Don't Stop Believin' (COMPLETED)

18. Payphone

PAYPHONE - MAROON5

Author's Note

I have written the entire story now... It's actually finished... One year. Twelve months. 365 days. That's how long it took me... I can't believe it's really over already... :(

The only thing that remain is to translate the last chapters for you :) So here's chapter 18 for you and 19, 20 and the epilogue will come within short...

DON'T FORGET TO VOTE AND COMMENT! :D

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I wanted to run after Derek's back when it disappeared into the crowd on the dance floor. Tears burned and I had not exactly made the situation better by making him even angrier. The thought that I had hurt him was breaking my heart and my clenched fists quickly relaxed. Without that I had noticed it, small and cold tears started to fall down my cheeks and pulled the mascara from my lashes. I didn’t want to go back to Zoe and Jimmy, didn’t want to have to explain why I was so sad. Derek hated me and I had hurt him more than I had wanted to.

I started elbowing my way through the crowd, away from Jimmy and Zoe’s judgmental glances. I didn’t want to spend another minute in the large luxury house filled to the brim with drunk teenagers. I just wanted to go away, wanted to get away from all of it. Why couldn’t we have stayed in Colorado? Then I could have avoided all of this! Then I could move on with my life, trying to forget about Derek and met someone else. Then Derek had been only a memory, a distant dream in the back of my mind. But who said life would be easy?

Before I knew it, I had left the heat and the smell of alcohol behind me and the fresh air hit me hard in the face. It smelled of summer and fresh cut grass, which should have made me happy. In less than a week, I would graduate and then Lea and I would go on that round-the-world trip we had talked about since elementary school. I had no reason to be sad or upset – I should be happy and enjoy my last week of high school! But I couldn’t help but feel anything other than pain, pain because I had made Derek disappointed, hurt him again. Why couldn’t I do anything right?

The music was still pounding in my head, drowning out any thoughts that fought to be in the spotlight, which made a real headache start to take form in my temples. But I didn’t let it stop me. I had to get hold of Derek and apologize to him. I couldn’t stand the thought of him walking around and hating me, no matter what I had done to make him feel that way. It was also something that made me begin to wonder, the fact that I had no idea why he was so pissed off at me. Just when I started thinking about when he had started to behave so strangely, I suddenly saw Derek's back. He walked briskly ahead of me and ran away from Daniel's lawn with his eyes set on his car which was parked outside.

I didn’t think before I had lost control of my feet and started to run after him. I couldn’t let it end like this, not after all I had gone through to get him back. I couldn’t lose him again...

"Derek," I called after him, but either he couldn’t hear me over the deafening music or he didn’t care. He angrily yanked open the door and slammed it behind him as he sat in the shiny black car I'd been in so many times in the past month. The headlights blinded my tear-filled eyes as he started the engine and drove away from me without throwing a second glance over his shoulder.

My heart screamed at me to not give up, that I would do something, but my brain just wanted to break down and never see the sunlight again because I knew it would never look the same without him. He was gone, wasn’t going to forgive me for what I had said. And why would he do that? I didn’t deserve it. He would be better off without me, would be better off with that girl he was so extremely in love with. It was better if I just forgot that perfect night in Los Angeles. Derek wasn’t the same person I got to know there, he wasn’t the person who stole my heart, even if he looked exactly the same. He was different, he had changed so much. Or had I gotten to know the "wrong" Derek? I didn’t know for sure, but it would be so much easier to let go of him if I believed my lies.