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One second, there was complete silence and then I heard sobbing. My eyes became hazy and clouded over by a watery entity. The legs that had been holding me up went out from underneath me and I then realized that the sobbing I heard was my own.

Despite my best efforts, the cries accelerated in volume. Heavy sobs tore every inch of my throat as I crawled to a corner in my room. I suffocated my sobs with my hands or at least an attempt was made. The door to my room was wide open meaning that everyone could hear my tears. Yet, no one came as I sat in a puddle of my own despair.

After I few minutes it dawned on me that I would receive no comfort here. I peeled myself up from the floor and hesitated in my thoughts. Maybe we all needed space for a few hours. Before I could talk myself out of it, I exited my window.

I decided to take a walk to the park to find something to distract myself from my world of despair. My phone was gone so I couldn't call Banks. Why did I miss him already?

"Hey," I faintly heard a distant voice say from the right of me.

"Day, wait up," the voice said as it got nearer. I looked to my right to see Jay running to me from the direction of his house. I wiped my eyes and started speed walking down the sidewalk, trying to get further from him and my house.

"Hold up," he yelled. My feet stopped on the snowy sidewalk as I sighed.

"What is it, Jay?" I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my sweatpants.

"Have you been avoiding me? You haven't answered any of my calls or texts," he questioned.

Strategically, I avoided eye contact with him. One, so he couldn't see that I was crying recently and because I didn't know how I would react to his hazel eyes. "No, I should be though. Why are you even out here?"

"I saw you outside with your family, I heard a bit too. The whole neighborhood heard probably. But you and I both know that we need to talk," he paused.

"Are you feeling okay?" He leaned forward as we walked.

"I was better before you showed up," I murmured.

"Something tells me that's not true. Daya, we have been friends for over a decade. We can't let two irrelevant people rip us apart." I shook my head, and we walked to the park side by side wordlessly.

"What do you think tore us away from each other?" I queried as we arrived at the park with our tree in view.

"I blame myself. I should've been honest with you about my feelings. None of this would have happened if I did." He was so frustrating all the time but that was all I'd ever wanted from him.

I sped up my walking speed. "That's not true."

He pushed his eyebrows together, "What are you talking about?"

I ceased walking and turned around abruptly. "You don't know that."

With a respectable distance between us, he reached his hand out towards me, "The past doesn't matter anymore. Can we just live in the right now, this present moment?"

I pushed his hand away, "No, I can't pretend the last few months didn't happen. You abandoned me. You let Liv get in between us. I might have been able to get over all of that before, but I... saw you with her. Whenever you look at me, like you are doing right now, I think about how you looked at her that way."

"So, what you're not the first girl Banks hooked up with," he argued. That was probably the worst thing he could of said to make himself look better in my eyes.

My mouth was left agape, "I haven't been in love with him since before I knew what love was. I haven't walked in on him having sex with someone else less than a day after he told me he loved me! He hasn't tried to kiss me while he had girlfriend! Banks actually stood up for me and asserted himself!"

He got close up in my face and proclaimed, "Okay, fine he's the best guy in all of Deering High! Don't play yourself Daya! You know if I would've dumped Liv a week before I did things would be very different! You wouldn't have given that guy a second look!"

"Yes, you're probably right!" He looked around to the people around us at the park, but I was fixated on him. "That's exactly what I'm saying! A week ago, I didn't know Banks and I still had hope for us! That hope is dead!"

I pushed him away before he countered with, "I still believe in us. I love you, Daya. I want to be with you, Daya!"

For so long I've wanted to hear those words but they were only desperate pleas to keep what he had lost. "We don't have to be together for you to try to make things right. And I have not hooked up with anyone. Because I know that I wouldn't be able to give myself to anyone while I still have feelings for you. I'm not you."

"Don't lie. I saw you with him yesterday," he dropped his book bag, which I only then saw, into the snow.

"We kissed. I'm not in love with him, but I like him. I like him a whole lot. He's been wonderful to me and we are just in the beginning stages. Despite that, I feel more romantically connected with him than we ever were. I spent years telling myself that you saw me as another sister. I told myself that earlier this week because that's all you have ever shown me," I shoved my finger into his chest.

Jay sighed, "I can't change any of that. I already told you that I'm sorry."

He just wasn't getting it so I explained, "Listen to how this sounds. I spent eleven years liking my best friend and then one day he gets a girlfriend. He leaves me completely alone, knowing that he's my only friend and that I depend on him. After a few months of limited contact, I finally make new friends. One of those new friends shows a romantic interest in me, public displays of affection and everything. Then, and only then, does the best friend tell me that he does like me back. What does that sound like to you?"

"You don't think I'm being sincere." I shrugged my shoulders, "Convenient timing, don't you think? When I feel like I can move again, you drop a bombshell on me."

"You're choosing him over me? You barely know him," he said like he knew everything about who I was.

I was starting to think that he was the most dense person I've ever met. "I'm choosing myself. Banks and I aren't dating. I told him that I'm not ready for that right now. And now I'm telling you the same thing."

He stepped closer to me, and I didn't move back. "I don't want to lose you," he reached out for my hand again, and I let him.

"I need to show you something." He walked backwards to his bag, before bending down and digging through it.

He hesitated before he pulled out an envelope and walked back over to me. "This better not be a love letter," I half-joked.

"It is kind of, but not from me to you. I think it's from my mom, my real mom." He put the already opened envelope in my hand.

"How did you get this?" I worried.

"My... Amanda gave it to me a few days ago. She said she's had it since I was ten and that I'm old enough to have it now." I tried to pull the paper out of the envelope, but Jay rested his hand on my wrist.

"What does it say?" I whispered to him.

"That she loves me and that the people who adopted me will take good care of me. She's sorry that she couldn't," he looked down at the envelope in his hand.

"I'm going to find her," he seemed so sure.

"How?" I was stunned.

"I'm leaving as soon as I can and I'm going to that address." He turned the envelope around and ran his thumb over the address. "That's in Minnesota, Jay. That is like, a 24-hour drive away from Maine. You can't do that. That's way too long for you to go by yourself," I held the side of his face.

"I'll make it a road trip and make stops along the way. I can't stay here waiting for something to happen. I couldn't abandon you again, so I had to tell you," he spoke like a person with their mind already made. I didn't know if there was anything I could do to change it.

His eyes met mine, "This is crazy."

"You have to understand, Day. It is crazy, but I want you to come with me," he almost seemed giddy about that possibility.

"Jay, you have so much here. Your parents, your siblings, they need you. They all adore you and they are all here. You can't just pack up and leave." I could tell by the way his face changed that he knew what my answer was going to be.

"What if she wants to see me? What if I have a family who adores me there?" But he wasn't thinking about if it's a dead end or will lead to more heartache.

I stroked the side of his face, "All you have is a letter from sixteen years ago and an address that-" he jerked his face away from me. "And an address that may be null and void. You don't even know if she still stays there," he turned his back to me.

"Does that mean you aren't coming with me?" His voice was clearly shaking.

"Jay, there's no way I'm going to let you do this," I was exasperated.

"You can't stop me from going," he pushed his shoulders up.

I touched his back, "Actually I can. If you go, I'll give your parents that address."

He looked over his shoulder, "You wouldn't do that to me. Do you hate me that much now?"

I sighed, "I could never hate you, but she left."

He stepped out of my touch, "She couldn't take care of me then. Maybe she can now."

I walked in front of him and saw wet splashes on his face. "Minnesota was her choice and so was giving you away. It was a closed adoption. Your mother, Amanda, didn't have to give you this, but she did it because she loves you. All these years, she took care of you when you were sick. She was there for every milestone in your life. This woman, she just gave birth to you."

He wrapped his arms around my waist as I held onto his shirt. "I want to give her a chance to be there for me. 'A terrible morning can be a start to the most perfect day, the outcome depends on you,' that quote comes from her. Amanda has been telling that to me all my life, and she stole it from my mom."

"All you have is a hope and a dream," I wiped his face with my palm. "Stay here. Talk to your parents about this. If you really want to see her, I know that they'll be more than helpful."

The frown on his face put another thought into my head. "I don't think this is just about that. What else is going on?" I pondered.

He stood still and silent before he spoke. "Would you miss me? If I just got up and left in the middle of the night, would you miss me?"

"It would be like a part of me disappeared. I would feel that way with you telling me before as well. I wouldn't have been able to push through so many things if it wasn't for you. You can't leave me again. Please don't leave me again," I sniffled and all the emotions I've had for eleven years came flooding back in.

"This isn't about you, Day. I need to do this for myself," he said as we were both on the edge of tears.

He pressed our foreheads together, "Promise me, that you will talk to your mom and dad about this. You can't hold all your feelings in a jar to never be released. They need to know. Don't make the same mistake that you did with me. Just be honest and they will reciprocate it."

"You literally have the nicest parents that I have ever met. They love you to the outer edges of the Milky Way galaxy and back. Give them the chance that they never received from you," as I saw loose tears falling from his eyes I noticed how intimately close we were.

A tear fell over his lips as I tried to catch it with my hand. "I will... think about it," he kissed my fingers. Gradually, I dropped my hand from his face. Then, I took a few steps backward.

I cleared my throat, "Good, I think that's best."

He turned around towards our tree. "We've been coming here since day one. It all kind of started here," he smiled back at me. I walked and then stood beside him as we peered up at the chestnut tree that brought us together.

"It doesn't end here. It doesn't have to. Neither one of us wants that," I sighed. "How do we move passed this?"

"Is saying together too cheesy," I laughed.

"It's the Gouda kind." He smiled and shook his head, "That was terrible."

"I'm bringing levity to this very hard conversation. You need to know that I'm not going to let you give me an ultimatum, neither of you." I rested my head on his shoulder, and we kept our eyes on the tree that is as strong as our feelings for one another.

"I'm in love with you, Daya. No matter what happens to me or you, I'm always going to be in love with you," the tone of his voice said that he meant that.

He placed his hand on the side of my face and abruptly kissed me before I could even think of a reply to his proclamation.

A series of honks tore my head away from Jay's lips as I looked out into the parking lot. Who was that?

*I'm leaving y'all on a bit of a cliffhanger here. I feel like this chapter was particularly good. I'm really happy with this one.

Who do you think caught Daya and Jay in such an intimate moment?

What do y'all think of the first Dayson kiss?

Remeneber to follow, share, and comment!*