She ran and ran until she could run no further. The crowd only dots in the distance marring the hillside. Like insignificant specs of dust that could just be swept away by a summer's day breeze. She sat down beneath the boughs of the old oak trees that made up the estate's forest. For a second all was calm. A clear contrast to all she'd left behind on that hillside in the hands of that overwhelming crowd. She let herself cry and it was as if a dam had burst. Tears ran down her face in the ugliest manner but for a second she didn't care. She let all the past come rushing back from the furthest corners of her mind; she reeled from all the hurt and the betrayal and the loss. She cried over her ruined family, the person she thought had loved her but, most importantly, over the loss of her baby. A child she had never gotten the chance to know and yet felt the loss like a knife being shoved right through her heart. Creating the most painful agony. But none of them knew. Well, had known, until a few moments ago when a friend deemed it an acceptable subject to bring up in front of the unaware father. Her former, now engaged to someone else, boyfriend. The man who couldn't even look at her before he found out about her miscarriage. And now he was going to want answers she thought but she couldn't trust herself to tell him everything. She'd long since tried to prove to herself that she was not a coward and that it was for the best but she wasn't sure that she could live out that lie anymore. Not when she so desperately wanted and possibly needed him back. She needed him to prove their baby wasn't nothing, prove that it meant something. But no, he was now engaged to a somewhat wealthy heiress who'd got caught up in an investigation. Why would he ever want her? He wouldn't and that was the truth. She loved him but he hadn't loved her and now it was time to face the facts: she was never going to be that girl that everyone else wanted to be and she was never going to be the one he wanted. All her distant friends may have doting husbands and lovable families but she had her career and that was what was going to keep her going. That is what she was going to live for. Maybe one day, once she's achieved her plans, their paths would cross again and they would be lucky enough to have been granted a second chance but, until then, she had other things to do; other places to be; and she was not looking back. She stood up from under the trees and walked into the sunshine. She briefly looked back at the hillside where, she noted, the crowd had dwindled before stepping in the other direction: away from her past life.
AN: This is a short piece I wrote a while back but reading and editing it makes me want to develop it into something more. Therefore this doesn't have a lot of explanation of this AU; I'd rather explore it in a series of chronological multi-chapter stories or one-shots. This may not remain completely canon but if so hopefully will be altered and then that written into the main story. What do you think? If it's done like that it should make more sense, just take this as an excerpt or snapshot into the world. Thank you ever so much for reading! Also I do have other stories so it may have to be put on the back burner at times.