Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine.

Summary: They say that the memories are all that you have left of something after it's gone and to cherish them. But sometimes, the memories just hurt too much.


She lays there quietly, on her bed, and listens to the rain fall in a somewhat musical rhythm on the roof of the castle. Falling like a child's quiet melody. She closes her eyes and thinks. Thinks about him. His face. His laugh. His voice. His arms around her. They way it felt when they were together. The raw passion they had for each other. Them.

She remembers their first meeting, replays it in her mind. She was so shy and timid. Wouldn't even speak to him. Just looked at him. The way he looked in the glow of the annual Halloween camp fire still takes her breath away. His blonde hair turned golden brown in the firelight. The way the fire dances in his storm grey eyes. He takes a slow drag of his cigarette and looks toward her. She looks away quickly, hoping he hasn't noticed. Of course he hasn't. She's invisible. She turns back to her friends and goes on acting like nothing is bothering her.

The rain outside her window slows to a light mist. Her mind travels back to their first kiss. She's fallen on the library floor, crying. He's right there with her. He has been the whole time. She lays her head on his chest and listens to the sound of his heartbeat. His fingers find her chin and he tilts her head up to look at him. Before she knows it he's going in for a kiss. She tilts her head downward right before their lips meet. She's scared. He's the enemy. Isn't he? The man who had tortured her for the last six years. Why does she have butterflies? Why does she feel like this toward the man she despises? He takes her face in his hands, looks her in the eyes, and whispers to her not to be afraid. And then he kisses her. She doesn't know what she's doing, but it feels so right.

A montage of their time together plays through her mind. There's sunshine, rain, thunder and lightning, even a tornado or two. The laughs, tears, kisses, the cuddling. Those are the best moments of her life. It's short, but it meant everything to her. The only time she was truly happy.

Outside, it's raining harder now. It's obvious the end of their story is coming. There's the nights when they cuddled. Laying in bed together, just talking and talking about their plans for the future. They talked about how many kids they would have and what their names would be. Where they would live. How many people would be at their wedding. Those were supposed to be happy nights. But she knows now, that instead they were nights of ignorance, and drunken kisses. Words spoken that didn't mean a thing. She'd played along to his drunken foolishness and broken her own heart.

All around her the rain is pounding on the roof and the windows. It reminds her of the night when it all started to unravel. The one night they spent together. Not sex, no. She wouldn't give it up. Just her anger towards him. Her raw and unadulterated HATRED toward him. Watching him choose someone else right in front of her eyes. The way his hand fit right into someone else's hand. Watching him kiss her without a second of hesitation. She never thought she could see anything more painful. And she was right.

They're going home now. They'd left the castle as a couple and now they were just two people, walking down a muddy road. No acknowledgement or each other. It's raining so hard they can't see five feet in front of them. She wants to call out his name. It's on the tip of her tongue. It's five letters that she can't put together and force out of her mouth. No matter how hard she tries, the word won't come out. She doesn't bother to wipe away the tears or keep her sobs quiet, and he doesn't ask if she's okay. They both know she's not. She stops walking and leans against the wall. He legs give out and she falls into a heap on the ground. He doesn't even turn around to see if she's okay. He just keeps walking. Walks right out of her life. She pulls herself off the ground sometime later. By now, it's dark and she's lost all sense of time. She's numb to the world now. Somehow she finds her way back to the castle. No one notices her as she walks in the doors and up to their common room. He doesn't even look up from the book he's reading when she walks past him to get to her room. What else could they expect? This is the end. There are no happy kisses. Not even a goodbye. Just a girl and a boy that fell together, then fell apart. Like the storm that rolled through on the night they ceased to be. One clap of thunder and it was over.

What was it that went wrong between them? How did it end up like this? One minute it was perfect and the next time she looked, her entire world was shattered on the ground at her feet.

When had she dropped it? She didn't remember doing it. You'd think that she would notice dropping something that was so important to her. There was no way she would do it on purpose. Yet there it lay, broken, shattered, at her feet. With no recollection of how it ended this way.

There was no way to pick up every little piece that had broken and put it back together perfectly. The truth of this seemed irrefutable. There was no coming back from this. This was the end. One slip of the hand was all it took for everything to be destroyed.

The rain is barely audible now. It's eerily quiet all around her. She wipes the tears off her cheeks and tries to find some reason to crawl off her bed, drag herself out of her room, and go through the motions of living.

No one blames her for the storm. It wasn't her fault. These things happen all the time. But she blames herself. Because when she opens her eyes and stares out the rain soaked window, she's still alone.


A/N: This is a oneshot incase that wasn't obvious. I know this is short, but when I first started, it was like maybe four hundred words long. I cried while writing this, because it's based on a relationship that I had in the past. All I can say, is that I hope you like it and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Oh, and I love reviews. Tell me what you like, what you don't like. What I could've done better. Anything. I love you all!