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now it was all just too awful.  Just thinking about it made me sick.
    There was only one thing I knew for sure. I had to get the fuck away from there. 
    I knew Raine well enough to predict that he would want to come with me.  Of course he would.  If he was the one leaving town, I’d be at his side without a second thought. But Raine and I were in completely different situations, and I couldn’t let him throw away his whole life for me.  He had a future.  I just couldn’t rip it away from him.
    He needed to stay in school and remain on the course the Everly’s had dictated for him. Then some day, he would have the whole world at his fingertips.
    I couldn’t let him ruin his life to turn into a teenage runaway and a high school dropout. 
    Even though that’s exactly what I was about to become.

 
    Raine
    Then…
    The moment I see Lana standing at my front door, I know something is horribly wrong.  Her eyes look empty. Dead.
    In all the years I’ve known her, after everything we’ve been through, I’ve never seen that look in them before. 
    “What’s the matter,” I say, holding my arms out to her.  But she only shuffles past me, her arms wrapped around herself. 
    “We need to talk,” she says. “Raine, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
    “Why? What is it?”
    “There’s someone else.”
    I look at her in confusion, waiting for her to continue.  She doesn’t meet my eyes.  Instead she keeps her gaze trained on some point over my shoulder. 
    “I’ve been sleeping with someone else. And I’m in love with him. And I don’t want to…be with you anymore.” Her voice breaks at the end of the sentence.  There are tears in her eyes and they start to roll down her cheeks.  She reaches up and rubs them away roughly with her palms. “I’m sorry I hurt you.  I’ve been hiding this for a while now.  And I thought you deserved to know.”
    My whole body goes cold, and I’m unable to process her words.  They simply don’t make any sense, not coming from the girl I know.  It’s as if she just told me she’s an alien, ripped off her face and offered concrete proof that she is indeed a Martian.
    I wonder for a moment if I’m dreaming, because none of this is compatible with the reality I know.
    Finally I say, “What’s his name?”
    “Elliott.”
    “Lana…this doesn’t make any sense. We spend all our time together. We’re in love.  We talk constantly. We have sex constantly.”
    “That’s why I can’t do it anymore, Raine. Since I met Elliott…I don’t feel the same way about you. I don’t know if I was ever really in love with you.  I think it’s was just puppy love, but it wasn’t real—”
    “That’s bullshit and you know it! You know what we have is real. Tell me this isn’t real.” I take her face in my hands and kiss her. Hard. To stake my claim. To show her she belongs to me.  That I belong to her.
    She leans into the kiss desperately, but too soon, she pulls away.
    “Raine, it’s not that I don’t care about you. I do, I really do. We had some great times together. But…I’m just not in love with you.  I thought I was but…I’m so sorry I hurt you.  I’m so, so sorry.”  Her eyes well up with tears again and her voice breaks as she says, “For what it’s worth, I’m glad my first time was with you. And I’ll never, ever forget you.”
    “Lana…this…I can’t…don’t do this to us! I don’t know what this guy has been telling you. I don’t know what’s been going on.  But I don’t believe the past five months meant nothing to you. I can’t!”
    “Of course they meant something. The time we spent together were some of the best moments of my life.  And I’m so happy, Raine.  I’m so happy that I was able to get to know you again, and to see how well your life worked out.  You get to live in this amazing house and have an amazing future.  You’re going to have a truly wonderful life, and I’ll never forget you—“
    “Stop