Prologue
She stared at the guy standing in front of her. Silken, brown hair waved and tousled upon his head. The color brown you see in autumn when the leaves change to a golden, rustic color after they finish changing red and yellow. A beautiful mix between orange juice and chocolates. Blonde highlights streaked through his hair; turned golden from the sunshine stalking her through the window. His pitch black, thick framed glasses lined a beautiful face. A face that before today all she would have been able to see was a highschool boy in love with algebra.
His dark eyes stared into hers, every flicker of light reflected across the glossy surface of them. She couldn't look away. She didn't want to. And maybe that was a bad thing, but she didn't care. Not when her heart was pounding a mile a minute in her chest. Not when she was frozen in fear from everything that just happened. Not when everything her mind thought it knew shriveled into a useless heap of dry sand.
And especially not when she took a glimpse at the apologetic stare folding into his expression. His brows shifted into a more worried position. Each one curled into a U-shape so that they skimmed the top of his glasses. He puckered his thin, pale lips; he parted them slightly.
A sweet, fruity flavor slicked over her throat.
He seemed so innocent and pure. Too good to be what he was. Yet, she couldn't seem to believe it was true. She knew what she saw, she trusted her own eyes. She wouldn't betray herself again.
She needed to forget. She almost wanted to. Forgetting was easier than what the alternative would be, for she knew she was no warrior angel. Not in the slightest. But she happened to excell in the very thing she was to do: forget all the bad memories and exaggerate the good one's until each unnecessary stretch mark smoothed out into truth. But the truth was like a peice of elastic: it only stretches so far until it snaps. And the truth snapping was something that could break her and everyone around her.
"Danny," He warned, reaching a shaky hand out to her. His palms gleamed; sweat coated them so it looked he had rubbed a butter stick beteeen his fingers. He looked so easy to love. So easy to be nice to. He didn't look like the kind of guy that would hurt you, with his high voice and joking nature, yet somehow he did.
She flinched. Her breath hitching on her heart settling down in her throat. The throb of each loud beat ricocheted off her hollow chest. Her bones vibrated with each hard pump of blood that felt thicker than normal. She clutched her left breast, finding the pain searing through her heart too much to bare.
Tears threatened her deep, sapphire eyes. She wasn't sure if it was because of the anger brewing and slopping harshly against the walls of her rolling stomach, or if it was from the fear spiking her eyes like vodka in a bottle of sprite. But she did know one thing. She felt betrayed. It was the only slippery emotion she could pick out of the jumble of thorns guarding her confused heart.
Turning her aching body, she tried to run. In the moment, she believed it had been the only reasonable thing to do. But her emotions overwhelmed her to the point where her ears ringing a high pitched squealing noise. A sound that only a machine in a hospital could make after a patient's heart stopped. Her vision clouded and she was oblivious to the cherry-jello feel of her legs. Ignoring the signals her brain and stomach tried to scream at her, her long legs tried to pump themselves as fast as they could, but the lightning bolts of energy she needed didn't come; only strikes of pain and drowsiness stabbed her.
She collapsed into a sobbing heap on the freezing, tile floor. Bone-chilling cross-drafts blew through the hallway; it numbed her body. She shivered, her teeth clattered together in a rhythm not even Motzart would have been able to find. But the cold was a blessing, for it dried a few of the hot, sticky tears trickling out of her eyes and froze the head-wrecking pain.
"Danny," His voice was raw. The way he said her name made it seem more like a question. To her, he was asking if she was okay. The pure sympathy he shoved toward her told her more than she wanted to know, but yet everything about him held a mysterious aura. She couldn't help but to look back at him throught her curtain of thick, wavy hair. Maybe if she could see his face, she would be able to read his expression.
As she shakily drank in his gaze, she slumped even farther into the ground. If she was lucky, maybe the gum on the floor would seek some twisted revenge and chew her up just as she did to them.
His slightly tanned features brought out the red rim of apology set around his wide, teary eyes, "I'm sorry,"
