the only exception

 Hayley and Taylor had called Phoebe a handful of times while she was on the bus to Hayden's house, but the teen had ignored every single one until she decided to just put it on Do Not Disturb. She felt bad about ignoring them, but she really just didn't want to deal with it all at the moment.

She made her way up Hayden's drive way, where she'd been not even 24 hours before. She briefly wonders if Emily is still there, kind of regretting not calling her instead of Hayden, but she wasn't thinking clearly at all.

Hayden was lounging on the front porch and raised a hand in greeting as she walked up the steps. "Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah," Phoebe smiled softly, but her voice didn't even sound convincing her her own ears.

"You wanna talk about it?" He asked, making his way up from the bench and pulling her into a hug. Phoebe stiffened at the contact, still not fully feeling comfortable having contact with men, but especially after the dream she'd had, even if she knew it wasn't fully rational.

"No, I'm good. Can we just watch a movie or something?" Phoebe asked, wrapping her arms around him for a moment before pulling back and motioning for the front door.

"For sure," Hayden agreed, making his way into the house as Phoebe followed. "You want lunch or anything?"

"No, I'm good." Phoebe mumbled. She hadn't really though about food since she'd woken up, but wasn't in the mood to eat anything.

They ended up deciding on watching some Star Wars movies, but only got through half of the first one before the movie was long forgotten and they ended up talking about school and random things. He didn't ask again if she was okay or if she wanted to talk about it, and it was nice to forget for a little while.

They drifted in and out of random conversations throughout the movies, having gotten almost to the end of the third one when Phoebe fell asleep. Really, she wasn't sure how she was still so tired after how late she slept in, but when her eyes started getting heavy, she wasn't in the mood to fight it.

"Phoebe," Hayden shook her lightly as he tried to wake her. Phoebe opened her eyes slightly, her entire body feeling heavy as she tried to sink farther into the mattress. "It's almost midnight."

That, however, made her jolt right up and frantically start looking for her phone. "Shit, shit, shit. They're probably so mad." The teen repeated to herself, finally finding her phone hidden beneath some blankets.

"Your parents?" Hayden asked, watching her frantic movements.

Phoebe ignored him and turned off the Do Not Disturb, only to find 26 calls and 37 texts from Taylor, and 57 calls and almost as many texts from Hayley. Phoebe felt dread rise up again in her stomach and was sure she could be sick from the pure stress of it all.

After a second of hesitation as her finger hovered over the call button, she finally pressed it and brought the phone up to her ear. Hayley picked up on the second ring.

"Phoebe? Where the hell are you? Do you know how many times we tried to call you? It's the middle of the fucking night! I thought you might be dead somewhere! We drove around for hours and even went to Emily's and no one knew where you were! Do you realize how scared we were?" Hayley rambled into the phone.

Phoebe moved to stand on the other side of the room, hoping Hayden wouldn't be able to hear her raised voice through the speaker. By the way he was awkwardly fiddling with his thumbs, she was sure he could.

Phoebe took in every word Hayley had said. She sounded so freaked out, more upset than the teen had ever heard her and it made Phoebe feel awful. She's sure she's never felt this bad in her life as she covered her face with her free hand, unable to stop the crying.

Hayley heard the crying and stopped her ranting, "Where are you? And don't go anywhere, I mean it. We'll come pick you up."

Phoebe quietly repeated the address back to her before hanging up with a shaky hand and turning back to Hayden.

"It'll be okay, just tell her you passed out." Hayden tried to reason, standing up from the bed with understanding eyes.

"Dude, I ran away. I argued with them, then left in the middle of the argument, ran away, ignored their calls, and didn't call back till midnight!" Phoebe cried, already hating herself for showing this much emotion in front of him. "I'm the worst person ever."
"You're not, Phoebe. Surely they'll understand." Hayden shrugged, clearly at a loss for how to comfort her. Instead of arguing like she really wanted to do, Phoebe just nodded, crossing her arms over herself.

The two sat in silence for a while until Taylor had texted her, telling her to come down. She said a quick goodbye to Hayden before making her way downstairs and to the car. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she opened the back door, trying her hardest not to look up at them as she climbed in.

Neither of them said a word to her as Taylor pulled out of the driveway and started heading down the road.

The car ride felt longer than usual, and after about five minutes of no talking, Phoebe finally tilted her head up. It was only then she realized Hayley wasn't even in the car, it was just her and Taylor. Although she was nervous to see the singer, it felt like a punch to the gut that she hadn't come with him.

Phoebe felt more tears well in her eyes as she looked out the window, "Where's Hayley?" She asked, her voice coarse and quiet.

"At home," Taylor sighed, his voice quiet. "You really freaked her out, you know. Freaked both of us out."

Phoebe opened her mouth to apologize, but couldn't find the words. She'd never felt like such a let down. She'd put both of them in horrible positions like this more than once and she was starting to even wonder why they kept her around.

It would be one thing if they were just her foster parents -she's sure most teenagers had done worse than this- but they were so much more than that. They were her favorite people ever, the only people she'd ever felt completely safe with and loved by. It made it all so much worse that she'd hurt them.

The fact that Hayley hadn't come made it all feel so much worse too, because what if that meant they didn't want her anymore? That this was the final straw and they were done putting up with all her issues and resilience in unintentional rebellion?

She's so beyond scared that this could be the end.