Disclaimer: I don't own BH or the characters.


It was not beautiful. It was not the image that she had created in her head. It was ugly and festering and it was spilling over and she was losing control. She was losing control and she felt it bubbling and boiling and burning.

"Sally," Aidan's voice snaps her focus and the boil returns to a simmer.

"I was going to be an artist. Or an art teacher. But do you know what he did? He convinced me to stay home. He said that it would be better for us since we just moved in together." She feels the bubbling begin and her hands are shaking and as her hands begin to shake the bench in the window begins to shake. "I hate him," she says. "I actually wanted to stay at home and cook and clean because I thought it would make him happy." She snorted. "I needed to make him happy."

She looks out the window. She wants to punch a hole through the glass and block out the sun with her hand. It's too pretty. Pretty and perfect looking. The world. The sun light and the picture perfect sky. It's a lie. Like all the shit that has happened has been glossed over. Josh's sister, Rebecca, Danny. Who would know that all of that was going on when the day looked like something out of a romantic comedy?

Who would have known that she was standing in the kitchen while her boyfriend yelled at her for not getting up early enough to have his coffee ready for him before he went to work. Who would have known that when the sun was just starting to rise and the sky was going all pastel. Who would have known that a coffee mug was shattering over the floor while she was the one stammering an apology when the birds were happily chirping? "It's all a lie."

Aidan is watching her. "What is?"

"Everything. Life." She feels ugly and cynical.

The vampire sighs. "You can't think like that, it'll drive you crazy."

"What about Bridget and Danny? That's a lie. He lied to her and she believed him."

Aidan reaches out like he's going to rest his hand on her knee but he pulls back at the last second.

The boiling stops and the pot spills and she's crying, huge heaving sobs. Maybe she's the lie. She who isn't really there. She who can't convince her best friend that what a murdering ass Danny is.

That night Josh calls her into the kitchen. "Hey," he's flipping through some recipes. "I thought that maybe you'd like to help me cook."

If it had been anyone but Josh she would think that they were being cruel. Josh is just…Josh. "You know I can't."

"Oh, yeah, the whole I can't touch anything because I'm a ghost." She wants to hurl something at him with her mind at the falsetto impersonation. He holds up his hands and smiles his goofy smile, "Sorry. I meant maybe you could help me as in teach me how to make something that you liked? I want to try something new."

As they sit down at the table she sees Aidan and Josh exchange looks and she has a sneaking suspicion that Aidan had told him to ask her. Funnily enough it doesn't really matter. Dinner that night is like a band aid on the sore and in that moment she thinks that maybe that perfect sunset outside deserves its beauty.