Reina:

After slimming out my black pencil skirt, I try to tuck in my purple blouse before I reach the office. I haven't had that much of re-training yet and our new boss is supposed to start today. Our old one, Mr. Kravitz, landed some big shot editorial job in New York City so he left without even a two weeks notice. Now the company has been trying to scramble to try and keep things afloat until we found someone new to take over. Today was that day.

"Good morning Reina," Sasha, the secretary for our office hands me a blazing hot cup of coffee. "How are you this morning?" She seems nervous too because she's not normally this jittery or talkative.

"I'm good Sasha." I reply with a smile, fixating the cross body bag around my shoulder. "Anything new for me?"

"Actually..." She trails off, picking up a manilla folder. "Yes. This is from Mr. Brooks."

"The new boss?" I ask, furrowing my eyebrows in confusion. "He's already got something for me?"

"They're a bunch of manuscripts. He's wanting you to read through them and wants you to pick out the best ones to forward to him. Don't hurt the messenger." She laughs and leans over to answer the phone that's been ringing for the past ten seconds.

Letting out a loud sigh, I head into my office - more like a desk space - and set my coffee down before I unload my things for the morning. The fact that this guy already has work for me is overwhelming. Not that I wasn't expecting to work, but for the past month all I've been doing is editing authors that have already been signed to our agency. Now I have to read through a bunch of garbage basically.

"Knock knock." A man hits his knuckles softly onto the side of the door, and when I look at him my jaw almost drops open. He's wearing this blue fitted suit, an expensive watch around his wrist, but that doesn't compare to his smile when he flashes one at me. I'm assuming this is my new boss.

"Um, Hi." I clear my throat and attempt to put papers in order to try and somehow make it seem like I'm not a messy person.

"You're my intern." He smirks again, leaning against the doorframe. "I'm Carter. It's nice to meet you."

I can't help but look at his black skin that's practically gleaming in this light, his hair buzzed to perfection. I've suddenly lost the ability to speak.

"So you are...?" He trails off, still smirking.

"Reina." I'm finally able to get out, reaching out to shake his hand. "It's nice to meet you. Mr. Brooks is it?"

"Call me Carter. I know you probably haven't started but I just wanted to introduce myself. I saw you walk in and just thought I'd stop by before you cracked down on everything."

"Well that's really nice of you." I say, barely being able to make eye contact with him. "Thanks Carter."

He has one arm above his head on the door frame, staring at me intently before he bites a little on his bottom lip and sends me another smile. "Anytime Reina," He says. "Stop by my office if you need anything."

----

After a nine hour shift of reading countless manuscripts I only found two that were worth forwarding to Carter. My eyes feel completely worn out, and as I'm waiting for the elevator I see Sasha jog to catch up to me.

"Hey," She breathes heavily, trying not to drop all of the papers she's carrying. "What do you think of Carter? Complete eye candy right?"

"He's okay." I lie, shrugging my shoulders. "I've seen better."

"Wow." A man chuckles. When I turn around, Carter is only a few feet away from us. Sasha's face goes completely red, and I honestly am too embarrassed to even know what to say. "Tough crowd I guess." Then he smiles, pressing the button for the elevator again.

"I'm so sorry." I blurt, swallowing hard. "I didn't mean to-"

"No worries." He says calmly. "It's the first day. You can't please everybody."

The elevator doors open and we all shuffle inside so we can leave. You could hear a pin drop in here, and all I want to do is punch myself for saying what I did. I just embarrassed myself in front of my new boss, in the internship I'd like to start my career in. Why the fuck do I do shit like this?

"See you guys tomorrow." Carter says, turning to look at me in particular. "Have a nice night."

As he walks away, he hits his keys to unlock his car, which just happens to be a porsche.

"Oh my god." Sasha groans. "Now he knows I think he's hot. Just great."

"At least you complimented him!" I laugh and then let out a sigh, trying to rummage around my purse for my keys. "I basically called him ugly. He probably hates me now, or thinks I'm a joke. Either way I'm fucked."

When we both reach our cars the porsche whizzes by us, causing my hair to whip around to the other side of my face. All I can do is stare off at the road until Sasha clears her throat.

"Way to lie on your first day." She teases. "Bye girl, see you tomorrow."

----

When I get back to the apartment I'm completely worn out. My head feels like It's going to explode, my feet feel like they're going to fall off and I feel like I might pass out from tiredness. This is why I hate working late at night. You miss the entire day, so when you leave it's only light out for thirty minutes. Now it's pitch black outside and I'm fumbling around in my purse for the second time today to try and find the house key.

When I get it open I stare at the entryway in shock. There are candles covering the entire floor. Everywhere I look there's a bright flickering light to create a pathway up the steps. I take a moment before I step inside, gently shutting the door behind me.

"Justin?" I call out. No answer. This is the first sweet thing he's done for me since I've gotten out of the hospital. I'm not sure what to think, but when I reach the top of the stairs all of the feelings I began to feel instantly fade. There are these clothing lines strung from one end of the room to the other, and each line has a bunch of pictures of us. There were hundreds all over the room being hung in my face, and as I'm looking at all of these pictures I feel the familiar twist in my stomach form all too quickly.

We haven't spoken much since lunch last month, and I had told Casey that I'd try to give it a little bit more time before I made my decision about staying with her. He's never going to change, though. He's never going to stop holding on to this fantasy that I'll remember. It's almost been five months and I haven't remembered a single thing.

There's a picture of us at a hockey game, another one of us at a wedding, tubing, hotel bathrooms, out at dinner, a bedroom I don't recognize, all of these memories and pictures that I don't remember. It's terrifying.

"Do you like it?" He asks. He's standing behind me, and when I turn around to face him I break down into a sob. He thinks it's because I like it that much, but when he holds me he realizes that this isn't a good thing whatsoever. "Reina, what's wrong?" He asks gently. "Come on, what did I do?"

"I told you!" I cry. "Were you in that counseling session last month? Did you hear anything I said? Justin I can't remember anything! These pictures mean nothing. I don't know who those people are, okay?"

"I-I just thought." He stopped himself, looking around at the room. "I just thought that maybe if you saw the pictures that you'd-"

"I WILL NEVER REMEMBER!" I scream, shoving him back with my hands. He stands there in shock, blinking repeatedly with wide eyes. I'm so pissed about this whole night. I'm pissed about the accident, I'm pissed about not having feelings for him when everyone feels that I should, I'm pissed. I rip down the clothes lines, one by one, flinging them to the ground. I can't see what I'm doing anymore because my eyes are flooding with tears.

"Reina..." He chokes out, on the verge of crying himself. "Please stop."

"YOU STOP!" I scream back, getting into his face. "I'M NOT HER ANYMORE! I WILL NEVER BE HER!"

I'm expecting him to scream back at me or to get in my face, but he doesn't. Instead, he's holding back tears as he begins to collect the photos off of the ground. It's bothering me that he wants to save them. I want him to get rid of all of them. I want them to burn.

It's quiet for another minute or two as I'm calming down from my outburst, still watching him collect the photos. Once he's done I notice a few tears on his cheeks when he looks at me finally. "You need to stay at Casey's I think." He whispers finally, his bottom lip trembling slightly. "I, uh- I've tried, Reina. But you don't want this. Look at you." He waves his hands up and down at me, capturing my frantic state. "I can't fight for someone who doesn't want to stay. I love you, Reina. I will always fucking love you. I know you don't want me, but if you can do anything for me it's that you continue to be a part of my life. I won't be able to live if I don't have you to turn to."

I don't know what to do or what to say. I'm standing there like an idiot, the silence overwhelming the both of us. My breathing is jagged, my tears right in the back of my throat just waiting to spill out again. I feel like the worst person in the entire world right now. I don't want to break his heart, I never wanted this to happen. But I don't know him and he doesn't want to get to know the new me. He wants the old Reina that he knows and she's not coming back. The thought of being sappy and sweet with someone makes me want to throw up. That's never been me. I thought everyone was lying when they told me I'd fallen for him at the time, but looking at those photos there's not a doubt in my mind that I loved him.

"I don't know what to say." I manage to choke out. "I'm so sorry."

Expecting him to leave in fury, or cuss me out, he does the complete opposite. When his arms pull me into an embrace I completely fall into them, crying my heart out. He's crying too, and I know it's because it's the last hug we'll probably ever share like this. For me, it's an ending to a weight that has been on my shoulders for the longest, and for him it's the end to the past couple years of his life. It's like a death and the feeling is wallowing over the both of us, completely and utterly consuming us.

"I just want you to know that I'll always be here for you." He sniffles, burying his head into my shoulder. "You will always be the best thing that ever happened to me."

"I'm still gonna talk to you." I reassure him. "We can still be friends."

"I've heard that one before." He sighs, pulling away from me. "Do you want me to help you pack?"

As I look around at all of the work he put into this night my stomach twists up again like it always does. I don't want to pack my stuff up and stay here any longer. It makes me want to cry just being in the presence of all of the candles. Plus, I don't want to hurt him anymore tonight than I already have.

"I'm just going to head over to Casey's I think." I say. "I'll pack my stuff up tomorrow or something. I just need to get outta here right now... I hope you understand."

"I do." He mumbles, putting his hands into his pockets. It's awkward now because we're both just standing here without knowing how to say goodbye.

"Bye Justin." I say quietly, rubbing him gently on the arm. "I'll talk to you soon, alright?"

Heading down the staircase I don't hear him say anything, but when I turn around to get one last final look at him I see the photos still in his hands as he sinks to his knees on the carpet. He doesn't think I can see him, but I can. Stifling back another sob I open the door and reach into my bag to call Casey.

A/N:

COUPLE OF THINGS.

One: I sobbed so hard this chapter. Writing this was painful like idk. It kind of reminded me of my ex and like how letting go was just so hard and that last hug... like KNOWING that's your last hug... fuck. Ending a relationship is never easy... like, especially someone that's been in your life for so long. It's fucking painful.

on a more positive note,

S/O TO THE FINE ASS BLACK MAN FINALLY IN MY STORY. (I picture Carter to look like Chris Brown)

I'm only into black guys (only white guy i've ever been attracted to is justin) so it's about damn time for some chocolate to be in my story! HELL yes. If you haven't tried chocolate, I encourage you to do so. But ya know if ya like caramel or vanilla then hell, stick to that too. All flavors are good ones LOL

Also, I'll let you guys know when it's getting to the last chapters. I'm not just gonna end the story without telling you guys lol.