I stood there, completely stunned by what was coming out of his mouth. I didn’t want to hope. Hope was such a dangerous emotion and it could rip me apart if I let myself feel it. Watching him made that impossible, though. Being this close to him, hearing words leave his mouth that broke my heart because of all the self-hate I could hear in them, I couldn’t not hope.

Muttering a curse, he caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger, so gently it finally broke me. A few tears spilled out of my eyes and down my cheeks. I could only make out the shape of his face but even in the darkness I could see the intensity in it. “I love you, Annabelle. I love you so damn much. Say you’ll wait for me. I’ll come back for you, baby. I swear it.”

Fuck you, hope. You’d better not break my heart.

More tears fell and I didn’t try to hold them back like I’d done all night. With a broken sob I threw my arms around his neck. “I love you t-too, Z-Z.” His arms wrapped around my waist hard enough to lock the air in my chest, but I didn’t care. “I love you. Of course I’ll wait. I’ll wait as long as I have to. I only want to be with you. I love you so much it hurts.”

His body was shaking, but he kept a tight hold around my waist. “Thank God,” he breathed. “I was going crazy, baby. This is what I want, the music and all that shit, but I want you too. You deserve so much better than me, Anna. It was killing me because I didn’t think I had the right to ask you to take a chance on me—on a future with me. I know it’s selfish, but right now I don’t give a damn.”

A choked laugh bubbled up in my chest. “You really are crazy.” I felt him tense even more and laughed again. “Crazy for thinking I wouldn’t want to be with you. I want it all, Z,” I admitted with another sob that hurt my chest from the force of it. “I want you to have your dreams and I w-want to be a part of them. I love you and it was killing me to have to smile all night and pretend I was over the moon when all I wanted to do was beg you to stay or take me with you. I wasn’t about to ask you to stay, and I knew I couldn’t go with you. Not yet.” Tears were pouring down my face and now soaking his shirt, but neither of us seemed to really notice or care. “I love you.”

“Fuck,” he muttered with a groan that turned into a tortured whimper. “Ah, fuck.” He kissed my neck but didn’t lift his head. His shoulders shook harder than the rest of his big body. When I felt his tears soaking into my shirt, my heart clenched painfully and my own tears fell faster.

“I love you,” he breathed. “I love you.”

It was nearly dawn before the last person left. Wroth was crashed out on the couch, taking up all the available space on it and still his big feet hung over the end of one of the couch arms. Devlin was asleep on the loveseat and, given that he was the second tallest guy I knew, the sight was something I couldn’t help laughing at. Or taking a picture of. I took several with the Polaroid we’d had for forever. Sticking one to the fridge, I took the other with me into the bedroom to hide in case he decided to tear the other one into a thousand pieces.

In the bedroom, I found Axton asleep by the closet. I didn’t want to know what he’d been doing to fall into a drunken sleep there, and I didn’t have the heart to wake him. Thankful that he had all his clothes on, I tossed a throw over him and I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Noah had left half an hour before with Chelsea, deciding to sleep at her house rather than finding a place to crash on the floor. Liam and Tawny had been the first two to leave earlier, and I wouldn’t say I was sorry. Even high, I could deal with Liam, but Tawny was another story. High or stone-cold sober I couldn’t stand her for longer than five minutes and even then that pushed the boundaries of my tolerance for the bitch.

After brushing my teeth I washed my face and turned off the light as I went back into the bedroom to climb into bed. I wasn’t sure how long I lay there just staring at the dark ceiling before Zander came to bed. It wasn’t long at all, but it felt like hours. I knew that I needed to get used to not having him to hold me at night, but for now I was going to savor every second I had with him.

I still couldn’t believe what had happened earlier. I was still smiling because that damn emotion, hope, was making me plan our future already. Z would go to California and OtherWorld would get their record deal. They would record their first album and he’d come home before he went off on his first tour. Then, when he got back from that, I’d be eighteen and we could start our life together in California.

After hearing how Tawny was going to be moving out to California with Liam and even bragging how she would be touring with her rock-star boyfriend, I knew that Z and me actually had a chance. This could happen for us.

With a happy sigh I snuggled against him, moaning softly when he brushed a butterfly-soft kiss over my eyes and whispered he loved me before his breathing evened out and he fell sound asleep. Fighting back a yawn, I let my own eyes close and fell asleep within minutes.

The next few days flew by. Zander turned in his notice at the county DOT and started getting things set for his trip to California. He bought me a cellphone and matching ones for Gram and himself. We spent as much time at his grandparents’ house as possible because I wasn’t going to make him choose between spending time with me and his gram when I knew he loved us both. When I saw him slip his grandmother a wad of bills, knowing he was just trying to make sure that she had enough money for her monthly medication, it took everything inside of me not to start sobbing like a baby.

Zander was really a good man and I fell a little deeper every day that week.

I tried to look forward to the fact that Friday was my seventeenth birthday, instead of how sad it was going to be to tell Zander goodbye on Saturday morning. OtherWorld was going to do one last gig at Floyd’s Bar and then Zander was taking me to dinner. It would be just the two of us, and I was going to take advantage of every second we had that night.

Our last night together.

At least for a while, anyway.  He’d already promised to come back for Christmas and stay until New Years. I believed him. He’d only ever broken one promise, and that had been for my own good—something I had started to quickly understand that week. Without the guilt of ruining Noah’s life, I knew that Z telling him what was going on at home had been the right decision to make. For all of us.

“How do I look?” I asked Chelsea with a frown at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

She’d done my makeup at my request and had even helped me pick out my outfit. I’d left my long, platinum-blond hair down, and curled the ends just enough to give them a little wave. My eyes seemed to pop at me in the mirror’s reflection, my lips looking bee-stung and glossy. The dress she’d helped me pick out was one of her own and ended several inches higher on my thigh than it had hers the few times I’d seen her wear the little red dress.

It felt like it had taken forever for me to get ready and Chelsea had sent Noah off to the bar with Zander and Devlin, not wanting them to get impatient with how long it was taking me. I’d been reluctant to have her ask them to go on ahead, wanting to spend every spare second with Zander that night, but Noah had kept on coming to the bedroom door asking if I was ready or not.

The girl who now had my brother’s ring on her finger stood in the bathroom doorway with a small grin teasing at her lips. “That depends. How hot were you trying to look, girl?”

I couldn’t help the blush that flooded my cheeks, making my eyes stand out that much more in my well made-up face. “Supernova,” I mumbled. I wanted to stand out tonight. I wanted Zander’s eyes on me and nowhere else. I wanted…