Easy

"Pink." Cody Evans said with a faint hint of disgust and amusement in his velvet voice. "Of all the colors in the world, you chose to dye your hair pink." He pinched a lock of her hair in his fingers as it blew in the wind.

Amber Bay knocked his hand away from her head. "It's not pink." She pulled her hand through her hair, which now was cropped up to her ears. "It's red at the top and orange near the bottom, underneath the layers, stupid. You'd think a vampire with suck keen sight could see that." Amber said defensively.

For a moment she thought of why she did this in the first place. It wasn't that hard to figure out really. She hated looking at herself in the mirror, seeing the girl that had left him, seeing the girl he used to love. She thought it she changed her appearance that maybe it would hurt just a fraction less. If anything it hurt worse since every time she saw herself now, she thought of why she changed her look in the first place.

"Ah so it's for Jonathan is it?" Cody said softly, keeping in stride with her as she walked across the campus of Purdue University. "It has always been about that boy."

"No." Amber snapped a little too quickly, bring a smile from Cody. He obviously was satisfied with her pain. In fact it looked like it gave him joy, but that was no surprise to her. Ever since he intruded at Kenton Ridge High School five years ago, Amber knew that he reveled in any pain of sorrow. It seemed like it kept him alive somehow. "I did this for me. I need a change. Is that a crime?"

"Why do you keep lying to yourself? You can admit that you still love the boy."

Amber looked away from Cody's face, feeling her face flush and tears sting her eyes. She fought desperately to keep them back. After five years of controlling her emotions she was able to stop the tears and put on a passive face. "There's no point because I'll never see him again."

"Oh how right you are, my dear." Cody slid his arm around her shoulder, making curious students glance at her with hatred.

She sighed. Her reputation here was famous. Of course it followed her wherever she went. Amber wasn't strong enough to stop the addiction, nor did she really even want to. Drugs, like before her mom died, made her feel safe. They let her forget about the hurt for a while so she could relax and see the world in a new light. The drugs, as she found out again, were very expensive and seeing as she didn't have a job anymore, she had to find a way to make money. This was where her life became worse. To make money for the drugs she sold her body. Amber entered prostitution willingly. At first she could understand how he could not give up the sex with so many girls, but after it while it began to be routine and she began to truly hate her life.

Amber went through hospitals, rehabs, isolation and even went to jail a few times for her obsession. She would get clean for a month at the place but the night they let her out, she went straight to the alleys she knew best and purchased whatever she could with the little money she had. She remembered the fear of getting pregnant. She pictured an image of his mother, how she died because of his birth. Amber didn't want to die like that so she went to the hospital and made sure she could never have children.

There was no one she could have them with anyway. She didn't want some man's one night stand baby and there was no way she could ever fall in love again. She could hardly stand looking at herself; who would look at her like he used to?

It was a year and two months after she left Ohio and began the drugs that she saw how fast her body was deteriorating. She had lost entirely too much weight, there were dark circles under her eyes, and she felt so weak that some days she never got out of bed. Amber had never felt so helpless in her life, but for some reason she didn't stop what she was doing. When she was high, she forgot anything that had once caused her pain. She dreamed of him, of how their life would have ended if Cody hadn't of caused her to leave. She didn't really regret leaving other than how her life was now. As long as Cody didn't kill him and he was still alive and healthy, she would still make the same decision over and over again.

"Forget about them, love. They're jealous of your beauty." Cody said, holding her closer.

Amber shoved away from him. "Don't call me that." She wanted to snort at him for saying she was beautiful. No one had called her that in a while-not since him anyway. She hasn't been beautiful for a long time and she was sure she never would be again.

"I'll call you whatever I want." He threatened. "Or else."

"That's not part of the deal." She said, agitated. She was tired of Cody's games. But it seemed like after all this time he wasn't done playing.

"My games, my rules." He said, probing her mind of her thoughts. It angered her every time he entered her mind. She wished she could somehow shut down, put a wall in her mind and keep him out. But she had no powers which meant that there was no escaping his constant vigilance.

This brought something to her attention. "Why are you here?" Cody had never stayed with her for this long. He would pop in for a few hours, sometimes while she was "working" and paid her for whatever she could give him. That's probably what disgusted her the most about Cody. He was a monster. He took whatever he wanted.

"Am I not allowed to visit?"

"No."

Cody laughed, bells echoing through her ears. "Still as feisty as ever. You never lost your spunk, Amber. I like that."

"Go to Hell." That was another thing that had changed about her, she noticed. She remembered that she didn't like to curse, but she now found herself cursing all the time, even when it wasn't needed.

"I just wanted to keep an eye on you is all." he said innocently.

"Cody, it's been five years. I haven't tried to go back yet. You and I both know that I'm never going back." Amber admitted sadly, pushing some hair behind her ears.

Amber walked up the stairs to her History class. She had only been here a few months since first starting this college and she still felt the same nervousness when she took her seat every day. Her grades weren't good, but they weren't bad either. She knew she could never play volleyball again like she used to in high school. Her life was almost over anyway. The only reason she went to college now was that Cody agreed he would pay for it and she thought it would take her mind off of him. It had worked because she was too stressed about work to even think of her old life.

"I'll be waiting for you when you get out." Cody let go of her hand as she opened the door.

Of course you will be, she thought. She wondered about her chances of slipping through the bathroom window and then darting to her dorm room, but she knew that Cody would catch her before she even thought of how she would do it. He was smart like that. Of course anyone who could read minds would be smart like that.

As she took her seat in the back like normal, she put on her passive face again. To everyone else it would look like her life was easy, that she had no problem doing what she was doing. To them it would seem like she knew what she was doing and she liked every part of it. But nothing was easy to her anymore. Not one aspect of her life made it easy. It seemed like everything she did made it harder for herself. But she didn't let it show. She lied to herself by saying that it was easy to move on from him, when no one but Cody knew how hard it was. She was sure he hated her by now which almost made it easier, but not really.

Her heart broke as she pictured his face.

Jonathan.

She cried silently in the back of the class and went straight to the bathroom after to clean up her face. She was sure Cody knew that she had cried, but she was not going to show weakness because of it. She wasn't going to show him anything. Not anymore.