"Well, aren't you going to invite me in?" he asked.
"No, yes, um well, Isabella's not-"
"Thank you," he said and walked in.
"Up yet," Cassandra finished. "Okay then, come in." He sat down in a chair at the kitchen table. "Again, make yourself at home."
"Don't mind if I do," he said.
"I'll go upstairs and get Isabella." She thought to herself, "just what we need. What the hell is he doing here?"
She went upstairs and into Isabella's room. She went over to her bed and shook her. "Hey get up, get up! Oh man, you're not going to believe this!"
"You think that our clothes are done?" asked Brian at their house.
"I think so. You don't think that the girls will mind if we go over there and get them now, do you?" asked A.J. The guys all shook their heads, and headed for the girls house.
When they got to the door, thinking that they didn't want to wake anybody up, they quietly walked in.
"Excuse me, do you guys live here?" said the guy getting up from the chair.
"No, do you?" asked A.J.
"No, but I am Isabella's boyfriend," he said and held out his hand to A.J. "Nice to meet you. I'm Austin."
"How can you be her boyfriend, if I am?" said A.J.
"Oh, I was afraid that this would have happened."
"Isabella! Austin's downstairs!" yelled Cassandra.
"You are so kidding me! Cassandra that's not funny!" screamed Isabella.
"I'm not kidding, come with me!" Cassandra grabbed her hand and dragged her downstairs.
"Oh my God, what the hell are you doing here?" Isabella said to him.
"Isabella, who is this guy?" asked A.J.
"I think that he's my boyfriend," she said, and everyone in the room gasped.
"Can we talk?" Austin asked her. She had to think for a moment. Her eyes wandered from Austin, to A.J., to Austin, and back to A.J.
"Sure," she said. "We can talk outside." Austin and Isabella walked outside to talk about the thing that Isabella had prayed wouldn't come up. "Why are you here?" she asked him.
"I came to see you," said Austin.
"Austin, I've fallen in love again."
"Oh," was all he could think of. "I was afraid of that. Who is he?"
"It's A.J. After that month that you never returned my messages or my calls, I gave up on you. Well, actually I was depressed over you for a long time, until I met A.J."
"What do you mean, all of your messages and calls? I never got anything like that from you! I never called you because you never called me, and I had just assumed that you didn't want to be with me anymore."
"Well, that wasn't true! I also assumed that you didn't want anything more to do with me, and that we had somehow drifted apart, so I just stopped calling. But I must tell you, that I was miserable. Completely miserable. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, well maybe I could eat a little, but everything reminded me of you which made the situation even harder." She stopped for a second. "I guess the question that remains now is, how come I never heard from you again?"
"What the hell just happened?" asked A.J.
"Good question," said Cassandra.
"Well, atleast tell me who that guy was," said A.J.
"Okay, but this may be kinda hard to understand," said Cassandra.
"It's okay. We have all day," said Brian.
"That's what we're afraid of," said Nicole. Cassandra moved the entire group in to the living room.
"Okay, about a year or two ago, Isabella met Austin, and they fell in love very fast, but they didn't live in the most convenient areas. Anyway, one day she called him, and he never called her back. So she called him again, and again. This had been going on for a month when she finally pieced everything together and figured that he didn't want anything to do with her anymore, so she gave up on him," Cassandra explained.
"Yes, but not without a price," added Mercedes. The other girls agreed.
"What was the price?" asked Nick.
"The price was her happiness," said Mercedes.
"I don't get it," said A.J., "couldn't she just get over him?"
"It wasn't that simple," said Coreene. "She cried over him night after night because her love for him was so strong, she barely did anything, and came very close to going into seclusion."
"Wow, I never thought that it was that bad," said A.J. Coreene continued.
"We don't think that she'll go back to him, but A.J., if you really love her-"
"You aren't going to make me kiss a toilet, are you?" he interrupted.
"No, very funny," said Coreene. "Anyway, as I was saying, if you really love her you can't let her go back to him. I know that when she was going out with him, she wasn't happy. She acted like she was and said that she was, but deep inside, she knew that she wasn't happy."
"I'll try my best, because I really do love her," said A.J.
Back outside, Austin was trying to come up with an answer.
"You're not technically his girlfriend are you?"
"That's not the point. You really didn't want anything to do with me. I guess that Lucy was right about you."
"What? What does Lucy have to do with anything?"
"She told me that you were scum. She told me that she would tell you that I called everytime, but that you probably wouldn't return my calls. I always used to hate her, I really did. But now I actually see that she was right all along."
"Wait a second! Lucy never told me that you called. She said that you wanted to break up with me in the first place. I never got any messages that you had called, ever!"
"Oh man! That bitch! I never said anything like that. I didn't even think anything like that! That whore thinks that she can go around and tell people whatever she wants to. In confidentiality, she wanted you in the first place. She's gonna pay." She looked up to face his eyes. "But I still love A.J. I have to go now. Don't waist your vacation on me. I'm not worth it anymore. It wouldn't be fair to yourself." She turned around and headed back towards the house. When she walked in the door, Mercedes asked her,
"Where's Austin?"
"I sent him back home. A.J., I'm sorry. He's nothing to me, you're everything to me. I couldn't live without you." She started crying, and A.J. went over to comfort her.
"I understand." He looked into her eyes and said, "I love you. Many waters can not quench love, neither can floods drown it."
"A.J., that's beautiful," she said.
"It's how I feel, but it's not as beautiful as you."
"I guess everything's back to where it was before," said Mercedes holding on to Brian with a tear in her eye..
"It's so beautiful!" said Cassandra, "Nick, why can't you talk like that?"
"You're just like a dream to me, that somehow came true."
"Oh, that's so beautiful," she said and hugged him.
"That's nothing. I can say a lot of beautiful things. If you care to hear them, I can say them for a long time."
Isabella turned back to A.J.
"Austin said that we weren't technically boyfriend and girlfriend. Is that true A.J.?" Overhearing this, Nick thought to himself.
"Uh oh. Cassandra's not my technical girlfriend either. What will happen this time if I try to ask her?"