Sloane had started shaking her head as soon as he started elaborating. She was a little miserable but it wasn't his fault, she didn't blame him. Certainly he was involved and she was a little frustrated by some if his choices, but that didn't mean she put all of the blame in him, in fact she'd tried so hard to shoulder it all herself that she blubbered and spilled everything all over Hatch just to get some relief from the crushing guilt.

"That's not... You're not making me miserable." Her voice shook as she said it, but she meant it. Her own choices had made her miserable. She'd told Hatch she wanted to go back to the way things had been last summer, but only with her friends and not at the expense of losing Cam in the process.

"That's not what I meant." She tried again but words failed her. Sloane didn't know what she wanted right now, everything was all messed up. She did know she didn't want to lose Cam and if they ended things now, they simply couldn't go back to being friends, it would never work.

She really had screwed this up.

Fresh tears spilled out, falling slowly over freckled cheeks. "Everything after a "but" voids what came before it," She said out of nowhere, something her mother had said to her for as long as she could understand it. Giving an excuse changed after the "but" and nothing that was said before even mattered. He couldn't just say I love you, but we shouldn't be together. That just meant that there was nothing holding them together anymore. "Please don't do this." She just needed to quit quidditch, not him.