I could hear Nadine’s neighbors through the thin walls. A couple above us was arguing at the top of their longs. The guy who lived beside her was blasting his stereo. It was loud. Too loud.

I stood up and walked to the window, opening it. The streets, even after midnight, were still crowded and noisy. The lights from the neon signs and street lamps were almost blinding.

There was a reason New York was called the city that never sleeps.

I suddenly missed the pin drop silence I experienced standing in the middle of Flynn’s yard. I yearned for the quiet comfort of watching Flynn work on his sculptures, the only sound coming from our breathing.

I had thought the grass was greener somewhere else.

Why had it required me to travel hundreds of miles to realize the very thing I had known all along?

“I want to go home,” I said softly, staring out into the frigid night.

“But you just got here,” Nadine argued, not understanding.

“I thought I needed to be somewhere else, doing something else. I felt like a failure for going back to my beginning. But I’m happiest there, Nadine. I belong there.”

“With Flynn,” Nadine finished for me and I smiled.

My moment of realization was interrupted by the sound of a crash from next door.

“Shit. That’s Tommy. It sounds like he’s drunk and wrecking his apartment again. Hold that thought and let me go and make sure he’s okay,” Nadine said and I could hear yelling through the wall.

After Nadine had left I went to the bathroom to get changed into my pajamas.

I rooted around inside, trying to find my toiletries, when I felt something hard underneath my clothes.

I pulled out two small objects, holding them in my palm.

It was my sand castle.

And a miniature Empire State Building.

Then, just like that I was crying. The tears fell and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

Flynn must have slipped them into my bag when I wasn’t looking. He had wanted me to let me know that he loved me and that he wanted me to come back to him.

These sculptures were Flynn’s heart.

I forced myself to stop sobbing, knowing it wouldn’t solve anything. I put the sculptures back in my bag and walked back out into the living room. Nadine was walking back in, looking frazzled.

“Tommy’s a flipping nut job. He turned over his coffee table and…what’s wrong?” she asked, taking a look at my swollen face. “Were you…crying?”

“I need to go back,” I told her firmly.

“Huh?” Nadine stared at me like I had grown a second head.

“I need to go back to Wellston. I need to apologize to Flynn. I walked out on him, Nadine.” I felt a bubble of panic when I thought of the possible consequences of my actions.

This wasn’t the first time I had bailed on Flynn when things got rough.

Shit, this wasn’t even something new for me. It was expected. Predictable. I had done it so many times before.

I would walk away first before Flynn, or anyone else had a chance to walk away from me.

I couldn’t make those same, stupid choices again!

“I need to go back, Nadine. I can’t let Flynn think I’ve left him! Oh my god, why had I left like that? What in the hell is wrong with me?” I started searching for my car keys.

“Hang on a sec, Ellie. Just wait—“ Nadine tried to placate me but I wasn’t having it.

“Don’t, Nadine. I appreciate you taking me around your neighborhood. I really do, but I’ve got to get back. Tonight. I need to see Flynn so he knows. He thinks I’m not coming back!” I was starting to get hysterical.

Crap. I had never, in all my life, felt like this. Hysterical. Losing my mind. Freaking the fuck out.

Not when I was bounced from foster home to foster home. Not when Dania would come into my room after having to deal with Mr. Beretti. Not when I was sent to Spadardo’s Juvenile Detention Center.

I was terrified that I would lose Flynn.

That I had finally done it. I had pushed him away.

Some therapist in the long list of professionals who had attempted to fix me had told Julie that I would do whatever I could to keep people at an arm’s length. That RADs kids, or people with Reactive Attachment Disorder, didn’t know how to have healthy, functional relationships. That I had learned early on, through my own lack of nurturing, to close off my emotions and to sabotage any attempt at connection.

It felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I had never thought it possible for me to have a family, so I was ruining my chances before they began.

“It’s late, Ellie. You need to sleep. You’ve already driven six and a half hours today. You can get up and leave in the morning,” Nadine argued.

“But Flynn—“

“Will be there when you get back. It’ll suck worse for him if you crash into a tree because you’re exhausted,” my friend reasoned.

She handed me my phone from my purse. “Text or call him. These gadgets of the twenty-first century are pretty amazing,” she remarked sarcastically and I couldn’t help but smile.

“You’re a riot, Nadine,” I muttered, taking the phone.

I had been away for less than twenty-four hours and I already knew that I was ready to go back.

Yeah, I didn’t have a “real” job. Yeah, my boyfriend had some major issues that he struggled with every single day. Yeah I was a girl who walked around with a giant chip on her shoulder.

But I had a home. A place to go that was mine. I had someone that was waiting for me when I finally got my act together.