Malia.

Heartache.

Breathing.

Life.

What's the purpose of life if everything is going to turn into heartache and pain at some point? Managing to exhale and inhale a simple breathe shouldn't be so difficult. Constantly feeling as if there is a part of you torn to pieces is no way to live a life.  Putting your heart on the line after you promised yourself you would never do that again, was just a slap in the face. I had made the choices, and I'm paying the consequences for it now.

            The eternal sound of silence was the worst sound of all and my condo was eerie quiet now. The television dark, the blinds pulled shut, my legs were pulled into my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs I rest my chin on my knees. Not a single thing made a sound other than the pain of my heart cracking into pieces yet again and the flow of tears that have simply become second nature for me.

"Mia honey, I just got your voicemail. Are you okay?" My mom's sympathetic voice reined through the phone. Just hearing her voice, someone that undoubtedly loved me and any choice I made, was hard to take in.

"Mama. I just don't know what to do anymore." Those are words I never thought I would say to again. Words I never thought I would say to even myself again. "My life has fallen to pieces. Just when I start to see the light again, the light goes dark. Pitch black dark. I hate being here alone all the time..." Every single word was causing my throat to close off. "I hate the feeling of no end."

"Oh honey, I'm so sorry." My mother never knew how to react to me crying. It used to be something I rarely did, but it more common than she knew now. "Is this because of what Aaron has been saying? Honey, you know the truth and that's all that matters."

I took in her question, trying to find an answer. "This..." I began to speak, but it was then I realized that this had nothing to do with Aaron anymore. It was me.

"What do you think you need to be okay again?" My mother asked calm and collected.

She wasn't aware of anything I was dealing with; she was in the dark about most of my life. I didn't want my mother to know messing my life really was. But I was going to tell her, what I have told no one. "I need to not be broken anymore. I need to feel whole again."

She remained quiet on the other end. Hoping maybe I would divulge details or something that could help her help me, but there was no answer, there was no easy fix. "The man I met your condo that day..." she paused, "Who is he?"

Justin. I felt my throat begin to close off again. "You know exactly who that was." I said hoping that would be the end of it. She didn't know what has been going on with Justin but she suspected something the moment she found him in my apartment at the crack of dawn.

Her tone changed. "That's not what I meant. He seemed to make you happy." She the mom, trying with everything she had to make her daughter see the greatness her life had to offer. "I saw an ease on your face that I have never seen with you... And you know Mia that it doesn't matter how the timing works in life, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be."

His hands went to my face. My eyes watched the creases on his knuckles as they bent slightly to the curve of my chin. His hand opened as he slowly cupped my face into both hands, placing his lips onto the bridge of my nose. His fingers, his touch rolled over my body with ease. The view of the Las Vegas strip in the background disappeared as the blackout blinds lowered to floor level and my body slowly lowering onto the bed, the weight of his body towering over me...

"Malia?" My mother asked as I snapped out of the memory.

"Yea..." I said, attempting to focus.

"You alright?"

"Just remembering some things I need to figure out..." my thoughts were controlled by this night that I couldn't remember. Pieces of the night seemed to flood back, but no real details of who this person was, how I knew them, or how it was that I was so comfortable with this person with me. Was there an even bigger mistake made that maybe I didn't want to face in the morning? Could that be the reason it seems to be a blank? Did I call someone I shouldn't have? Did I run into someone I shouldn't have? I covered myself in embarrassment.

"Mia." My mother got louder, more intense this time. "I'm going to meet you in the next city. You need someone with you right now."

"No." I said firmly. "I'm leaving tonight, headed for the East Coast... I will be fine."

She exhaled that deep breathe I dreaded hearing from her. "You say those words, but I don't believe you."

I didn't believe the words myself, but there was only so much I could handle at the moment, and as much as I don't want to be broken, I had things in my life that I should be happy with and I had things that most could ever dream of having. I needed to focus as much as I could on those things. "I have everything I could have ever wanted. I need to stop being selfish and accept that life isn't perfect."

             The flood gates had been opened and words poured out onto pages of lyrics. I thought I had found whole again, but maybe there was never going to be whole again. Maybe this is the new version of me that I had to get used to. Life was not perfect. Life happens. Life changes the person we become and somehow someway, it prepares us for our next adventure. I need to learn from what life has thrown at me and take it on to the next step of my life.

            As the plane touched down, the sun was rising up along the ocean into the blue sky. I seemed to always hate the idea of a redeye flight. Time is lost between the flights and there was no way of getting it back, but this particular flight could have wasted more of my time and it would have made me happier.

            To my surprise when I walked into the venue, there were others already moving around, setting up lights, the stage, and getting the little things ready for the show that would occur tonight regardless of how screwed up I was. 

"Malia, a package was dropped off for you." Joel yelled across the stage.

"Okay..." I looked back at him confused.

"It's in your dressing room. It came while we were in Vegas but I couldn't find you... anyways I wanted to let you know.

I vanished to the back room to find this package. I was sure the label had sent something that needed signed or some crap that I really just didn't want to deal with but instead there is a large purple guitar case sitting just inside the doorway. A simple card was tied to the handle with a large piece of ribbon.

Find hope in hopeless... Become that missing link... Always write with me in mind...

A hand scribbled heart and J ended the card. I ran my fingers over the grooves of the heart he drew. How something as simple as this scribbled heart could mean so much to me boggled my mind.

I snapped the brackets open, lifting open the case. Revealing an acoustic guitar covered in light purple crystals. "How could he... how did he..." I mumbled questions to myself, as I felt the ache in my heart begin to hurt even more. The lid inside the case was designed as a college of pictures. He had taken photos from the very day we met on the set of Ellen, to the last photo we had taken on his cell phone, laying in bed. Some I was sure I had never seen before. He had spent so much time and effort on this gift and yet he wasn't even single.

"He always seems to do the right things." Joel stood leaning in the doorway. "He is great for you Malia."

I swallowed my pride and nodded my head. My eyes filling up with tears, an aching pain through my heart caused the feeling to become overwhelming. If he only knew. I thought to myself.

The lyrics I had written on the flight were all I could think about. I grabbed my journal scribbling down more words. There was something I need to change, something I needed to add to that particular song. I turned back to Joel, "Could you get me a microphone and power to the acoustic guitar please?"

He smiled and nodded his head, "Just give me a few minutes." Musicians. They deal with life through music.

Picking up the acoustic, I place the strap over my head, adjusting it to the perfect level. The lights from above beamed down on a scripted message along the edge in his handwriting, I run my fingers over his words.

Until the end of time... J

Joel stood at the soundboard, giving me the go ahead just as I strummed the first chord, immediately going into the words, not given myself time to sink into a depression. "I said hello I think I'm broken...  And though I was only joking... It took me by surprise when you agreed... I was trying to be clever... For the life of me I never... Would have guess how far... The simple truth would lead..."

            He had taken over a part of my heart that I never thought I would get back, he made me believe in the idea of love again. Even with every game I tried to play, in order to run from him, he was always standing there ready to take on the next step. But Why?

"You knew all my lines... You knew all my tricks.... You knew how to heal that pain... No medicine could fix..."

            He was able to fix my pain, he was able to do what no one would ever be able to do again, but why would he? He wasn't alone. He wasn't dealing with the issues I was... why would he want to take on the challenge of my pain, when he had someone to come home to at night.

"And I bless the day I met you...  And I thank god that he let you... Lay beside me for a moment that lives on... And the good news is... I'm better for the time we spent together... And the bad news is you're gone..."

            He had someone, that wasn't me, to go home to at night...

"Looking back it's still surprising... I was sinking... You were rising... And with a look, you caught me in mid air... And now I know God has his reasons... But sometimes it's hard to see them... When I awake and find you're not there..."

            I took his words, incorporating them into a song that was easing the pain I felt.

"You find hope in hopeless... You made crazy sane... You became the missing link... That helped me break my chains... And I bless the day I met you... And I thank god that he let you... Lay beside me for a moment that lives on... And the good news is I'm better for the time we spent together... And the bad news is you're gone..."

            My head lowered to the ground, tears crashed onto the steel of the stage.

"The bad news is, you're gone..."

            Every piece of who I was, was in love with him.

Everything I wanted, was in him.

A love I would never feel again, could never be.

He was gone.

            The sun was shining bright as I rushed out of that venue, exiting through a back entrance and into the nearly empty parking lot. I placed my hands over the side of my face, kneeling to the ground. I had let myself fall in love with him. As great of a feeling as that was, it was also that much of a heartache. That was something that couldn't be.

"I've missed you." I heard a familiar voice begin to speak behind me, a hand was being placed on my shoulder. I slowly turned and rising to my feet. My sadness was gone and filled with fury. I back stepped quickly. "Do not touch me." I barked.

"Let me..." Aaron said reaching for my hand, as I pulled back not letting him touch me. "Why wouldn't you just let me be the one in your life? Why couldn't you just let me love you?"

I rolled my eyes at his words. His memory must not remember the same things mine did. "Only you would rewrite history, and believe it." I exhaled a deep breath. I turned to walk away from him, turning back I said. "I wish you could hear yourself when you speak. "I wish you would listen to me when I speak to you. I wish..." I chucked, "I don't wish anything anymore. You had my heart and you lost it. Take a look in the mirror and face what you have done because our breakup had nothing to do with Justin, it had nothing to do with me. You are to blame."

His eyebrows flared as high as they would go. "You're such a conceded bitch."

I smiled at him, "Just not your bitch." Turning away I felt a genuine smile wave across my face, expressing the pure joy of defeat over him.

"Walk away from me... it's what your good at." He yelled. "You are always running."

            Ouch. His words stopped me in my tracks. It was the truth. I always found a way to run. There was always something causing me to make the choices I had made.

Justin. I thought.

            I can't give up on him. After everything he has done for me, I couldn't give up on him. I needed to fight for what I wanted. I needed to come full circle with him. He needed to know how I felt, regardless of how it would change our situation. He needed to know that his love wasn't meaningless; he needed to know that he had done all the right things, just at the wrong time.

"Malia..." Aaron yelled as if I was across the pavement.

My blurred vision of the surroundings started to come in clearer. Aaron was still standing there, glaring back at me. Calmly I delivered words to him, "Everyone said you would do it... everyone said I would cry... But somewhere between the lines of reality and your version of reality, I have realized the things I really wanted in life. So if running from you is what needed to happen, I'm glad I ran. I should have done it sooner."

The version of Aaron I had gotten to know the last year of our relationship was front in center now, "You're pissed that I went to the press first. You're pissed this wasn't your spin on what happened." The smirk on his face made me want to slam him into the wall but I knew that wasn't the answer. I needed to take the high road from him. He didn't need to have any kind of effect on my life any longer.

A crowd started to form near the entrance of the building. "You can say what you want to whoever you want. It will never change the way I feel about you." I turned and walked away from him, hoping it would be the last time...

            Just when I thought the smoke had been cleared, the title wave had calmed Sam storms through the door of my dressing room, slamming a stack of photos down in front of me.

"This cannot happen." He forcefully points down at the stack in front of him, "This... ends... now."