Hi guys! I'm back eep!

If you follow me on tumblr, you know that I've been pretty freaking AWOL lately, and I'm SOOOOO sorry about that, and this chapter is so shitty, and it's coming to a really nice end it feels like. I feel like one or two more chapters will wrap this up nicely.

As for I Shouldn't Love You, oh god, that will probably have four or five more, I'm sure. A new chapter of that SHOULD be up tomorrow, Tuesday by the latest.

Again, deepest apologies for not updating these in forever, and hopefully this isn't just so freaking horrible.

Also, if you feel like something is missing, something you wanted to see get tied up, PLEASE let me know in the reviews, or message me on tumblr, and I WILL, I promise you, find a way to put it in so you're happy with what you are reading.

As for now, please enjoy :)

It was three months later, and to be honest, I felt better. I was finally acting like a normal person again. I went out and did things with James and Arianna, and I was smiling, putting behind me the horrible event of a miscarriage but never forgetting about it.

That night James called me, and told me that losing our baby hurt him too was the night our relationship changed. And it made my mind scream out to me that he was never going to leave. I knew it before, but him calling me, in tears after he got out that first sentence that he was going to stay with me no matter. And that one day we'd get married, and live in a big house and have little James and Autumns running around. It was a cute thought. But I didn't think that was going to be happening for a few years.

Either way, I was healing. Not fully better, but healing. I was going to be okay. Things like this happen. I was going to be okay.

On terms of my book and school, they were both perfect. My book was released in early August, a few weeks before I got back to college, and it sold over thirty thousand copies in the first week, which was absolutely more than I'd ever dreamed.

Most of it was probably due to James and the guys endorsing it non-stop whenever they could, on twitter, in interviews, which meant that everyone knew we were dating. James had told me there was an article about us in a magazine, and a few weeks later, after he was tired of getting bombarded with questions about me, he finally just said that yes, I was his girlfriend.

And yes, it made girls mad. They seemed to be so pissed off at me for stealing the "man of their dreams," and I just had to laugh, because honestly, how many of them actually knew James well enough to fall in love with him? Poor girls, I always thought.

I still went to school, because I'd still feel like a failure if I didn't finish out what I came here for, even though Jenna was always telling me with the way my book was selling, if I wrote another in the next year, I never had to finish school or have another job. But half the fun of life was having the obstacles of school, and having the obstacles of stress. Sure, a lot of people probably wouldn't like that, but I did, and it kept my mind off things when James wasn't around.

Right now, he was on tour with the guys, playing concerts at fairs and endorsing the album with signings and what not. He'd be back in two weeks, and he'd already been gone for three. We Skyped when we could, talked on the phone, did whatever we could, but it was strange not having him around. My apartment was awfully quiet without him on my couch yelling at the TV for no reason at all, or rummaging through my refrigerator, sufficiently knocking over half the things in there.

I was typing up a paper, already curled up in my pajamas and sitting on the couch with my laptop on my legs when I glanced at the clock and noticed it was nine on the dot. I smiled, then logged into Skype, and sure enough, there was James, with the little green dot next to his name. I clicked on it, and called him, and he immediately clicked answer, and then his face popped up on my screen.

He looked gorgeous as always, but his hair was a bit shorter than it was two days ago, which was the last time we actually "saw" each other. He was on the east coast tonight, and he'd be near my hometown tomorrow, and when I told my dad about, he called James with no hesitation and said he wanted to see him before he left. They'd gotten outrageously close since he first came here, which made me really happy, and in turn, I'd met James' dad, who was almost the same exact person his son was.

"Hey beautiful!" James said, smiling and I felt my face heat up, but I smiled anyway.

"Hi," I said, and I could hear the guys talking in the background. He was in a hotel room, sitting at a table, I think, in the corner because in the back behind him I could see a lamp, and the edge of a bed. "How was the show?"

"Crazy," he said, and he meant it genuinely, the best way he possibly could mean it. "It never ceases to amaze me how many people actually show up." Then he laughed, that little James Maslow chuckle of his that I adored so much.

"I love you," I blurted out of nowhere, because it felt necessary, just to let him know, so he'd never forget it.

"I love you too." His tone was the same as mine, happy, laughing, whatever else you wanted to call it. "How was your day?"

"It was good," I said as James messed around with something beside him, his profile almost more flawless than looking straight at him. Then he raised his eyebrows, and a cord came into view, and I asked, "What are you doing?"

"This damn cord," was all he said, still pulling at it, and then he just shook his head and sighed. "Whatever." Before I could ask him if his back was feeling better, since he'd called me earlier this morning to whine about how he'd slept oddly and how it was sore, somebody said something in the background, which made James look over at them. I could tell it was Carlos, but I didn't know what he was saying. I sat there patiently on the other end, and then James nodded and then smiled at me.

"Hey Aud!" Carlos yelled from the other end, waving enthusiastically. "I just wanted to let you know I read some of your book."

"Oh god," I said, embarrassed. I always got like that when people told me they read my stuff, because I honestly felt like it was not good at all, and when people said they'd taken time out of their life to read it, and when they said they liked it, I just wanted to be best friends with them.

"No! It was good!"

"Carlos, it was written more for girls ages 16-21," I pointed out and he just shook his head.

"Well, I'm breaking the mold! And I liked the first 30 pages!"

"I'm glad you did," I said sincerely, because for Carlos to read it, that meant a lot. "Thanks."

"If you ever want some crazy shit to write about, just let us know," he said now, leaning down behind James with his arm around his shoulder. "We've got plenty."

James grinned and nodded in agreement. "I will," I promised, and then he disappeared out of view when there was some obnoxious knocking on the door.

"Well," James sighed. "I'd hate to leave you so quickly, but it past midnight and I'm exhausted."

"Oh, no babe, go to bed," I told him. "You need to rest. But before you leave, is your back feeling better?"

"Yes, thank god!" The chuckle again, which made me bite my lip and hold back a giggle. "Feels much better."

"Good," I said, and he smiled.

"I'll see you tomorrow." Then things were quiet, both on my side and his, and I figured the room cleared out. "I miss you." His voice was soft, and I looked at him sadly.

"I miss you too."

"But we've only got ten more days," he added as an afterthought.

"True. Get to bed, I don't want to keep you up," I insisted, and I had a paper to finish, too.

"Okay, okay!" he said, laughing a little. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Alright. Goodnight."

"Night, darling. I love you."

"I love you, too," I said softly. "Bye."

He blew me a kiss and I pursed my lips, "catching" it and then he said, "Bye," before flashing me one last grin, and then the screen went black, and I sighed, and logged off and went back to my paper.

When I finally went to bed later that night myself, I let myself relax. I made it through another day without spontaneous bursts of tears. It happened on the occasion, and part of it worried me, but with research it looked like a normal thing.

But as I felt myself drifting off into sleep, I knew my life would never be particularly normal. And I was okay with that.