He'd tried, after all that, to keep it together. To keep them together. He'd stood there, outside of the hospital, while she whispered that maybe this was a sign, that maybe it wasn't meant to be this, that this was the wrong love at the wrong time and it was tearing her apart and he'd nodded because he was broken. He'd thought he was as shattered as he could possibly be. But, as she leaned in for one last kiss and he felt the tears running down her cheeks as their lips brushed for what she promised him was the last time, as if that was what he wanted, he felt himself completely splinter.

Austin watched Ally walk down the sidewalk, feeling his heart, not so much aching as trying to rip itself out of his chest, as her figure shrank into the distance.

"Come back." He whispered, "Come back come back come back come back come back." Oh God. He felt like dying. Like curling up in the alley behind the hospital next to the old syringes and the jittery heroin addicts and just staying there until one day someone found him and wondered why the shriveled-up mummy of a 16-year old blonde guy was behind the hospital.

His phone was ringing.

It was that obnoxious ring tone Ally had set for everyone who wasn't her. He considered answering it, but he didn't want to talk to anyone, and he wasn't sure if her could. He let the phone ring. The sound filled the empty space in and around him, vibrating with something not happy and not sad, but just there. When the ringing stopped, he reached into his back pocket, digging out his cell, and, without checking to see who had called, threw it, as hard as he possibly could, into the gutter on the other side of the street. He had managed to fuck up himself everyone around him. He wasn't going to let himself do that again.

Next to the shattered remains of his phone there was, strangely, a payphone. He tried to remember if he's spent all his change back in the hospital. He was pretty sure he had. There was a quarter, though, sitting on the edge of the metal box surrounding it. He pushed the quarter into the slot and dialed.

"Mom." He whispered, trying his very best to keep his shit together. "Mom. I want to move in with Dad. I can't come home."

He hung up the phone before she could respond, and found his way to the tour bus, whose driver was missing, keys thrown on the carpeted floor behind the driver's seat. He picked up the keys, felt in his wallet for his license, and sighed. "As long as I'm fucking up my entire life, might as well ditch the tour and Grand-Theft-Auto my way to Topeka." He muttered.

"It's college, Mom. I've been here three years already and I'm fine.You need to calm down." Austin paused, running a hand through his still-blonde hair, as his mother responded, barely coherent through her panic, "Because I didn't think you needed to know that I transferred to UCLA." The bus rolled up to its stop, and he pulled out some cash, haphazardly paying his fare while simultaneously trying to calm down his panicking mother. "Mom. It's fine. This has been my dream since I was a little kid- Just calm down. Mom. Ugh. Love you." Finally tired of her screaming at him, he sat down next to a girl with bleached blonde hair and several ear piercings, and hung up. He glanced at the journal in her lap.

"What's that?" He asked, "Poetry?"

She looked up at him, brown eyes blinking in surprise, slightly taken aback at this stranger's forwardness. Then she froze, eyes growing even larger, and something in his mind clicked. "Oh my God." He whispered. "What did you do to your hair?"

*Fin.

Or Something.

UM UM UM UM THAT LAST PART IS ACTUALLY KIND OF THE INTRODUCTION TO THE SEQUEL I'M WRITING THAT YOU GUYS ARE TOTALLY GONNA WANT TO READ BECAUSE IT'LL BE FUNNIER THAN THIS AND MORE FUN. M'kay. Well that's it for this story, but, in case you couldn't tell, there is a sequel thing I'm working on that will be better and you will love it.

Or something.

Love you!

Just 'cause this is over doesn't mean you can stop reviewing. Totally keep reviewing. Kthxbye.

Love ya'll!

Jenny