You can see her in your mind and it's like she is floating around and taunting you. She loved you and you loved her and then she was ripped from your life and you still haven't healed from it. She was all that was beauty and light - even if her life was filled with darkness and demons. In your mind she is all of your hopes and dreams wrapped into one. And now you have to find your own way and really it's just too hard. She was your everything. She told when to jump and how high, she told you when to be happy. You were her's and now you don't know how to be anymore. How to be your own.

So you over compensate. You make sure that people will not associate you with anyone but you. So when they see you they think of you and not of what was in your past. You shove you down their throats so they don't forget for a moment. That you belong to no one but yourself. Here is the thing though, you think even more now that you are more her's than you were before and this person you've become is just another way she is telling you how high to jump and how hard to push. Some days it is her words that are being forced out of your mouth and people don't notice because you don't talk about her anymore. You act like she never happened.

Only you know the truth and this is all her and a little of you. And you like what you've become. You are not so soft and nice and quiet anymore. You are no longer the foil her to her wildness. No longer the calming influence. If she was still here you would egg her on and she would do the same to you. But since you are smarter you both would get away with more.

Sometime you spend days pretending that she is right there with you. When you flirt and sneak in places. You are telling her how to climb through the window without getting her skirt caught and then you are both running and laughing about what you are going to pull next.

You wonder if they see through you - the ones who used to be your friends. Do they see that as much as you want them to think that you are the one pulling your own strings that she is still there. She is the one pushing you and fighting through you. You know it has to be this way she was always stronger than you. You need her inside or you.

People don't mention her around you anymore they don't mention much of anything around you anymore. They mostly look through you because they don't want to make themselves nervous. People don't want to be uncomfortable and she makes them that way.

You've started to blend so much into her that you aren't sure where you begin and she ends. You know there are things she wants you to do and things you aren't willing to do. You've reached a dente on those things. And you like that you have blended her into you because that way you can't ever lose her. You carry her around inside of you.

And you know you will never let her go. When she starts to fade you do something to bring her back - something ridiculous and out of character for you but in character for her. It surprises you that no one notices that you aren't you when you do these things. It makes you smile though because through you she will still be alive and people won't know your secret.

You don't walk with her sashay that is something you had to come to terms with. It made you feel ridiculous but you walk with determination and that is something she always had. You've taken it now all of her determination and you channel it. Into school, into work and into having people leave you alone. You feel liberated and now you know what she was talking about letting the real you out becoming a force to be reckoned with. You like this power. You don't need the audience that she needed you just need the memories and the ability to relive them in your mind.

You take a deep breath and close your eyes as you prepare to walk into school. Its just another day. And people leave you alone most days. As you open your eyes you get out of your car and head to the front of the school. People mil around and greet their friends after not seeing them all night. There is laughter and shrieks and you keep walking through them without a smile. You are determined to make it into school without any encounters. You hope that just for once you can make it to your first class without one. You don't want to use her all the time you fear that if you use her to much you might use her up.

You make it to your locker. And there on the front of it is a word. It is written in black permanent marker and it spells out 'bitch.' You smirk when you read it. What are they trying to say? It was funny because it was true, you are a bitch now. You call it like it is and sometimes you do it to forcefully and you know that it isn't all her. So you leave it. Smirking at it as you close your locker and head to your first class. You almost wish the janitor wouldn't clean it up.

First period you sit in the middle of the class unobtrusive. Not the front row like a brown noser and not the back like a slacker but the middle between two people who never talk to you they just whisper to their friends about the crazy things you might do or say. You like it that people talk about you and that they talk about you with a little fear and trepidation. Maybe you were sick. Maybe you were psycho. You knew that it was mostly her that didn't care what people thought of you or what you thought of you for that matter.

It was weird this freedom you suddenly felt. It was like everything you wanted and she wanted were one and the same and your combined desires pushed you be who you were becoming. You liked it this new freedom. You wondered is this what she felt most of the time when she was doing something outrageous pulling you along and dragging you along. You think you will keep her around.