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I went to Laurence’s.

                I don’t know why. I mean I’d only been there once, but it had been my first date with Rowan, where I’d started to really fall in love with him, where the whole series of events that had led up to this moment had begun, and to be honest, the lingering memories of Rowan’s presence made it feel like the safest place in St Peterstown to be.

                As soon as I walked through the door a dispassionate girl with blonde hair and a notepad approached me, squinting slightly. ‘Do you have a reservation?’ she asked doubtfully; in an effort at pissing Tyson and Parker off further I hadn’t exactly dressed nicely for dinner.

                ‘Um,’ I mumbled, my brattiness from earlier wearing off in the face of the trouble I was in. I had no phone and no money, and I didn’t know when Tyson was supposed to be picking me up. My only way of contacting him was through Parker and I certainly had no intention of that. ‘No.’

                The girl squinted a little more at me, tipping her head to the side. ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’ she demanded, putting one hand on her hip.

                ‘I doubt it. I’m from Verona.’

                She snapped her fingers. ‘So am I, I go to school there, I just work here part time. Do you go to Montague?’

                ‘Capulet,’ I admitted grudgingly. She was the most likely person in town to help me and she might not want to now.

                ‘Right, but I’ve seen you before... With Rowan Montgomery, maybe?’

                I bit my lip, but decided now was not the time to secrete either of us in the closet. ‘Yeah, we hang out,’ I settled for admitting.

                ‘I’m friends – well. I used to be friends with his cousin, Ben,’ she said, putting down her notepad and holding out a hand for me to shake. ‘I’m Hayley.’

                ‘Justin,’ I replied, taking her hand. ‘Look, I really hate to do this since we just met and all, but I’m kind of in trouble...’

                Quickly, I outlined the details of my situation as Hayley’s jaw became more and more pronounced with indignation.

                ‘Yeah, I know your cousin,’ she said finally, once I’d finished, leading me through the restaurant towards the back. ‘He sounds a lot like Ben Montgomery, the bastard. So arrogant and full of himself that he thinks he can do anything to anyone and they’ll still-’ she cut herself off abruptly and turned to look at me as we pushed through a set of doors into the kitchen. ‘Here,’ she said, her tone changing to a lighter one as she reached into a small cubby area and pulled out her bag. ‘This is twenty dollars, should be enough to get you a bus back to Verona. Rowan will be in the library will all the other boys; according to the Facebook grape vine they’ve pretty much all been sentenced to a few weeks of hardcore study so they can pass their exams. I’ll call Ben and get him to tell Rowan everything that’s happened. Okay?’

                I stared at her incredulously. ‘I can’t take your money...’ I argued feebly.

                ‘Oh shut up,’ she mumbled, steering me towards the back exit of the kitchen. ‘You can pay me back whenever. I’ll get in trouble if I let you hang out here and I’m certainly not comfortable with sending you back to wander St Peterstown when that Parker asshole is looking for you. You know where the bus station is right?’

                I nodded dumbly.

                ‘Good. Don’t worry,’ she added as she shooed me into the alley behind the restaurant. ‘Rowan got all the nice Montgomery genes, he’ll take care of everything.’

Rowan

We were supposed to be studying, but there wasn’t a lot of it going on. The team had basically commandeered the whole second floor of the library and turned it into a recreational hub; a lot of the guys were complaining about the unfairness of the situation, some were tossing a football from one end of the room to the other, a few were even sleeping, draped over their study stations and snoring loudly. The librarians had long since given up trying to control us, and had just cordoned off the area from other patrons.

                Ben and I were sitting at a table by one of the windows, intermittently joining other conversations and actively missing Mitch.

                ‘So how does all this effect your skipping town plan?’ Ben asked suddenly. ‘You can’t even contact Justin.’

                ‘I’ll probably sneak out tonight to go see him,’ I supplied.

                ‘If you get caught your parents will go postal,’ Ben warned me. ‘I seriously wouldn’t put it past your dad to like, send you to the military or something.’

                I shrugged. ‘I won’t get caught. I need to see him.’

                Ben pretended to throw up before continuing, ‘And what if he doesn’t want to go with you? Will you just leave by yourself?’

                I hadn’t really considered this option in any great detail. It didn’t seem realistic to me to imagine a life without Justin anymore. ‘I guess if he wants to stay, I’ll stay too,’ I replied eventually. ‘I mean, it would just be for another two years... I could deal with that. Then he’ll go to college and I’ll go with him.’

                Ben rolled his eyes and was about to answer when his phone vibrated sharply on the table in front of us. He stared at it.

                ‘What?’ I asked. ‘Who is it?’

                ‘It’s Hayley,’ he said warily.

                ‘So? Answer it.’

                ‘I don’t know if I want to.’

                ‘Haven’t you been obsessed with winning her back over ever since the game?’

                Ben scowled but picked his phone up off the desk and answered it cautiously. ‘Hello?’

                He was sitting so closely, and she was shouting so loudly, that I didn’t even really need to strain to hear what was being said.

                ‘Oh, don’t you act like you don’t even know who this is, you insufferable shit,’ Hayley snapped. ‘Pretending like you don’t have my number in your phone when I know you do. That bull is so old, trying to make me work hard to impress you like you can’t even remember who I am. Fuck you.’

                Ben looked shocked, and swallowed audibly. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Hello, Hayley.’ There was the briefest of pauses during which he obviously decided he couldn’t handle another tirade, because he got straight to the point, ‘Is there something I can do for you?’

                ‘Not anymore,’ she snapped, quick as a flash.

                ‘Right. It’s just, I wanted to apologise. You know, for being horrible to you for four years and for scaring you at the game.’

                There was a beat of silence, then, ‘... Really?’

                ‘Yeah. I’m really sorry. Okay, this is awkward. I’m not good at this.’

I watched as my cousin, the guy who spent his entire high school career ignoring Hayley Tate and working his way through most of the female Montague population, genuinely struggle for the words to make it up to her. He wasn’t even trying to be charming with the awkwardness. It was real. I was stumped.

‘Everything I had planned to say is starting to sound really dumb in my head right now,’ he went on, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was still listening. ‘I know I ignored you for years and treated you really badly and probably upset you a lot and I feel really terrible about it. I didn’t even realise how much I loved you until you weren’t there anymore. It was like losing a limb or something. A really annoying, irritating limb that I didn’t realise did anything until I didn’t have it anymore. I’ve been going nuts trying to figure out how to get you to forgive me even though I know I don’t deserve it. Basically what I’m saying is that I’m yours. Even if you don’t want me.’

Nobody else in the library was paying attention, and even Ben seemed like he was displaced from his physical situation. I think we were both holding our breaths to hear what Hayley would say.

‘You’re so full of shit, Ben Montgomery,’ she eventually said, but there was a lot less bite to her voice and she actually sounded a bit emotional. ‘I’m not annoying.’

‘Yes you are,’ he said firmly.

‘Okay.’

‘So?’

‘So you’re really annoying too,’ she mumbled defensively.

‘Can we be annoying together?’

‘Yeah.’

Ben grinned. ‘Awesome.’ He jumped up and started walking towards the stairs, obviously intent on finding Hayley and consummating this new relationship. ‘Where are you?’ I heard him ask as he moved further away. ‘I’ll come meet you... What?’ He stopped by the top of the stairs, frowning and listening intently. ‘Wait... Parker? Parker Count?’

My ears pricked and I stood up, my blood turning to ice.

‘Yeah,’ Ben was saying, seemingly confused. ‘Yeah, I’ll tell him.’

He hung up and hurried back to the table, looking warily at me. ‘Hayley said something about Justin,’ he said. ‘She’s working in St Peterstown and she ran into him. I don’t... Something about his cousin and Parker Count? Parker tried something, I don’t know what, and Justin ran off. Anyway I think he wants you to go get him in St Peterstown or something.’

I grabbed my schoolbag and started stuffing the books I hadn’t been using anyway back into it before clutching my keys. ‘Where?’

‘She works at a place called Laurence’s, I think it’s a restaurant.’

My heart thumped as I legged it from the library. Justin had gone to the only place he knew in St Peterstown, the place we’d gone on our first date. He must have been pretty scared.

I threw my bag into the car and swerved out of the parking lot, fighting myself to keep from breaking the speed limit. As long as he was at the restaurant he would be fine, but I couldn’t help the images of what Parker might have done to him from running through my head. I felt the ice of terror in my veins heat to boiling point with anger.

I tried to focus on the road to keep my temper in check, but that turned out to be an exercise in futility. As I was leaving the outskirts of Verona, a shiny black Lexus was coming in the opposite direction, and sitting in the driver’s seat, looking pretty pissed off, was none other than Parker Count. I slammed on the breaks and his head jerked to the side as the movement caught his eye; I was out of the car and standing in his lane before he could do anything other than step on his own breaks and stop.

‘What the hell do you think you’re-’ he began to demand angrily, getting out of the car, until her registered it was me. ‘Oh,’ he said disdainfully, then sneered. ‘He’s not with me, if that’s what you think.’

‘Good, then he won’t have to see me killing you,’ I growled, striding towards him purposefully. Hurriedly, he started to get back into his car, but I grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him up against the side of it. ‘What did you do to him?’ I demanded, putting my face very close to his threateningly.

‘Nothing,’ Parker insisted petulantly. ‘He was a brat all through dinner and then he ran away when I tried to take him to-’ he cut himself off and tried to avert his gaze, but I caught him by the chin and forced him to look at me.

‘Tried to take him where?’ I growled.

‘To Peace Park,’ Parker admitted grudgingly, and then he wasn’t saying much of anything because I punched him so hard in the face that his mouth filled up with blood.

‘What did you do to him?!’ I shouted angrily, pounding my fist into the car beside his head. ‘What did you do?!’

Parker slumped pathetically to the ground, unable to speak, and I considered hitting him again, but restrained myself. With one last growl of aggression, I turned around and got back into my car, my knuckles smarting from the heat of the punch. In my rear-view, I saw Parker get gingerly to his feet and climb back in his car.

Justin

I sat nervously in the bus station, waiting for the next bus to Verona to be announced on the intercom. I was clutching my ticket in one hand and kept feeling nervously for the phone I didn’t have with the other. It felt so wrong not being able to call my parents or Nate when I was in trouble. It felt wrong not being able to text Rowan.

                I kept an eye on the frequently-hissing pneumatic doors, unusually paranoid that Parker or Tyson was going to walk in and drag me out. If Parker found me I’d have no choice but make a scene and hope somebody called for help; if Tyson turned up he’d kill me for ditching Parker.

                Eventually the sexless voice of the machinated announcer informed us that the Verona bus would be departing from Gate 4, and I made my way onto the bus with a bunch of other people, some of whom I recognised. Nervously, I pulled my hood lower over my face and slipped into the seat at the very front. For some reason, I didn’t want them to recognise me. I didn’t want to get into a conversation or have to come up with some excuse for why I was in St Peterstown. I just wanted to get home to Verona and go to the library and find Rowan and have him wrap his arms around me and forget that this whole horrible day had even happened.

                The bus pulled away from the terminal and I gazed out the window, too anxious to get home to even listen to my iPod or read any of the magazines previous travellers had left lying on the seats. Up ahead I could see some sort of commotion on the road and the bus began to slow, eventually coming to a stop.

                ‘Sorry folks,’ the bus driver announced. ‘Looks like there’s been a crash.’

                I could see that the police were already at the scene and had cordoned the area off, but there was only one lane of traffic now moving on the road and a worker with a lollipop sign was standing in front of us with STOP on display towards us. Every now and then, a car would pass in the other direction; it wasn’t a particularly busy road but seeing as there was a bend coming up, we’d have to take turns.

                Eventually the guy with the sign swivelled it and we were presented with a green GO; the bus driver pulled forwards and we passed the disaster area.

Rowan

I was still amped up with anxiety over Justin and adrenaline over Parker when I noticed the guy up ahead with the lollipop sign.

                ‘What’s going on?’ I demanded as he held the red STOP side towards me.

                ‘There’s been a crash,’ he said. ‘Only one lane of traffic, and now it’s their turn.’

                I sat impatiently idling in the car for a minute but nobody came around the corner and eventually I couldn’t take it; I stepped on the gas and ignored the guy as he jumped back, yelling at me to stop.

                I careered around the corner, anxious to get to Justin as quickly as possible, but I didn’t reckon on the bus that came speeding towards me.

Justin

There was a crunch and screech of metal on metal as the bus collided with a car I recognised.

                I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and flew forwards over the barrier in front of me, hitting my head on a metal hand rail before being thrown through the shattering glass of the window. Then everything went black.

Rowan

The bus loomed down on top of me and my eyes locked on a diminutive figure I recognised in the front seat, despite the hood pulled low over his face. There was a beat of perfect stillness as our gazes met.

                Then I was thrown forward over the steering column as the bus rammed into the front of my car; my neck snapped backwards and collided with the headrest. As the bus pushed ahead, my car flipped on its side and I squeezed my eyes shut, the blackness soon fading to nothingness.

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