Dosh Dosh Dosh... Her shoes padded against the belt of the treadmill on every beat of the song on her iPod. She'd been running for nearly 2 hours and was beginning to tire. Working out had been a regular thing for 3 years now and it had paid off. Her body was still slim like before but now she had definite strength behind her and she was not someone any ordinary person would want to mess with now, but she didn't train to defend herself against any ordinary person. She trained to defend herself against monsters. Even though she was sure David and his boys were gone, she still felt the need to prepare herself against any other 'David's' out there and she was sure there were more out there. Her highlighted blonde hair was dead straight and wisps were falling in face as she ran. Running had been her thinking time and she thought about everything that had happened to her. She thought of her life, how she'd got to where she was and where she was headed, or not headed most of the time as she felt like she'd been treading water for the past year. She pressed stop at 2 hours and the treadmill came to a slow stop.
Funny but she still felt more comfortable being awake at night, at least then she was awake when the monsters came to get her. She stood on the treadmill and looked out the window and began to think of her past. She thought of her family and of how different her life would have been had her mother lived and then she thought of her dad and of Nick but she couldn't think of them without thinking of the one's she couldn't speak of, or even think of, or she wanted to cry. She looked down. She missed Michael, even though she and he had split over a year ago, he was the only person who knew her past and she felt like he was the only one who truly understood her but when she had struggled to re align herself with normal people in a normal life the problems had become insurmountable. Her trust levels had plummeted after David and Sam and Lucy never really accepted her, but not for lack of trying. Michael, for the most part, ignored all that and tried to stick with her and had even proposed to her, to which she accepted but it all fell apart when she began to obsess over the past in the fear it would happen again. He wanted to forget and move on and she just couldn't and she hated herself for it. She had lost someone who really loved her and she feared that she would never find that again. She had thought she'd found that with David in the beginning, but how wrong she was.
Deep in thought, she absent mindedly adjusted her necklace and she held the heart David had given her all those years ago, stroking the broken point at the bottom with her finger. It was sharp, like he had been, with a point that now felt like little fangs and she felt her eyes begin to water. She took a deep breath in and stopped herself from allowing herself to falter. She had cried enough over that man and swore to herself that she would never shed another tear over him or his boys ever again. She had been so disillusioned by him and she felt the effect he'd inflicted would be a lifelong affliction that she would never truly get over. Although she worked out like a mad woman to protect herself from the likes of him, she hadn't been able to bring herself to take the token of his affections for her off, she felt like pulling it off and snapping the chain and throwing it out into the ocean but for whatever reason, she just couldn't do it. In some sick way, it was the last thing she had that was a symbol of his love for her and she didn't want to be without it. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw the glow of an orange cigarette butt in the darkness, was someone there? It gave her a chill up her spine and she decided to leave, wishing she wasn't the only one here for the first time but normal people didn't work out at 3am and again she didn't feel normal. She went and changed into a pair of purple Juicy track pants and grabbed her jacket and drink bottle and headed for the door. As she exited, she looked around to see if she could spot anyone but she found she was alone. She took a few steps and she looked up at the semi-circle moon shrouded in a misty halo and knew it was a sign that a storm was coming, yet another thing she had learned from David one night on a beach walk together. There were some days where she felt like everything reminded her of him, no matter how much she tried to forget so she just continued to work and train, trying to quiet her mind and find peace.
She trotted down the path and just as she reached the corner to the car park she heard a noise and stopped, it was a sound she knew but couldn't place, and it left her cold with a tense feeling in her stomach. She turned her head but only heard silence and she shivered, knowing she had to leave, her instinct telling her to. Approaching her car, she did a 180 and surveyed her surroundings, scanning for any sound, light or movement because she didn't feel right and she'd learned to trust her instincts implicitly. She unlocked her car and got in, instantly locking it before she started up her car and left the parking lot, wondering if it was time to leave Santa Monica.