"Ray?" Josh said, approaching her slowly.

"Oh God." She rolled her eyes and put out her cigarette before turning to go back in the cafe.

Softly putting a hand on her arm, he spoke to her in a calm, yet rushed voice. "No, please. Don't go. I just want to talk."

Stopping, Raleigh turned and gave him one of those looks. One as if to say "what the fuck?" "Now you want to talk? Five months after you break up a twelve year relationship, you want to talk to me? There is nothing you can say to make the hurt go away." If looks could kill, Josh would be dead where he stood. Her piercing eyes feeling as though they were throwing darts right through him.

"I know that. I wish there was something I could do or say to take it away, but there isn't. And for that I am sorry. But please, just let me explain."

"What's to explain? I'm sure that damn letter you sent explained everything you felt. Short, sweet, and to the god damned point." She said, bitterness oozing off every syllable.

"What to explain is everything I was feeling five months ago!"

"And what was that? Did I do something to make you hate me and not want to be with me anymore? Please Josh, tell me. I have to know why you did that! Why you couldn't even pick up a friggin' phone, the closest thing to saying it to my face. Why, Josh? WHY!?"

She was on the verge of breaking down right then and there into sobbing tears. "When I came home for Christmas break, I had every intension of breaking things off then. But when I saw you, I just couldn't. I had so many reasons to break it off, but I forgot them all as soon as I was back your loving arms again. All those times we made love, I knew it was going to be the last time, so I wanted to make our time together count. And when I left and returned back to college, all the reasons I had came rushing back to me." Looking away for a second, Josh took a breath. Returning his gaze to Raleigh, who was turned sideways with her arms crossed and tears streaming down her face, he continued. "I loved you so much it hurt. It hurt too bad to be that far from you. And I knew we could never be. We were so far as it was. And at the end of the summer you'll be going to LA to follow your dreams, and I'll be returning to New York to finish school. By the time I graduate, you'll be a big superstar, and you would have forgotten about me. Tonight brought those feelings back. There was just too much time and space between us."

Finally meeting his eyes, Raleigh had a look on her face as though she was confused. "If our love was as strong as we made it out to be, space can separate us, but time cannot break us apart. But I guess I was disillusioned. Living in a fairy tale."

"I thought that too. But it became so unbearable, and I knew I couldn't leave school and come home. All that was in my mind was Mandy and Chris. They had made it, so could we. But the rational part of me, I realized we would never work." His voice was so soft and gentle, it killed Raleigh that much more to hear it. In the back of her mind she had always known this too. But she never wanted to admit it. Josh was everything to her. She fell to pieces when she had gotten that letter. She had even stopped playing music for a while, but it didn't stop her from writing. A lot of the songs she had performed tonight were new, but none were of those piles she had from the things Josh had told her in the letter. "And I couldn't do it to your face, because I was such a coward. I couldn't hear you cry. I couldn't know how badly I had broken your heart. And I wanted you to hate me, so then maybe I wouldn't be hurting this badly either."

Closing her eyes, Raleigh had tried so hard not cry any harder than she already had been, but she failed miserably. Tears streamed down her face, her lip quivered, her shoulders shook. Shaking her head, she hoped he'd get the hint that it was too painful to talk about still, and to go away. But of course he wouldn't.

"Ray," Josh stepped closer to her, his voice to soft she could barley hear it, but at the same time, it was like a boisterous thunder to her ears. "Are you happy?"

Opening her eyes, she looked over at him. "I haven't been happy in a long time, Josh." She whispered to him. And it was true. The last time she remembered being truly happy, was over Christmas. All those times they had made sweet, passionate love, she felt like this was going to last forever. He hadn't led her to believe anything different, so why should she have? That's what hurt the most.

"And I'm the reason." It was more of a statement than a question. He couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye any longer. How could one after doing what he had done?

"Everything has a reason, Josh. And you're mine. For living, and dying." With that, she left him out on the dark street and went back into the cafe, right into the arms of James. Josh saw him through the door hugging Raleigh so tight, and what infuriated him even more, was when he lifted her face with a finger under her chin and, after saying something, he leaned in and planted a soft kiss on her lips before wrapping his arms around her shaking body once again.

"What the fuck?" Josh shouted to the empty air around him.