This is just a notice for anyone who knows the song When You're Gone by Avril Lavigne, as that song is my inspiration for this & is basically the soundtrack to this chapter. Anyways, I hope you enjoy reading this & thank you for reading it!!

**Edited as of 29/9/08 - It is now completely different (and hopefully alot better), but I would love your thoughts on any more improvements (:

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10 Years Ago (Part Two)

One month later

Rosaline looked up at the clock placed on her bedside wooden cabinet. How she wished it was telling her it was a different time on a different day, but no, there it was flashing menacingly back at her: 3.30 am. Time to go.

Rosaline turned onto her side so she was facing Jared’s sleeping form, his deep breaths lightly tickling her face. She lightly traced the contours of his face, watching his nose scrunch up slightly from her light touch. He heaved a huge huff of breath and turned over onto his other side, removing both of his arms that were flung over Rosaline’s body and hunching himself up in a ball.

Silently, Rosaline slipped out from under the warm duvet and into the cold bedroom. She slipped on the clothes that were placed at the end of the bed and made her way over to her dressing table where a pen and paper waited for her. This was the moment she had been dreading – writing her final letter to Jared.

As she wrote her final words, traitorous tears leaked from her shining blue eyes, slightly smudging the careful words she was writing. Stop it, she thought to herself, this is for Jared’s own good; for everyone’s own good. She desperately wanted to believe those words that she was telling herself.

Noiselessly, she placed the pen down and folded the piece of paper in half. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. Clipping her curly hair up from her face, she placed the letter on the vacant side of the bed, where she so desperately wished she could climb back into – back into Jared’s arms. Rosaline took one last fleeting look at Jared’s peaceful form and stole out of the bedroom and into the silent night.

The bright light from outside woke Jared from his deep slumber. As soon as he woke up, he immediately felt that something wasn’t quite right. Turning on his side, he found that Rosaline was no longer beside him; the empty space of unoccupied bed had only a single sheet of paper to accompany it. He smiled lightly to himself; he loved the little letters Rosaline always wrote whenever she had awoken before him. He secretly kept them all stashed in a shoebox under his bed. He reached over to the letter and unfolded it; desperate to see what word’s of Rosaline would be added to his secret collection.

Jared,

You know how much I love you – words can’t describe, but we both know we can no longer be together. For this reason I have decided to move to America where I can no longer hurt the both of us. Please know that there will never be another you in my life but I can’t carry on living here in England, so close to you, knowing that we can’t be together. It’s just too hard. So, knowing this, please carry on with your life, but without me being a part of it. Don’t try looking for me, just leave things be.

One final thing that I will ask of you is to please not tell Rosetta or Kenso my reason for leaving; otherwise they will never forgive themselves. I do not want that as it’s not really their fault.

I will never stop loving you,

Your Rose xx

Jared dropped the letter to the floor as though it was poison. He leapt out of bed and hastily pulled on a pair of jeans that had been discarded in the middle of Rosaline’s room and ran out of the silent bedroom. He opened every door (aside Rosaline’s parent’s bedroom) whispering Rosaline’s name, desperate to hear her voice reply to his calling and searching. He rushed down the staircase and searched in each of the downstairs rooms. No sign of her.

Jared found himself facing the back door; he pushed both of his hands agitatedly through his matted hair, wishing with all his might that this was some joke Rosaline had pulled on him, but deep down he knew really it wasn’t. It was true: Rosaline had left him.

Jared wrenched open the back door, running to the end of the long garden shouting Rosaline’s name over and over again as though she would come back. He knew that her car was absent from the drive and the letter in her bedroom kept on beating the same final words in Jared’s head: we can no longer be together.

Jared crumbled to the floor, broken, as realisation hit him strong and hard. Rosaline was gone and was never coming back.

As though in a trance, Jared retrieved his clothes from Rosaline’s bedroom and got fully dressed, placing Rosaline’s letter in his back pocket. He then got into his car and drove away from Rosaline’s house.

As soon as he got to his father’s place, he made a beeline for the study. He had to phone Rosetta and let her know: she had a right to know what her sister had done.

“Hello?” Rosetta’s trilling voice sang down the line.

“Rosetta?” Jared mumbled into the phone. Who else would it be, stupid?

“Yes, is that you, Jared?” Rosetta’s voice was now slightly puzzled.

“Yes, it is. I just wanted to tell you, as I thought you had a right to know that –” But Jared had trouble uttering the exact words, Rosaline has left, as if doing so would make it true – make it final. He took a deep, shuddering breath and shouted the words, “Rosaline has left and gone to America!” Before slamming the phone down and disconnecting the phone line.

Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out Rosaline’s last letter, but was only able to read the first few couple of heart-breaking words as his fast-falling tears made him unable to read anymore.

“Oh, Rosaline, what have you done?” Jared sobbed, burying his face in his hands, unable to hold back his tears for any longer.