"It's only going to be about 2 weeks, come on, Olivia."

"This isn't just some minor event that we are talking about that you can skip out on, like the first day of school! You promised me that you would be here for my prom!"

Sebastian's jaw clenched tight and I could tell that I'd lost him now. He had a way of letting his stubbornness settle in, and shutting his mind off in such a way that I could no longer say anything else on the subject. This was one of those moments. Even if I begged and pleaded, and offered to do anything for him that he wanted (which was plenty, believe me, and all of it was disgusting), he would stay on mental lock-down simply to make his point. When it was clear that I wasn't going to keep begging, he leant down to pick up his guitar case.

"I'll call you from San Diego." He mumbled, not looking up at me. "We probably won't have any cell signal on the ship."

"Sebastian…"

"Don't."

My cheeks began to burn and I could feel my eyes growing moist with tears, that he didn't even have the decency to acknowledge by looking at. He threw a shirt into his backpack, and stepped around me to walk out the door of his bedroom.

"If you leave…" I started to say to the back of his head, but choked on my words. He turned just slightly and I composed myself to finish. "If you leave, it really will be over between us. Don't expect me to be here when you get back, this time."

Sebastian stayed there in his doorway as though he was letting my words sink in. He stared down the hall in the direction of his twin sister Viola's empty room. Finally, he shrugged. "If you can't support my dreams, I'm better off without you."

And that is how my relationship with Sebastian Hastings came to its bitter, abrupt end, three days before my senior prom.

I managed to get back to my dorm room at Illyria and even check my email before I broke down into a fit of hysterical crying. As I sprawled out, face down, on my bed, it occurred to me that Sebastian never had any intention of taking me to prom. It was quite an unexpected revelation that seemed far too insightful considering the position I was in. Fortunately my roommate and her friends weren't around to watch me bawl my eyes out. Not that they would have thought any less of me, but it always embarrassed me to be so vulnerable and make others feel uncomfortable.

When I couldn't stop after 20 minutes, I got a bottle of water from my mini-fridge and splashed some on my face. Nevermind getting my clothes wet and making my mascara run. It seemed to do the trick. My grieving was over, and I felt proud enough of myself to say that Sebastian Hastings wasn't worth more than half an hour of spent tears.

I went to my desk and back into my email inbox to review my messages and see which ones needed my urgent attention. One was from Kevin Schultz, Sebastian's close friend and classmate at Cornwall. The three of us had gone to the beach in Kevin's Jeep twice over the summer and he was just now getting around to sending me the pictures that I'd been begging him for. I tried to skip through them quickly without looking too closely at the ones where Seb and I were cuddling on the sand, or watching sunsets. At the end of the attachments were pictures from their graduation ceremony. It was hard to believe that he had been out of high school for nearly 9 months and had shown virtually no drive or ambition to do anything except play with his band in pathetic dead-end venues. Meanwhile, Viola had graduated at the same time and gone on to join a semi-pro soccer team on top of starting her first year of college. Of course just because they were twins didn't mean they had to be exactly the same, but sometimes I wished Sebastian were more like his sister. More like the Sebastian I wanted to be with in the first place.

I closed the email and browsed absent-mindedly through my inbox. Every message I had from Sebastian was a forward or mass-mailer announcing when his band's next show was for whoever cared to go. It wasn't really his fault if they only got crap shows (and this cruise ship stint out of San Diego was no exception), but at least he could have the sanity to recognize when important events should come first.

Like prom.

It was bad enough when he told me that he wouldn't be taking me to his senior prom because he needed to be in Detroit for a songwriter's convention. I had thought at the time that it was all right if I didn't go to his, because that was his choice to make, and at least he would still take me when it was my turn. In a way, I should have had the sense to see it coming, after all the times he'd put himself before me.

I didn't realize how long I'd been staring at my computer screen, zoning out, until my roommate Holly burst in the door, her bubbly friends in tow.

"Hey Olivia, you're not studying, are you?" Friend #1 asked in the least concerned tone possible.

"No, just replying to some old emails." I forced a smile in her direction.

Holly stepped over to me and leaned in close. "Oh babe… have you been crying? Are you ok? You look like you've been crying."

Deep sigh. I was not about to cry all over again in front of three gossiping sorority girl potentials. "I had a minor meltdown… but I'm ok. I just… lost my date to prom. No big deal."

Their unison sympathy "awwww" was fake as plastic.

Friend #2 hopped up and sat on my computer desk. She had the nerve to put her ass on top of my chemistry book, yet she had never formally introduced herself to me. "I bet you can find a replacement before prom, it's only a few days away. There are still a lot of guys without dates. Blue Ridge's prom isn't even this weekend, it's in three weeks because they had a lot of snow days this year. I bet a lot of guys from there will be available."

"I don't want to go with just anyone, I want to go with Sebastian."

Holly scrunched her nose up at me. "He ditched you three days before prom? What a little bastard. Where is he going this time, to a battle of the bands in a garage somewhere?"

"Close, his band is going to play Simply Red cover songs for 2 weeks on a cruise ship."

All three girls made angry "hmph!" noises, even though they clearly didn't know who Simply Red was. At least they were trying.

"Hey, did you all hear about Rachel, she spent six hundred dollars on her corsage and her mom spent over ten grand on her dress, limo, and reservations. She is totally not even going to go now, because her mom lost the internet bill and forgot to pay it, so Rachel is punishing her by making her eat the ten grand and not go to prom."

"Oh-em-gee are you serious?!"

I turned back to my computer and blocked out the squealing exchange between the three. Mentally, I kicked myself for telling them anything at all, knowing they would just gossip about me around the whole school. Although they had made me feel slightly better just by listening… despite that they clearly didn't care, it felt good to get it off my chest.

When the girls started pouncing around the room 5 minutes later, yelping out "you're a slut! No, you're a slut!" I decided it was time to take a walk around campus and clear my head. Sebastian wasn't worth all this fuss. As I strolled down near the oval, I subconsciously began to wish that there was a boy I truly felt something for. Not just a resigned acceptance of our relationship, as I'd had before with the guys I'd dated, but the actual kind of adoration that makes your heart stop when they come near. The kind of feeling that leaves you breathless in anticipation when you know you'll be together soon. I had felt that way once before, but it wasn't real. Or rather, he wasn't real.

I pulled my hoodie tighter around me and started to jog leisurely toward the soccer field. I needed to remember, and I needed to feel close to someone I hadn't been near in a very long time.