I don’t normally act the way I did at dinner tonight, but I’m tired of people telling me their sorry.

Sorry can’t take the pain away.

Sorry can’t bring him back to me.

Sorry wont fill the void in my heart.

I handled it wrong and I’ll be the first to admit that, but I couldn’t sit there at the table balling my eyes out.

Everything hit me all over again and I couldn’t handle another person telling me they were sorry. I understand why people say it, but if I hear it one time I might explode.

I know I’m overreacting to a simple phrase, but I can’t deal with it right now. I don’t want to deal with it right now. He was my brother, my other half and he’s gone. Never coming back.

I’ll never see him smile again, I’ll never hear his laugh. I’ll never have that special bond again with anyone. I know people say ‘things will get better in time’ but it’s been two years and I’m feeling like it was just yesterday. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over his death, but I do need to move on and I haven’t been able to.

Taking it out on Rachel or anyone else isn’t going to help me move on either.

I’m going to have to apologize to Rachel later, but right now I just need to be alone.

Apparently Justin didn’t get that memo though.

“You ok?” He asks, quietly, taking a seat next to me on the bed.

I turn my head that was previously stuffed into a pillow, towards him, “I’m sorry.” I say, tears streaming down my face.

He frowns, lying down beside me, pulling me into his chest letting me sob myself to sleep.

************************************************************************

I wish there was something I could do to take the pain away from her.

I’ve been staring at her beautiful sleeping form for the last two hours and even in sleep she’s crying. She doesn’t have the physical tears falling down her face anymore, but the look on her face and her body language tells me she’s not sleeping peacefully.

I keep running my hands through her hair trying to silently calm her, but I know it’s not working and I know it wont take any of her pain away.

I keep trying to think about what she’s been through, but I can’t even fathom any of it.

Your parents not giving a rats ass about you and completely disregarding your twin brother. They barely know her. Shit, from the conversation I had with her mother, I know more about her than they do.

Then she loses her brother. Her twin brother at that. I don’t know how she’s even able to get out of bed in the morning. She’s obviously a stronger person than I’ll ever be.

I’d be no where without my family. I’m nothing without them.

How does she do it and with a smile on her face.

I’ve been thinking of ways to get her away from everything and just live in the moment. I don’t want her to forget about everything, I’m sure that will never happen, but I think right now she really needs to just relax and forget for a few days.

I have a little surprise for her, and I’m pretty impressed with myself about it too.

“You’re going to tangle my hair if you keep doing that.” She mumbles, her eyes still closed.

My hand freezes in her hair and I chuckle. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” I say, pulling my fingers free, smoothing out the knots.

She sighs, “I need to apologize to Rachel.” She says, looking up at me with bloodshot eyes.

I shake my head at her, “No you don’t. She understands.”

“I still shouldn’t have just walked off like that. She spent all that time cooking and I just up and leave in the middle of dinner because I…”

“Because you got upset.” He interrupts me, “Completely understandable considering the things you’ve been through. Believe me, she doesn’t expect an apology. If anything, she’s going to apologize to you.”

“There’s nothing for her to apologize for.”

I tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear, letting my fingers linger on her jaw line.

“Are you ok?”

“I’m fine.” She lies.

“You’re a horrible liar, remember?”

“I just miss him.” She sobs, “It’s been two years and it still feels like it was yesterday.”

My heart is breaking for her. I can’t even begin to imagine what she’s going through.

“How would you like to go away for a little while?” I blurt out.

“Go away?” She asks, her head still stuffed against my chest.

“Yeah… Ever been to Tennessee?”

“Can’t say that I have.” She says, pulling back to look up at me, her head still pressed against my pillow.

“It’s beautiful this time of year.”

She smiles up at me, “I take it you either had a really good concert there or you lived there once.”

“I grew up there.”

“So, you take me to Tennessee and then what?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“So does mama Timberlake still live in Tennessee?”

I nod slowly, “But it’s Mama Harless.”

She chuckles, “Good to know. That could’ve been awkward.”

I laugh, “She may have strangled you if you’d called her that.”

She laughs, “I take it she doesn’t care for the Timberlake name?”

“Only when it’s attached to my name. She’s thinks of my dad as a sperm donor and that is as good as they get.”

“So on this secretive little trip out to Tennessee, were you planning on me meeting your mama?” She asks, panic showing in her eyes.

“I was, but if you don’t want to I’m sure I could find another place to bring you.”

“No.” She says loudly, “No, I was just trying to prepare myself . That’s pretty big.”

“She’s not that scary and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t bite.” I joke.

“I’m not so much afraid of the biting…” She bites her lower lip, trailing off.

I grin, “Your nervous she wont like you?”

She shrugs her shoulder, “I don’t really know how to act around parents. Mine weren’t ever really… involved in my life so.” She sighs, “The only parents I’ve been around is Hadley’s and her mom is a gypsy and her dad is the biggest hippie I’ve ever met. They are ‘free spirited’ and don’t really care much about how you act.”

“My mom will love you.”

She rolls her eyes at me, “Yeah, I’m not nervous at all now.”

“I’m serious. If she’s put up with Trace for the last twenty-odd years, you’ll be a breath of fresh air for her.”

“Has she ever hated any of your girlfriends before?” She asks cautiously.

“No, but she’s only met two of them. I don’t bring just anyone home to meet my momma.” he says with a smirk, “Did you just call yourself my ‘girlfriend’?”

Her eyebrows arch upward in shock, “Did I?”

I laugh, “I think you did.”

She looks at me confused, “Aren’t I? Am I not?” she pauses in thought, “We haven’t really talked about that before have we. I guess I just assumed…”

I tilt her head back up towards mine, “I was teasing you.”

“Oh…”

“Maddy, I care about you a lot. Honestly for the first time in my life I actually feel…” What’s the right word, “Complete.”

Ok, try not to completely freak her out, “I don’t know how to explain this without scaring you or confusing the shit out of you, but.” I pause with a sigh, “For the longest time I’ve felt like something’s been missing from my life. When I was at the beach house with you, I thought it was my obsession with Cloie look-a-likes, but I think it’s deeper than that. I think more than anything I was trying to fill a void.” I scratch my chin, thinking of a good way to put this, “Maddy, the minute I met you, I knew I had to have you in my life.” I laugh, “For the first time, a woman wasn’t falling at my feet and it made me realize what a jerk I’d been.”

“I guess you popped my ego bubble and I actually got to see my life more clearly. I realized that I never really loved Cloie like I thought I did. I realized I didn’t really love any of the girls I’ve been with.”

This is the part she may freak out about, breathe big guy, breathe, “I didn’t realize what love felt like until I left you at that beach house. The whole plane ride home you were all I could think about. I have an entire journal of songs and ideas for songs I’ve written about you. I couldn’t get you out of my head and that’s never happened to me before.”

I grab her hand, intertwining our fingers together, “I’ve had girlfriends. I’ve had long term girlfriends. Hell, I’ve been engaged. All those relationships didn’t mean half of what I thought they did. I was gone for months at a time and I was perfectly fine with being away from them. I didn’t care enough to call every night, I didn’t even really care if they thought about me while I was away.”

“With you… With you it’s insanely different for me. I can’t go an hour without thinking about you.” I chuckle to myself, “I’m actually surprised Rachel or Trace hadn’t put me in an asylum during the last three months. If I wasn’t talking about you I was writing about you. If I wasn’t writing I was certainly thinking about you.”

She looks like she’s about to cry again, but I’m pretty sure it’s a good cry this time around, “Maddy, what this very long and drawn out one sided conversation has been about…” I take a deep breath, squeezing her hand in mine, “I’m in love with you. I think I have been since I saw you walking towards me that day on the beach.”

I hear her mumble something under her breath, but I just talk over her, trying to make this conversation less awkward, “I know it’s soon and we don’t really know all that much about each other, but I just thought you should know.” I let her hands go, scratching the top of my head nervously, “I’m sorry if I made things awkward between us, but I couldn’t not tell you any longer.”

“Did you not hear me or are you just ignoring me?” She quietly asks, tears slowly trickling down her face.

I reach up, swiping them away with a sigh, “Hear what?”

“I said, I do too.”

I rack my brain trying to think of what she could possibly be talking about, but I come up short, “What do you too?”

A slow smile forms on her face, “Love you.”

Well, I’ll be damned.

“Yeah?” I ask, purely for my own sanity. That and I really want to hear her say it again.

“Yeah.” She grins.

“So I didn’t lose you during all that?”

She laughs, “A little bit in the middle, but you pulled me back in at the end.”

I laugh, cupping her face in my hands, “I love you Madison.”

“I love hearing you say that.” She says, grinning. I lean forward kissing the grin off her face.

“I love you too.” She murmurs against my lips.

I pull back, leaning my forehead against hers, “I love hearing you say that.”