Palm tree fronds browning from the searing late summer sun blowing in the muggy breeze, the landscape floated by in a monotonous haze of blurring road signs and mile markers which accompanied the drive to my house where my ex boyfriend would be waiting along with my cousin.

It still grossed me out that my ex moved onto someone who was essentially my sister after breaking up with me, a breakup that still stung more than I cared to admit.

I still remembered it as if it had happened moments ago, the conversation drifting in my mind as easily as song lyrics.

"I don't know why I don't feel it, we've been together for so long but it just seems...complacent, I guess. I think of you not being in my life, and it doesn't kill me like I know it should. I know you need a better answer than that, but lately, and if I'm being honest with myself...since the beginning, its just felt lacking to me. Almost surface level, if that makes sense? Like, we should be able to share everything with each other, yet I can barely get a two second conversation out of you about your mom."

"Why would you want to talk about that, though? It hurts, so damn bad, so why would I ever willingly talk to you about that when all I want is to be happy?"

"Because you're ignoring your feelings, Virginia, and until you can figure that out, you won't be able to let anyone else in, just like you couldn't let me in."

"That's not fair. You never opened up about what happened when your dad went to jail. I admit I can be cagey about my mom, but don't just act like it's that one thing. You just fell out of love with me," I defended, already feeling the tears threatening to burst to the surface. I hadn't cried in so long, my feelings completely buried. Maybe Jared had a point about that...

"That's completely different and you know it. I've come to terms with his arrest, he's not a violent criminal or anything like that, it was just him making bad financial decisions and then he broke the law to try and protect his family. I don't have any anger or sadness towards that anymore, when I know you barely talk about your mom without shutting down."

"So you're breaking up with me because I have issues about my mother's death? Wow. Real honorable, Jer. Why can't you just man up and tell me the truth. You want somebody else, right?"

He threw his hands up in annoyance.

"And you always do that! You always deflect instead of facing your problems head on. I want to have an adult relationship with someone that I can get serious with, someone that will last with me through college, and I don't see that being us. I'll always love you, Virginia, but-"

"But as a friend right? Or a sister?"

"Yeah..."

I rolled my eyes remembering the conversation. Two years of dating, down the drain. Granted, we'd been children when we started dating, at only sixteen years old, but he'd been with me through so much, and then right after graduation it was like everything had turned on a dime.

He began spending more time around the house, and Sara had spent extra long in the bathroom getting ready and putting on makeup just to go to the pool when she knew Jared was coming over.

I had my suspicions, but it wasn't until I had left for school in August that they were confirmed. Jared was going to a school not far from home, and Sara was only a senior in high school since she was a year younger than us. It hurt, to say the least.

My raging thoughts were thrown to the wind whipping past my windshield and suddenly my towering home came into view.

Gated and two stories high, the lush landscape surrounding my dad's home was precisely manicured, and butterflies exploded in my stomach as I noticed that Jared's silver convertible was already in the driveway. There were a few more cars parked there, as well, though they could've been some of my dad's old NBA buddies there for a catch up.

I hadn't seen him since the breakup, nearly three months prior, and since Sara had spent the month with her dad across town, she hadn't been present for my mandatory home weekends.

I swallowed past the lump forming in my throat and pulled up my big girl panties. I wasn't a coward. I could face them.

Car in park, feet firmly planted on the driveway, I slung my weekender tote across my tanned shoulders and focused on something else, anything else.

The lyrics to one of my favorite Fletcher songs, 'All Love' popped into my head, fitting for this kind of meeting.

I hummed the words under my breath as I traipsed up the brick steps to the massive entrance, and then I stood in the foyer waiting for someone to jump out and scream 'BOO!'

The familiar clacking of Kara's heels along with the distinct gliding of wheels against marble flooring met my ears, and soon enough my dad was being wheeled in to see me by Kara right behind him.

Lush dark brown hair and matching brown eyes, Kara was every bit my mother's sister. High angular cheekbones and tall figure the complete opposite of her daughter, Sara, who'd taken after her father, my aunt Kara was a stunning depiction of a Cherokee woman, though she didn't embrace the culture like my mother once had. I wished I hadn't let it die with her...

"Virginia!"

"Hi dad! Hi Kara," I greeted them, bending forward to embrace my father in his wheelchair, noting that he had to bend his legs far further than the average man in a wheelchair due to his once imposing height.

His hair was salt and pepper, laugh lines on his pale face which was more grey since the last time I'd come to visit the last weekend. Was he getting sick? Kara would take care of him if he was, but there was a slight yellowing to his blue eyes that hadn't been there before, like he'd aged ten years in a week.

"Are you feeling okay?"

Right on cue, a cough wracked through his system and I backed away, hand on his back as he hacked up what sounded like an entire lung.

"I'm fine, doc says I need to start doing breathing treatments or something."

My eyes were wide, worried.

"Why do you need breathing treatments?"

"Since your father quit smoking, he thought he was in the clear of COPD. But...with him being stuck in the wheelchair and a compromised immune system, the effects of years of smoking are catching up with him."

Fear gripped my heart. I'd already lost one parent, there was no way I was losing another.

"Okay. I can transfer to the community college here, and I can take him to some appointments so you can focus on your job, Kara. I can make sure he does these treatments on the dot, make sure he follows the doctor's exact orders, to the letter. We can adapt his diet according to the dietician and-"

"Honey, honey slow down. I am just fine. Do you think I don't already have the best quality care there is to offer with Kara here by my side?"

Kara's warm smile met mine, though it was tinged with sadness on the edges. I wanted to trust that he was in good hands, but this was my dad.

"But-"

"Mike! Good to see you, old man!"

I was interrupted by my ex boyfriend.

"We'll finish this conversation later," I scolded my father, pointing a finger down at him while silently cursing my complete and utter lack of concentration on anything other than what was right in front of me. It was why I zoned out so easily.

"Oh, hey Virginia. Didn't know you'd be here tonight," Jared said uneasily as I took in his features that I remembered as easily as I remembered my crushing grief, mainly because his face added a little bit to that emotional load.

"Hey. Yeah, I come back every weekend."

Phew. First post-breakup conversation down, an entire night of dinner to go.

Blonde hair and blue eyes, he looked better suited to Sara, anyway. I didn't know what I was thinking with a guy like Jared. He wasn't as out of my league as Eli Shepherd, but he was pretty up there.

At least he wasn't tall. Quite the contrary, we were the exact same height at five foot nine, so I could never wear heels around the guy. I thought it gave him a bit of an inferiority complex, but I was never sure.

Sara was petite and short, so there again, more suited to him than me.

"Sorry I'm late, I had my nose piercing fall out and I had to poke it back in!"

Speak of the devil...

No, in all honestly, I loved my cousin. Sara was great, but she was definitely boy crazy.

"Virginia!"

I was half tackled as she came down the stairs, her lithe frame clinging to me like Saran Wrap.

"Hey, girl," I told her in greeting, though it lacked my usual enthusiasm, though I couldn't tell if she noticed or not.

"It's so good to see you, it's been too long!"

Or not long enough...

I made awkward eye contact with Jared mid-hug and I cringed inwardly at how bad this dinner was going to go.

Welp, I was already there. What else could go wrong? I had learned in my life that that saying was a curse, and that even thinking it would, in fact, make things indelibly and intrinsically worse, I just didn't know when or how.