made her way inside the classroom, her head still afloat in her thoughts with all that Creedy had just opened up to her. She sat down on the seat next to Jeffrey.

"Finally," a very panicky Jeffrey exclaimed. "Quick, who designed the Petit Trianon at Versailles? It’s that Jacques something, right?"

Nickie looked at him and without thinking, just blurted out, "I’m in love with you."

RINGGGGGG!!!

Jeffrey had started to open his mouth to voice out his reaction to Nickie’s startling revelation, a shocked and confused look still plastered on his face, when the proctor walked in and announced, "Okay everyone, shut up and sit down, we’ll begin the test. You may now pass the questionnaires and start as soon as you get them. You have 3 hours to finish the test."

Jeffrey had no choice but to close his mouth and begin the test. Whatever he had to say to Nickie would just have to wait until after the test.

3:15 p.m.

Nickie penciled in her answer to the last item of the test and stood up to hand her paper in to the proctor. Although she had 45 more minutes to work on the test, she didn’t need anymore time as she was already quite sure of the answers that she gave. The all night study session with Jeffrey seemed to have worked after all…for her at least. Jeffrey was still sweating it out, along with the rest of the class, answering the finals. She could sense Jeffrey’s eyes burrowing deep on her as she walked out of the classroom. She felt so foolish for blurting out her feelings to her best friend, even after she’d promised to him that their relationship would never change. But then, she couldn’t contend with the truth, could she?

4:30 p.m.

"You told him what?"

"I told him that I was in love with him," Nickie repeated to a very shocked Aleksi after she had gone home to their apartment.

"Ohmigod!" Aleksi exclaimed, wide-eyed.

"It’s just that after Creedy told me that he loved me, I did realize that I didn’t love him back."

"Ohmigod!"

"And he told me that I didn’t love him because I was in love with someone else, Jeffrey, and I knew that he was right."

"Ohmigod!"

"You could say something else aside from ohmigod y’know."

"Ohmigod!"

"Leksi! I am in dire need of some straightening up here! Help!"

"Okay," Aleksi said, finally snapping out of her momentary shock. "You could tell him that it was all just pre-finals anxiety that lead you to say such a stupid thing."

"Like he’d buy that."

Aleksi gave out an annoyed sigh, "Then why don’t you just stick by what you’ve said, it’s not like you can actually take it back. Once it’s out there, it’s out there, you’ll just have to live with that."

"I hate you, you make sense," Nickie grumbled as she dejectedly sunk back in the living room couch.

"So I guess this means that the Miami trip is cancelled?"

"Oh hell it is, I don’t have the guts to show my face to him after what I just did."

"You know, you can’t hide from him forever, at some point, you’re gonna have to face to him."

"Well, I could hide under a rock until graduation day."

"Yeah sure," Aleksi shook her head as a knowing grin formed on her lips. "Wow, you and Jeffrey, that’s something, not that I hadn’t seen it coming though."

"What?"

"C’mon Nicks, you would’ve been pretty stupid not to have seen this coming."

"You’re talking shit Leksi."

"No I’m not and you know that."

"Alright, you’re right and I’m wrong, now tell me what to do!"

"I don’t know Nickie, it’s your call," Aleksi answered seriously.

Nickie bowed her head as she muttered while shaking her head, "I can’t…I can’t love him…not this way, not the way that I want to."

"Oh Nickie," Aleksi sighed as she looked at her friend. "I’m really sorry."

DING DONG!

"I’ll get it," Aleksi volunteered as she got up to open the door. Nickie remained sulking on the couch.

"Oh hi," Nickie heard Aleksi greet whoever was at the door. "Come in, I’ll leave you two alone to talk," Aleksi added before heading upstairs.

"Nickie," the visitor spoke up. Nickie raised her head to see Jeffrey standing before her, carrying a huge duffel bag. "Before you say anything, let me talk first, please," Jeffrey started when he saw that Nickie was about to speak. "You are the most important person in my life right now and that is the god damned truth. But…I can’t love you, not that way, not the way that you want me to. All that I can offer you is friendship and that does not mean that I love you any less…it just means that I love you differently. And I’m sorry if that’s not how you want things to be, but I hope that we can work something out and still be the best of friends because I can’t just let you go, I just can’t."

"It’s not that easy Jeffrey. Can’t you see, before you came into my life, everything was fine and perfect but when I met you, everything was suddenly different, I don’t know how it is different, it just is. You changed my life, like I was seeing things differently. And I saw that there was so much more in life aside from school and grades and success. Most importantly, I started to see beyond myself…so much, that now, a great deal of my life revolves around you. And as much as I’d wish to not feel this way about you, the truth of the matter is that I do feel this way about you. As much as I’d wish to not be in love with you, I just am, I don’t know why, but I am."

Jeffrey remained silent and so did Nickie. Jeffrey broke the silence and asked, "So, what now?"

"I don’t know."

"Nickie, we can try."

"Try what?"

"Try to get over this, try to move on, pretend that none of these ever happened."

"And I could just pretend that I don’t feel the way that I do for you?" Nickie asked dryly. Jeffrey couldn’t give an answer.

"Say that you’re still going to Miami with me," Jeffrey pleaded.

"Rhee, considering the situation, I don’t think I should."

"C’mon Nickie, we planned on going together and I wouldn’t have it any other way," Jeffrey persuaded. Seeing that Nickie hadn’t reacted, he moved closer towards Nickie, crouched before her and held her hand, "We’re still best friends, that didn’t change…that’s not supposed to change." Nickie couldn’t bear to look at Jeffrey, she just shook her head to say no.

Jeffrey sighed and dejectedly stood up. He picked up his bag and headed to the door but not before giving it one more shot, "I’ll be waiting for you at the airport, please come." Nickie remained silent.

4:55 p.m.

Jeffrey looked at his watch. It was only five more minutes before their plane leaves, yet Nickie was still nowhere in sight. He had hoped that she would at least change her mind and come with him. He knew that this trip wouldn’t be fun at all without his best friend. "Or is it now ex-best friend?" he thought. He gave the airport lobby one more look. He sighed and decided to just board the plane lest he be left behind. "I guess it’s a solo flight for me," he thought sadly as he handed the airport personnel his ticket.

5:59 p.m.

Jeffrey stared out of the window. He didn’t want to look at the empty seat beside him where Nickie should’ve been sitting. He sighed, the plane hadn’t even taken off the ground yet and he was already missing Nickie so much.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?"

"No," Jeffrey answered absent-mindedly, too depressed to even look up at whoever had asked the question. He felt the person settle down on the seat beside him but he just continued to stare out the window.

The stewardess then made the customary pre-flight announcements. "Please put on your seatbelts, we are now taking off." He then felt the plane moving as he saw that they were advancing along the runway.

"Excuse me," his seatmate interrupted his thoughts, "I hate to bother your philosophical introspection but this is the part where you hold my hand."

Jeffrey quickly turned his head to see Nickie sitting beside him. A huge smile instantly formed on his lips as he was suddenly filled with so much joy. "You don’t know how happy you just made me," he said, barely above a whisper.

"Yeah, yeah," Nickie joked, "let’s talk later, for now, do your duty okay?’

"Of course," he replied, taking a hold of Nickie’s hand as the plane took off.