By Lacy

I break numerous traffic laws getting back to the townhouse. I am officially a skoflaw. Good word. Didn't I mention the 760 Verbal?

I have a little trouble finding the key to the door, but I rush into the apartment once the door swings open.

"Donna?" I call out. She's not in the living room or the kitchen. "Donna?" I search the bedroom and the study, but she's not in there either. The rest of the house is empty, as well.

And that's when I notice how empty the house really is.

I survey the living room. The pictures are gone from the mantle, and her books have disappeared from their shelves. Back in the bedroom, I tear open the closet door. Where her clothes used to hang neatly, there is only an abandoned rod. There's no sign of her in the bathroom, either. Her shampoo and various sweet-smelling soaps are no longer in the shower. Her toothbrush is no longer by the sink.

I sink down on the bed. God, what have I done?

She's taken her things and returned to her apartment. Well, at least I know where she is now. I tell myself that it's not too late. I tell myself that I can fix this. I just wish I knew how.

I have to form a plan of action. Okay, Donna's gone back to her place. I'll just have to go there. I have to get her back. I can't live in this empty soulless apartment. She took its life when she left here -- left me. God, Donna's left me! I have been left.

Well, we'll just have to see about that.

****

Karen opens the door, when I knock. "Josh," she nods.

She's pissed at me again. "I need to see Donna."

"What's in it for me?"

"C'mon, Karen," I beg.

"She doesn't want to see you, Josh."

"I said some things--"

"She told me."

"But they weren't what she thought they were. They were something else entirely. I just need a chance to tell her that."

"Are you telling me the truth?" She studies my face for the signs of a politician's lie.

"I swear it."

"Donna!" she calls, as she opens the door enough to allow me entrance.

"Thanks, Karen. I really appreciate it."

"You owe me one, Josh. And I always collect."

Donna emerges from her bedroom, and I can see from her puffy eyes that she's been crying. I made her cry. I am such a bastard. She crosses her arms when she sees me, shutting herself off.

"Donna, we need to talk," I say.

"I don't see what there is to talk about."

"Well," Karen interrupts, "I'm having a sudden craving for a double tall latte from the Starbucks on the other side of town. Anybody want anything?"

"Thanks again, Karen," I say. She grabs her coat and car keys and slips out the door.

"What are you doing here, Josh?"

"I went home and you weren't there." Have I ever mentioned that I have a real gift for stating the obvious? "You left me," I say.

"I don't stay where I'm not wanted."

My joking instinct is to say 'Since when?' , but the rarely used part of my psyche designated for 'self-preservation', decides that wit would probably be the fool's route.

"I never said I didn't want you."

"You didn't have to."

"How much did you hear?"

"Enough, Joshua." She's hurled my full name at me, and she's done it out of anger. It strikes a blow straight to my heart.

"I don't think so, Donnatella," I lower my voice. "If you had heard enough we wouldn't be here right now."

"You said that my things were cluttering up your place," she fires at me. "You said that everywhere you turned, there I was. You said that it terrified you." Her eyes have welled up with tears again.

Do people usually cry this much when they love each other?

"Is that all that you heard?" I ask.

"It's all I needed to hear." The tears have spilled over on to her cheeks.

"So, you didn't hear the part about how I love it? You didn't hear the part about how I love having your things around me?"

She shifts uncomfortably, and becomes suddenly interested in her feet. "No," she says.

"And the part about how, after living with you, I don't ever want to be alone again? Did you hear that?"

Once again, a soft, "No."

"And there was one other thing...what was that? Oh yeah, the part about how I think we need to look for a bigger place together. Did you happen to catch that part while you were busy jumping to conclusions?"

"I must have missed that."

"Yeah, because you were running away." She's wiping the tears from her face. I can't stand to see her cry; it just rips my heart out. "Donna, what are you doing?" I ask. "We have one miscommunication and you leave me? You didn't even try to confront me about it. That's so unlike you."

"I just thought...."

"What?" I ask. "What did you think?"

"That you'd grown tired of me."

"Have you lost your mind?"

"Possibly," she guesses.

"Tired of you? I went back home and there was nothing there. You really managed to clean the place out, Donna. You didn't leave a trace. The place was so...forlorn." She looks up at me.

"I'm a very meticulous person."

"You left and....it wasn't my home anymore," I say. "Tired of you? How could you think that?" She shrugs, tilting her head to the side. "When you disappear into the bathroom to get ready for work in the mornings, I get tired of missing you. The last fours, I got tired of missing you. How could you think that I could get tired of waking up in your arms?" Now I've probably scared her with my ranting.

"Did you mean it, Josh? About loving my stuff cluttering up your place?"

"Yeah, I meant it," I say. "Donna, please come home -- and bring all of your stuff with you."

When she launches herself at me, all I can do is open my arms and catch her.

"I'm so sorry, Josh," she cries.

"I'm sorry, too. I should've told you first how I felt about it-- not Sam. He just wanted to know what it was like."

"What what was like?

"This. Us. He wanted to know if we were everything he'd thought we'd be. So, I told him," I say. "The good with the bad."

"Is there bad?"

"This was bad."

"My fault," she admits.

"Don't leave me again, Donna. I don't think I could--" She stops my mouth with a kiss, her hand gently touching my face.

"I won't," she answers, through the kiss. "I won't leave you."

"Are you all right?" I ask. "Ginger mentioned that you said you felt sick."

"Oh God, Josh! I shouldn't have said that. I should've known you'd be worried. I just needed an excuse to get away."

"So, you're okay?"

"I'm okay."

"And we can get your stuff and go home?"

"I'll leave Karen a note," she nods.

"I'll get your bags," I say.

****

Within an hour, Donna is reinstalled back into my townhouse. We were forced to move her things quickly though, because, as I told her, we have to go back to the office.

"Leo was mad?" she asks, as we walk back into my office.

"He was a little pissed, yeah."

"On a scale of one to ten?"

"Six," I answer.

"That's not so bad," she shrugs.

"I could tell he was regretting letting us be together."

"I think you're worrying over nothing, Josh."

"I didn't do my job because I was trying to make up with my girlfriend."

"So we'll work late and get the job done tonight. We'll get done what needs to get done. We always do."

"If you say so," I sigh.

"I do."

It's then that I realize that Donna is comforting me. Donna, who's had so much to worry about over the last few months, is comforting me.

"I think we just survived our first fight," I say.

"We've fought before," she responds. We fought all the time when you were--"

"That was different," I interrupt.

"How?"

I recall some of the yelling matches we had during my recovery. "Because it never felt like the world was going to end before."

Her mouth opens as though she is going to say something, and then shuts again. I think I've left her speechless. "It won't be the last fight, you know. I can't promise that I won't ever say something stupid again."

"I know that, Josh. Who do you think you're talking to?" she rolls her eyes.

"Just promise me that you won't go off half-cocked over the next idiotic thing that comes out of my mouth. Promise me that you'll talk to me about it. Even it means yelling and screaming and name calling."

"I promise," she smiles.

Then I can see it. That exact moment where she transforms into Donna, the Assistant. The soft expression on her face changes to one of quiet determination.

"What do you need?"

"I need you to talk to the Dean of Admissions at UCLA. Find out who I can talk to about Gregersen and her glory days. Get in touch with the president of the school's chapter of Delta Gamma. See if you can get anything out of them."

"Sorority sisters," she says. "They won't talk."

"It's worth a try."

"Okay." She turns on her heel and exits my office.

I watch her go -- missing her already. I sink down into my chair and consider the day I've had, and the frightening myriad of emotions that passed through it.

A simple misunderstanding very nearly brought my entire world to a screaming halt today. Finding my apartment devoid of her things was like a physical reminder of the numbness I felt after the shooting. I've had a simple taste of what would be like to lose her -- to have to exist without her. It tastes like defeat. A loss so deep, the cut inside of me felt as real as the gaping chest wound to which this scar serves as reminder.

It's terrifying how love changes you. It turns you inside out and shakes you to pieces. Then, when you succeed in pulling yourself together, you find that you have more pieces than you did before.

The End