"Dear Jessie..." Aaron crumpled the paper and threw it across the room.

"Hey kiddo what's bugging you?" Krystal ducked below the flying paper.

"Hey K. I don't know."

"It's a girl problem. Talk to me."

"You've noticed how I keep adding dates to the tour and stuff and I haven't gone home in awhile?"

"How could I not?"

"Well… it kind of has to do with my best friend Jess."

"How long have you been in love with her?"

"Dang. How did you guess that?"

"Well…"

"Almost four years."

"So since you were… about sixteen?"

"Yeah. Since the day I met her to tell you the truth."

"Why haven't you told her?"

"Well, we went out for awhile and broke up to be friends and I was about to ask her out again but she got a new boyfriend on my sixteenth birthday and we kind of went a little downhill. Part of me was jealous but part of me was also scared for her. He just made me nervous." Aaron slowed down and took a breath looking as though he could hardly finish. "The night of our school play we had a huge fight and she ran away from me. She went home and was going to break up with Jason but when I found her he…" tears filled Aaron's eyes and he looked away from Krystal. "He had raped her and beaten her to the point where she was almost dead."

"Oh Aaron, you found her?"

"I had gone after her to apologize. She ended up in a coma and when she came out I was the only person she would talk to."

"And you still never told her you were in love with her?"

"I promised myself when I got home I would just ask her to marry me."

"That's a little bold."

"It's the only way I can do it."

"Aaron, don't keep putting it off. Once this leg is over if you don't go straight home I will force you."

"You have my word."

Krystal smiled and gave Aaron a quick hug before walking out of the room humming.