Give Your Heart a Break

June 24th, Tuesday

"When are you coming back? Four months is too long!" Nikolas chuckled over the phone. I sat on the edge of my bed trying to zip up my suitcase and keep the phone to my ear.

I rolled my eyes and smiled, "Four months is exactly what I needed. But I've finished filming and I'll be back in New York tomorrow, my flight is tonight."

"Tonight? I thought it was gonna be next week or something." He laughed, "Well that's great, so you won't miss the family reunion after all."

I stopped. "What?"

He gave a short sarcastic laugh, "Yeah, mom's putting on the first annual Versace-Sixx-Cobain family reunion. It's this Friday, we're spending the weekend in the Hamptons. Did you not get my texts?"

"Well I probably did but you tend to text me during the day when I'm filming. I'm not gonna stop in the middle of a shoot to read my texts." I lightly laughed. I checked my phone to see what day it was, Tuesday.

"Well, mom has put a lot of thought into this so it's only fair that we go. If you want to catch a ride with Edie and I you're welcome to."

"Yeah maybe. How are you and Edie?"

"We're great. And great seems too small of a word. Since rehab, I've completely changed. Things are better now than they've ever been. We went to Montreal and spent a month there with her family and she and I are back to the way we were." I could tell he was smiling.

I smiled, "I'm glad things worked out."

"Same here." He sighed, I figured it was out of relief.

"Well I'll have to let you go, Eddie looks as if he's finished making me my farewell breakfast." I lightly smiled. I've been staying with my co-star Eddie Redmayne for the duration of filming; Eddie and I had a close friendship as we've worked together on the Marilyn film not long ago. But I've been lying to Nikolas, filming finished last month, and I've been living in Bath, England since then. But he didn't need to know.

"Okay, well thanks for at least calling and letting me know what's up. I'll tell mum that you're coming after all. But I love you and have a safe flight."

"Thanks, love you too and tell Ede's I said hi."

"For sure. See you tomorrow."

"Bye."

* * *

June 27th, Friday

I wore my propped my sunglasses on top of my head, also using it as a head band to keep my hair out of my face. I was sitting in the backseat of the ivory Range Rover that Nikolas drove. Edie sat in the passenger seat up front and I quietly sat and stared out the window at the cars and buildings we passes as we began our journey out to Long Island, more specifically Southampton.

I opened up the duffle bag I had packed and pulled out a book and turned to the marked page where I had left off, I was only three chapters away from finishing this book.

"Whatcha reading?" Edie turned her body to face me.

I couldn't help but smile. I cleared my throat, "Fifty Shades Freed." Immediately I noticed Nikolas perking up and looking at me in the rearview mirror.

"Isn't that that pornographic novel?" He chuckled.

Edie looked at him, "What?"

"You haven't heard of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy?" I lightly laughed, looking at her.

She made a face and shook her head.

My eyes got big, "Wow. You're missing out." I reached into my bag again and took out the first book and handing it to her.

"Read it and keep it, I'll end up buying it again anyway." I chuckled.

"Awe, c'mon Audrey, you're gonna taint my wife's mind with tasteless and sexually graphic literature, if you can even call it literature." Nik rolled his eyes, staring ahead at the highway.

"There's nothing wrong with a little BDSM." I laughed.

Edie looked back and forth at Nik and I, still looking confused. "BDSM? Is that an abbreviation for something?"

I smirked. "Nik will tell you all about it when you have some alone time."

He scoffed and rolled his eyes again. "You're terrible."

I laughed and then finally remembered something. "Oh! You know, there's talks of them making it into a film. They've actually found a screenwriter already and are in the early stages of casting, though they haven't officially cast anyone yet; there's just a lot of speculation as to who will play the coveted roles of Christian and Anastasia."

"Isn't Anastasia that cartoon movie?" Nik smirked, trying desperately to change the subject.

I rolled my eyes and laughed. "I was just mentioning it."

"Please don't tell me you wanna audition for it." He shook his head.

I laughed. "No, but I can't help but wonder how the auditioning process would go."

He started to laugh. I noticed Edie was already reading the book, I looked at Nik in the mirror and smirked. "Will I be expecting another niece or nephew nine months from now?"

He glared at me and glanced over at Edie, who didn't seem to hear me.

Hours later after finally arriving at my childhood home, I made myself at home and laid across my bed, looking at the old posters and pictures that I had taped to the wall when I was a teenager. Nothing's changed in this room and for a slight moment I feel like I'm 16 again. But those were my goth days, and I've changed quite a bit since then.

I sat up and pulled my knees up to my chest, feeling nostalgic but also lonely, in a way I longed for those days again; where I didn't even focus my time on auditioning for film roles, jetting off to different countries constantly, and focussing on boyfriends, let alone going through the darkest time in my life which is code for divorce.

As good of actress as I am, not even a front could hide the pain I felt during the divorce process. It went through in the beginning of May and was considerably easy, well, regarding the legal matters anyway. And I haven't said a word to Caleb since. All I know of him now is that he's still with Lily.

I shudder the thought from my mind as I toss my hair up into a messy ponytail and get up from the bed, walking up to the mirror that still had old pictures taped to it of me and Garrett in a mall photo booth; I was only 18 at the time. I faintly smiled and recalled those days from when I was just a young and naive, wannabe rebel who had no clear ideal of what I wanted out of life.

Oh how I've changed throughout the years and even though most of them were years spent with a boyfriend of sorts, I am proud and relieved to be single and on my own now. Like Wilde had said, "We need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person."

And I've taken that to heart. I decided that maybe the whole marriage thing isn't for me, not that I'm against it, it's just that I need time for myself without being bound emotionally to another person, more specifically a man. And don't get me wrong, I love the company of man as much as any other woman, but this is my time and I will focus on what I want and what I need.

I pulled the hair tie out of my hair and tousled my hair around, messing it up a little. I smiled a little before leaving my room and going downstairs, joining my boisterous family in the living room.

"There you are Audrey, we were just talking about you." My mother announced.

"Oh joy." I murmured, sitting on the armrest of the couch next to Chanel. I smiled and reached down to place my hand on her very pregnant belly.

"What ever happened to Chris?" She asked.

"Evans?" I asked.

She nodded.

I turned my eyes up and smiled, recalling the memory of us talking on the phone in May, only a week after my divorce went through. He said he wanted me to come and stay with him in Boston when I came back and that he missed me. And even though we had never spoke about dating, each other on that note, I still valued our friendship; a very special one that developed and got a lot stronger over long distance phone calls, texts, Skype dates, and emails. But this wasn't something i was about to share with my mother whose personality emulated Mrs. Bennett. At least this was one of the friendships that lasted through the long distance, unlike others that had once meant something in my life, I had to left go of; one of them being Jack.

We had a long and painful talk, and came to the conclusion that he and I had to distance ourselves; his girlfriend had become pregnant and with the raging hormones, she had also become jealous. I don't know what it was with me and my guy friends and their girlfriends; jealously had alway managed to wedge itself into our lives. So with an easy ultimatum that he was given by Shannan, he chose her. Because she needs him right now and I would never forgive myself if I was the reason that he was distant from his own child.

"Chris is in Boston." I simply replied, reaching for the bowl of pretzels on the coffee table. "Pretzel?" I offered the bowl to the others.

"Are you seeing anyone right now?" She asked.

"The only man in my life is my little man right here." I grinned, wrapping my arms around Calogero as he walked past. He giggled and climbed onto my lap.

"Audrey, I really wish you'd find someone committed." She sighed.

"I have! Calogero will love me forever and ever."

"Audrey, be serious-"

"You want serious, mother, I'm not looking for anything serious. Children, cover your ears. I'm gonna date whoever I want and even if it's just one-night stands, that's fine. No strings attached is just fine with me. I tried the whole commitment thing and we all know how that ended. I guess that lifestyle was never meant to be."

My mom rolled her eyes and sighed.

Nikki chuckled and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "Liv, you can't keep butting into Audrey's life like this. I know you want the best for her, but even when we were her age we weren't committed."

"Yeah, despite the fact that you already had three kids by that age." Daniel laughed.

"But dad's right mom, Audrey's gonna be 27 in nine days. She's very capable of making her own decisions and has been doing so for many years." Rosalie shrugged her shoulders. Mauro kissed her cheek.

I smiled at her. "Thank you!" Our mom just sighed and held up her hands in defeat.

"Why do I have the feeling this is gonna be our first and last family reunion?" Nikolas chuckled.