Authors Notes: I'm not sure whether or not this will work, because originally I decided this was to be a standalone. This next little bit twists my original idea and takes it off in a completely different direction, which is why I'm a bit wary about posting it. So please let me know what you think.

Thank you to all those who reviewed: Becky, Christi, Katie, Brookestar, me, Kitty and Nikki. It's so great to know that people actually read what I write, and even better when I get to read such nice reviews. Thank you :)

~*~

Chapter 2 ~ Where I find Myself

It's nightfall.

It's night and it's cold and it's hard and I'm crying for him. The wind rattles the windows, resonates through my body. I'm alone. Exposed.

Sheets twist themselves around me, damp with sweat. I can't breathe. Cardiac tamponade, but blankets instead of blood, and not only my heart, my whole body. I'm confused, disorientated. My eyes are sticky from sleep, hair tousled and matted from unconscious wriggling.

Everything is black. Bleak black.

Sobs cause my chest to convulse. I can't control them. Wave, after wave of pent up emotion escaping in angry tears until I realise that I am screaming, not shouting. But I can't stop. I don't want to stop. So I wait and I listen for a few seconds, though it seems like an eternity.  My throat burns with a fiery urgency, as I succumb to reality.

I've had that dream again.  That ever-frightening dream, and now awake and bathed in the cold midnight air I breathe hoarsely, deeply. It's calmer now. There's just a silence. Like the ones we used to share.

My throat aches, my voice is but a painful whisper. A reminder, it forces me to swallow and I shiver, unsure of what to do, what to think. It was only a dream, but while there it felt like reality. Now I'm still alone, but left wallowing in it's icy aftertaste. I've got to deal with it, forget about it, put it behind me and move on. I've got to be strong to survive.

I don't know if I can do this. I'm tired, so exhausted I feel weak. I want to sleep, I need to sleep, but all I see when I close my eyes is his grave, and I feel loneliness like a shroud hang loosely around my shoulders.

I wish it would all just go away.

~*~

I position my face carefully – strategically – one might say, over the rim of the cup so that it is gently warmed by the rising steam. Caffeine, a good friend at a late hour. I've wrapped the blanket snugly around me so that only my hands and face remain uncovered. My bed is neglected in favour of the couch. I stare at the television because I'm facing it. It's switched off.

I dare to begin my analysis. Cautious, but determined all the while. I need to know where this image comes from, why it comes. I don't understand it and what I don't understand I fear. Perhaps I'll delve deeper. God knows I'm good with the relevant terminology. I've seen how shrinks work, been watching them all my life – with scepticism.

Somewhere inside I'm a passionate person. I've Maggie's genes, maybe some of her creativity has rubbed off on me.

I've hated people before.

I've hated them with a passion.

Maybe hate is too strong a word. But why say dislike when such a word exists?

I've loathed them, their actions and what they stand for. People whose very presence is caustic -  poison ivy to my skin, an unrelenting tangle of irritants. Those with whom I noticeably cringe from the screeching of clenched teeth as I drown, washed into submission by the fast flowing torrents of false smiles we exchange.

Richard.

Even now I still roll the 'r' with violent ferocity, building up momentum slowly until the time comes when I can spit his name out with great force. It's no longer punishment for his crimes, merely old habit turned reflex. Or so I let myself believe.

In my mind I've set about trying to think of ways that I could truly hurt him, anything that I could do to make him miserable – actions that I would never carry out, but that while in my thoughts made me feel better.

What Richard did was betrayal, callous and cold, but much as I wanted to see him suffer, or rather have imagined him suffer, I've never visited his grave. Not once, and certainly not like that.

It should have been him if it should have been anyone at all.

Not Carter.

It's a sin to think such thoughts. I'm a bad person. It's evil to wish such things. Except I didn't wish them. I didn't even realise that it wasn't real, until I woke up.

I miss him.

I miss him like I miss the childhood I never had. But he's not dead. I just can't call him mine anymore.

~*~

Sunlight prevails in the dead of morning. My coffee cup lies on it's side, tossed carelessly on the floor empty. Beside it the blanket lies in a crumpled heap. I'm at the window, looking out but seeing nothing. I do not notice the children playing in the street below. Their laughter informs me of their existence. It penetrates my thoughts, unfitting background noise.

On the table beside my half-eaten bowl of cereal lies a magazine, thrust open on one tattered dog-eared page.

Dream Interpretation.

The words scream out at me from the page and for a moment I shut my eyes in resistance. I see everything once again, clearly in a hurried flash.

That vast openness. My body is warm from the rays of sunshine, but inside I'm cold with the burning sensation of the white snow. I'm frozen. My cheek are wet as tears flow freely dotting the magazine below as they drip from my face. A graveyard of tears staining commercial glossiness. 

For all it's haziness it feels real. For all it's awfulness it hurts like only the truth can. Except it's a lie. A falsity fabricated by my own subconscious. I need a shower, but I know that no amount of hot water can wash away my disgust. I feel dirty, unclean. I can't concentrate.

It was real, so real, but it's not and I'm torn. Caught somewhere between disbelief and disdain. The sisters voice still rings clear in my head as she explained in gnarly nunnish tones what happens to those girls who think such atrocities.

I'm one of them. And even though years have passed I can still remember the fear I felt as a ten year old, fidgeting with the collar of my old school uniform.

I slam the magazine shut, but paper doesn't make satisfactory noise so I throw it to the ground and kick it as far away as I can. My tears have stopped but they're still there, waiting to catch me off guard again.

I can't decide what makes me feel worse. The fact that I have such thoughts, or the way that I feel when I find myself on my knees before his cold grave – alone and abandoned, though he's really left some other girl behind.

I shake with the emptiness, am nauseated by the sense of loss, the feeling that I can't go on because he's taken me with him. I've run away from things a thousand times before, but walking as I turn my back on him is something I can barely manage. Something I don't want to manage, because I'm closer to him with my head on the grass. Life goes on, but in that moment I want only for it to stop.

I can't explain it. I don't know why. 

I thought I'd grown as a person in the four months since we've gone our separate ways, moved on in leaps I'd never dreamed were possible when I was with him. I'm obviously wrong in that respect, much as I don't want to be. Some people are hard to let go of. He must be one of them.

I curl myself up into a ball on the floor, reaching for the comfort of the blanket. There's nothing there, nothing left to dissect. All I can do is shut my eyes and bite my lip, rewind and play my feelings again and again on the old, dusty cinema reel and pray.

Pray to God that tonight I'll visit a different place.

And not be left behind.

~*~

Comments: Umm, wanted to say this at the beginning but thought it might spoil things -  I'm not a big fan of the whole 'And then they all woke up and it was only a dream' type of story because I see it as a means of writing something that you don't mean and then taking an easy way out for a happy ending, shirking the consequences of what was written originally in a sense. So I want to say I don't mean to dodge the content of the first chapter I just thought it would be interesting (or different) to go in this direction, and if it turns out bad, well then the first chapters still a standalone :) 

Thank you for reading. Comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated.