She danced like no one was watching.

She sang like no one was listening.

And she loved like she had never been hurt.

Her heart was too big. But she didn't care. She took each hurt like it was the first, yet felt it as the last. Her pain overflowed from her cup. Yet she showed it to no one. She cried in the silence of her bedroom, the four walls her only witness.

She felt for the victims, because she was one. Still is one in her dreams. In her nightmares. Her terrors in the night, left her shaking, unable to breathe the thick hot air of Nevada. She wished to be near the ocean; that had always consoled her. But she was hundreds of miles away from an ocean.

And Lake Meade was the closet thing to it.

She stood on the lake, the water lapping at her feet; breathing in the cold breeze of the early morning. She had bought the cottage, as a type of getaway, a resort of sorts. Besides she had always wanted to own a home, and seeing as things were going, the dream of a husband and children wasn't going to happen any time soon. If ever.

That was one thought that broke her down the most. She wanted to get married and have someone love her for the rest of her life. To have children and love them like she was never loved. She wanted to prove to herself that she wasn't at all like her parents.Even though they didn't deserve to be called parents.

Never in her life did she turn away another grieving person, she couldn't, she saw herself in them. She saw herself in most people. The pain, the silent greif, the tears. In every victims face she saw her own. And in some cases she felt like she could sympathize with a murderer simply because of what they went through and also the fact that she knew the utter hatred that can consume a person and take them over.

It also seemed to her that all the people around her got hurt. Especially her best friend, the one person who accepted her right away. Loved her right away. That hurt her in the worst way. She felt as if it were her fault.

She stirred from her thoughts as she felt muscular arms wrap around her torso. The smell of that familiar cologne that she loved so much. She knew who it was and turned around into his embrace and held him tightly to her, enveloping his warmth.

"You were singing."

"Mhmm,"she hummed softly against his chest..

"Why did you stop?"

"Because you're here now."