It was beginning to snow. The air was brisk, sky a faded gray as small flurries began to fall around her. Eyes closed as she tugged the blanket around her tighter, she inhaled deeply, letting the cold enter her throat and lungs. It was refreshing, her favorite time of the year in that moment: the first snow fall, the snow covering the ground and past seasons just like white out, ridding it of all prior memories of what once was there, what had been left to ruin.

What was now lost under a thin sheet of frost and snow was one of the things she wanted to lose, what she wanted to forget. She wanted to forget the last month and a half, wanted to forget the friendship she had that was still tearing up her insides like a shredder, leaving no piece unharmed. Her heart seemed to have taken the most abuse, she surprised it was still beating. Tears had long ago subsided, her eyes feeling like they were eternally dry; her mind no longer raced, in fact, it seemed to have stop thinking all together - her work was suffering because of it.

How he had affected her as he had still drove her insane. She loved him; realized it too late and spoke on it at the wrong time, but she loved him. Told him so to only get her heart ripped out and broken even more than it was after the past incident had happened. Her heart broke the moment he walked away from her, the moment he didn't go after her that night at his home; when he stopped calling at that very moment, too.

He had become hypocritical the moment he said he never walked away. He did. He wiped his hands clean, wiped his slate completely clean: clean of her, clean of memories of her. He was in LA now, doing radio promotion, performing random bits of songs for DJs and fans alike in a chipper, typical JC-like mood while she, she sat clear across the country in her Tribeca apartment and seemed to have made a career out of blank stares and blank articles.

The cold had spread to her fingertips clear down to her toes, she shivering as she finally stepped into the apartment again and inhaled the faint of pumpkin and apple, pies that her sister had brought by before taking she and her boyfriend, boyfriend down to Vermont to meet her parents and spend Christmas with them.

Christmas sucked.

She slid shut the glass door, drawing the blinds back to the end and letting the curtain follow, keeping the gray day outside of the apartment. She didn't need anymore depression around her; didn't need anything around her anymore.

She walked into her kitchen, slicing a piece of the apple pie and putting it into the microwave, nuking the insides as she reached for the radio, putting it back to her favorite station, one that had never seemed to let her down with good music.

She took the warm plate from the microwave a few moments later, sitting down and piercing the crust with her fork, pausing mid-fork to mouth as the DJ's voice began to speak after a commercial.

"So you've been back in New York for how long now? A week?"

"A little less than, yeah. Did my thing in LA and came back to the east coast to see family."

"Family, as in Florida family or Maryland family?"

The voice chuckled, it low and forced. "No, I uh," he cleared his throat, "I've got family here, actually in the Tribeca area that I've been somewhat avoiding and it's about time I went to see her."

"Oh, a her, huh? Is this 'family', and I say 'family' very loosely, a girlfriend?"

"No."

She snorted, rolling her eyes. Far from it, far from anything. How dare he even say he was even in the area to see her? She knew it was her, she knew she was the only person he knew in Tribeca. "Fuck you," she mumbled as she put her fork down on the plate, shaking her head in disbelief. "Fuck you, Chasez."

"Well, now that we know you're here to see your quote-unquote 'family', how about that promise to sing a bit of the song you were singing earlier? The one that the girls over there in our studio nearly fan-girled out with and we had to send them all to the emergency room?"

"You really want me to sing? I just thought it was joking; that we were going to talk about ABDC ..."

"Well, I mean, you can sing about that if you want, but I'm pretty sure I'll get laid by one of those chicks if you sing ..."

She rolled her eyes again, suddenly hating the radio station, hating the DJ, hating herself. Her mind, one that had been on a slow cruise control was suddenly on auto pilot, going a million thoughts a minute, she unable to stop any.

He sounds fine.

No, he sounds upset.

He had enough nerve to bring me up as 'family'. I'm not his 'family'.

I miss him.

No, I don't. He's not part of my life anymore; don't miss what you don't have.

" ... It's a wonder we don't hear about your sex life, Chasez; with a voice like yours, I'm shocked to see girls aren't knocking on your door, your hotel room door or any door for that matter to get with you."

"I'm not like that, man," he laughed. "It's flattering you would think so ... I think, anyway? But ten years ago, maybe I would have been but things change and some things have suddenly become a lot more important than having one night stands."

Her heart panged. And there it was. The last nail to drive through her already barely beating heart. Tears welled up, she nearly sobbing when she realized she had not cried herself out, pinching the bridge of her nose to keep the tears at bay. Was this really how she was going to let him affect her? Was this really what she had brought herself down to?

Yes and yes. No matter how many times, it'd be always yes.

"My heart was taken a long time ago," he continued, "it definitely took me through a loop and I really didn't know how to react. A lot of things were said and I am just now getting back on both feet."

"Sounds like you may end up unavailable to all these girls in here," the DJ teased, "but hell, that's okay, I'll take 'em!"

"If she'll have me," he said softly, barely audible over the fans in the studio, "I don't think that's possible anymore."

She scoffed, gripping the sleeves opposite of both arms tightly, knuckles white. She knew what he was doing, knew exactly what he was doing. She'd beat him before he got there, beat him to the punch, let him feel as she did the last month and a half. Christmas was not even a week away, but this Christmas, she'd let him be alone. She was done waiting around, done feeling as if she was never going to be good enough. She was going home, going to the people she knew would accept what she said, welcome with open arms when she told them she loved them.

She pulled a suitcase out of her hallway closet, lugging it back to her bedroom as she threw various sweaters and jeans in, underwear following shortly as she stalked across to the bathroom, grabbing her toothbrush and all toiletries in one swoop of her hands. And just like a forceful punch to the stomach, she stopped abruptly, tears welling again in her eyes as the same voice she had heard over and over again drifted into her ears, into her brain, into her heart.

"Forgive me if it's a little rusty," he said softly, "this goes out to you, where ever you are ..."

I don't know when we fell apart ...

She shook from her stance, quickly grabbing her bearings and throwing all of her things into the suitcase, zipping it quickly as she lugged it out into the kitchen and threw it by the door, grabbing her keys and reached for the radio's power, hand stopping as his voice continued to sing.

Things we said were so wrong
And I haven't held you for so long
My foolish pride turns me inside
Why did we tell all those lies?
If you can reach for the phone
You don't have to be alone

"That was amazing, man. Fantastic."

"Thank y-"

She shut it off before he could speak further, sniffling loudly as she grabbed her cell phone. Dialing the number asn she put it to her ear, she inhaled deeply, waiting for the other end to pick up. After a few rings, it finally did. "Mama," she said softly, "can I come home for a while?"

Vermont was beautiful in the winter. Of course, many places were when just the right amount of snow had fallen, covering trees and the grass in a thick blanket of white. It finally promised to be a white Christmas, and for this, she was happy.

For everything else, she was not.

"So are you going to tell me what's going on in that little pretty head of yours, or do I have to smack it out of 'ya?"

She turned on her heel from staring out the living room window, a lazy smile forming on her face as her mother looked at her in worry. "No, I'm okay, mom, really ..."

"Attie," her mother said softly, using the nickname that she, and she alone used, "I can see it in your face. I know you. I carried you nine and a half months, raised you twenty and watched you take care of yourself for the next eight. Something is up."

She frowned, giving her mother a slow shrug. "Scratch my head?"

Sighing in defeat, her mother sat down on the couch facing the bay window, lifting her arm and waiting for her grown daughter to place her head in her lap, fingers slowly weaving in and out of her hair. "Tell me what's going on, Natalie."

"Everything is going wrong, is what's going on," she said softly after a few moments of silence. "I'm sucking horribly at everything: life, friendships, work ... I don't know where or when it all started spiralling out of control, but it did and I can't gain my footing."

"I see," her mother said, Natalie knowing the gears were shifting quickly as her thought process continued, "so what happened with JC? I know this started it all."

"How do you know that?"

"Mother's intuition," she said, smirking when Natalie looked up at her, eyebrow raised, "And, maybe Cecilia told me."

"Remind me to strangle my sister."

"It was going to come out sooner or later, Natalie," her mother reminded her, "you have never kept anything from me for too long."

"I know."

"It'll all work out for the best, Natalie; it always does. I don't know why you can't just ... call him."

"It's not that easy anymore, mom," she said, pulling herself up and fixing her hair as she stood, "it's ... complex what happened between us. I don't know how to say it, but it is ..."

"If it's complex, it's because you slept with him."

"Mom!"

Her mother shrugged. "I'm just saying. Sex always makes things difficult when you're not in a relationship with that person. Especially when feelings are involved."

"Mother," she groaned, "I'm not having this conversation with you."

"Why not? You're 28, I'm 56; it's not like I'm living in the Cavemen era, I know what happens to people when they start falling for them. Lives get confusing, feelings get jumbled up and it just happens."

"Yeah, well, it was one-sided and I should have stopped it had I of known -"

"How can it be one-sided," her mother questioned, standing to look at her daughter evenly in the face, "it wasn't just coming from your side, Natalie. I saw the way he looked at you when you brought him around for the 4th of July picnic; I saw how he looked at you when you brought him home for your grandmother's birthday party. A friend doesn't just come to something like that. Someone who cares a lot about that person, who would like to spend time with that person, does. He could have just as easy went to see his one bandmate that also lives in New York; could have flown home to see his family for the holiday, but he didn't. He chose to come with you because he wanted to be near you. I don't know about you, but that's definitely called -"

"Friendship," she said, cutting her mother off, "friend in New York wasn't in New York if you remember him saying. Joey was in Italy with his wife and daughter on vacation. His mother and father were also both back in Maryland to be with Heather at some party for a relative that wasn't related to JC, himself. And before you add any other people: Justin was in LA recording with Pharell; Tyler was also in Maryland; Lance was being, well, Lance and was in California pimping himself out and Chris was back in Pittsburgh with his mom and sisters, introducing them to his new girlfriend. Anyone else you'd like to add in?"

"I swear, you get that smart ass attitude when you don't want to believe something," her mother murmured, lifting her hands up in defeat, "I'm going to start dinner. Go take a nap, you need one."

"I don't need anything."

"Right, you keep telling yourself that. Let's see how many times you look at your cell phone, waiting to see if he'll text or call you. Because, since you've gotten here, you've looked at the phone about ten times in the span of every five minutes. No, you don't care about him all, do you, Natalie?"

She looked at her mother, speechless. Not a word was said as she turned on her heel, slowly climbing the stairs to her old bedroom, hearing her mother move around in the kitchen while her father's television traveled through the floors of the hall. She had been there a little more than two hours and it already felt like eternity. This was why she never came home: her mother knew her all too well and it annoyed the hell out of her that she knew more about her just by looking at her face than she did of herself.

She closed the door gently behind her, throwing herself onto her bed and sighing deeply. The comforter still faintly smelled like the detergent her mother used, she closing her eyes and breathing deeply. Soon after, she was falling into a slumber that she had fought for so long.

"Mom! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mama! Mama! Mama! Ma! Ma! Ma!"

She jolted awake to the sound of her alert on her phone, reaching blindly for the device sitting on the nightstand above her head. Pulling it down to her eye level with the pillow, her heart began to beat fast as she read the alert.

NEW TXT MESSAGE
JC
TUE, DEC 23, 2008

She didn't even want to open it. Didn't even want to know what he had to say. Nothing he said mattered to her anymore. Nothing. He could tell her that he was dying and she wouldn't care; that he was moving to Iceland and she wouldn't even blink an eye.

And that was all a lie, no matter how hard she tried to make herself believe the words she said. She'd always care, that was a weakness she'd have to live with for the rest of her life.

Yo estaré
Por siempre a tu lado
Nunca me alejaré

She felt the tears well in her eyes as she read the words, words blurred below on the screen as she took in the words he had sent to her.

I'll be forever at your side
I'll never leave.

Before she had a moment to let it settle, she received another text, this one in English and very much what she was thinking at the moment.

I need to see you. There's something
I need to say and it has to happen in person.
Why aren't you home? Where are you?

She sighed deeply, lifting the phone back up and responding.

I think we've already decided that the two of us
were better apart. Everything has been said that
needed to be said and everything that you could
even want to say to me is unwelcomed. I told you
I don't want to see you anymore, JC. I'm done
with this, with all of it. I'm sorry.

She set her phone back up onto the nightstand, getting up and stretching dramatically. It smelled of pasta sauce and garlic bread, her mouth watering at just the thought of the homemade sauce her mother was infamous for. Maybe it would all go away if she just pretended it was never around; she'd go downstairs and eat until she'd burst and go back to sleep and forget anything ever happened; forget that he happened to her.

Then her phone had to alert her with another text and take it all back from her.

We? I've never had one word to say about our
so-called 'decision'. There is still so much I have
to say to you, about what happened, about us. Do
you really think that you don't want to be around
me anymore? Because, if that's how you feel
then I'll leave it alone. But I can't leave you
alone - regardless of what you tell me to do.
Just please ... tell me where you are. I need
to talk to you, Natalie. Please.

She frowned. There went all the walls she had fought so hard to put up in the first place.

You have something to say to me? Then tell me
here, now. I really don't know what I think or
know but right now, I think it's best if we stay
away from one another until we can think
rationally. Something neither of us have
done.

She slid her phone into her pocket, rolling out of her bed and headed back downstairs towards her family's kitchen. "Ma, you need help in here?"

"No, but if you are willing, you can," she said, turning her head and looking at her daughter as she pulled the sauce off of the stove. "Set out the salad bowls, will you? Cecilia and David will be back shortly with the Merlot."

"What's the occasion? Merlot and pasta?" She looked at her mother as she pulled out wine glasses, smiling as her father as he made his way into the kitchen, inhaling deeply. "Hi, Daddy."

"Our girls are home, that's why," he answered before her mother could, placing a kiss to her forehead. "Hi, baby. You have a nice nap?"

"I didn't sleep that long, but it was all right."

He nodded. "Love will do that to you."

"Do wh - it has nothing to do with love, my lack of napping."

"Restless sleep. And yes it does," he said softly, winking as he walked over to his wife, nudging her gently as she smiled up at him, he taking the pasta into the serving bowl and grabbing the sauce just as her sister and David were heard coming through the door, she complaining as usual.

"I hate the cold! God, why did I follow Nattie up to New York after wanting to get away from here? It's so fricking cold!"

"I don't know, honey," David was heard responding, his tone light. "Because you love the lights of the city?"

"That and you couldn't stand being away from your sister!" Natalie grinned as Cecilia rolled her eyes, David taking the coat she had shrugged off, hand holding the bottle of wine. "You're actually going to drink wine?"

"It's not beer, I'll live," she chuckled. "You seem a little less cranky." Her eyes widened. "Did you talk to him?"

The room silenced as she pursed her lips, nodding. "A little. We didn't get anything established, but yeah, we've acknowledged each other again."

"That's a step in the right direction."

"Not when he's speaking Spanish at me," she murmured.

"What's that?"

"Nothing," she sighed, jumping when her phone went off again. Shit.

No se como podre yo vivir.

She thought a moment, her spanish lessons in school slowly coming back at her as she translated it into her mind, eyes widening. Good Lord, what was he doing to her? The very line alone would kill her.

I don't know how to live without you.

"You all right?"

Her head snapped up as David looked at her, eyebrow raised. Nodding quickly, she took her seat, holding the phone in her hands, looking anywhere but at the phone as she responded. This was all too crazy, too hot and cold for her.

I don't know what you want me to say, JC.
This is not going to get us anywhere if you
keep doing things like that. You want to
make a point? Make it. I don't have my
entire life to wait around for it.

"You guys ready to eat?" Her dad turned, laughing at the three younger adults already sitting at the table, he waiting for his wife to sit before he did. "Here, hand me the Merlot, I'll open it."

Cecilia handed it off to her father as she whispered something to David, they both looking at Natalie with concern. "Nat, you all right? You look a bit pale."

"I'm fine," she said softly, setting her phone down on the table next to her and between she and her sister. "It's been a rough few months is all. It's all catching up to me."

"Then tell him. Let all that weight go. It's not good on the skin."

She scoffed. "Tell him what? That's he's an idiot? That he wasn't the only one this happened to? That he's acting like he's seventeen again? Because I already have told him that and he seems to think the world revolves around him!"

"He's a man, sweetheart."

Her head jerked to her mother, David and her father both laughing at the response. "It doesn't matter what he is. He's just a dumbass and I'm sick of talking about it, so can we just drop it?"

"Ouch, all right," Cecilia murmured. "God, if I didn't know any better, I'd think ..." She stopped, looking at her sister with wide eyes. "You love him!"

"I said drop it, CeCe!"

Her sister's mouth snapped shut as Natalie threw her cloth napkin on the table, dropping her head in her hands. "Sorry, Nat."

"Whatever," she mumbled, head dropping to her hands as she rubbed her temples. "I'm getting a tension headache."

"Drink some wine, you'll forget all about the last few months," her dad smiled as he handed her a glass, she taking it and sipping the sweet liquid. "Let's stop talking about anything that's happened in the last few months and talk about what we're doing tomorrow night for Mass. Ceec, are you and David coming to Midnight Mass with us?"

"Of course we are -"

Her phone began to sing, she nearly crawling out of her skin at the designated ringer for the one person she didn't want to think about. The whole family was looking at her now, she meeting her sister's devilish eyes as she looked back, cautious. "What are you -"

Before she could finish, Cecilia had grabbed her sister's phone, she ignoring her cry of protest as she answered, voice syrupy sweet. "Hello, Cecilia speaking!"

"I seriously wish I were an only child right now," she snapped, getting up as her sister continued to talk, she wanting nothing more than to go back to bed and bury herself in her comforter, only to suffocate herself with it soon after.

"Sure, hold on! Natty, he wants to talk to you!"

She glared at her sister, wishing that the 'if looks could kill' had actually been true. If it had been, she definitely would have been a puddle of water with the ice she shot at her. "I don't want to talk to him, Cecilia."

"Too bad, 'cause he wants to talk to you!"

She ripped the phone from her sister's taunting hand, putting the phone to her ear and walking into the living room away from her family's hearing range. "What do you want, JC?"

"You told me if I wanted to say something to you to tell you," he said softly, "and I do. I have a lot to say to you."

"And you couldn't wait to talk to me in person?"

"That's the thing, Natalie," he said, voice still calm, quiet, "I haven't been able to get you in person. You've ignored every one of my calls since you left that night, and every time I show up at your apartment, you're mysteriously gone! I need to talk to you and if this is the way I have to -"

"How? What way?"

"Calling you, cornering you into talking to me like this. Talking to me after you ran."

"I didn't run."

"You ran the moment you knew I was coming to Tribeca."

"You ran the moment you found out it was me."

"All right, so what if I did? Now, here I am, crawling back to you, trying to make it right. What else is there for me to do, Natalie, huh? Sing you a song? Write you one? Post it on a billboard that I'm a bastard and don't deserve your friendship, but I want it anyway? That I want you, anyway?"

"Stop saying shit you don't mean, JC," she snapped. "Just go back to LA and forget all about me. Forget all about our friendship and anything that has ever happened between us ... good or bad."

"See, that's the thing," he said softly, "everything I've ever said, I am saying, I mean. I have searched high and low for meaning and direction on what I was feeling with what happened and how I felt about the whole thing and it's just something I need to tell you face to face."

"Yeah, well, I'm hours away and it's not going to happen," she replied. "Sorry."

"See, there's that thing, too," he said as she turned her head at the knocking on her front door, she pulling it open and meeting his face with wide eyes, "I'm only inches away and it will happen because I'm going to make it happen."

She stared at him, he standing in front of her with his cell phone to his ear, body covered in a heavy black winter jacket and a pair of blue jeans, boots covered in a thick layer of snow. "What the hell are you doing here," she hissed, she gripping her phone and the door frame, staring at him in disbelief. "How did you know I was here?"

"I'm here to fix this," he answered, "and you always go somewhere familiar when something happens. How much more familiar can you get than this?"

"I can't believe you."

"Yeah, well, I can't believe either of us," he said coolly, she shaking her head. "Are you going to let me in, or am I going to have to suffer a major case of hypothermia before you even take slight pity on me?"

She sighed deeply, stepping away from the door and letting him in as she walked away, bile rising in her throat. Now, how the hell was she going to get out of this one?!