My body is throbbing with impact from the fall, but as I hear the crash of the ocean waves just off to my left, I know that I've made it. I roll over, spitting sand out of my mouth, and check my body over to make sure I'm in one piece. I don't honestly know how I was able to teleport this far out, teleport to the lake where I had fun splashing around with Damien and my roommates after freshman orientation last year.

It all seemed so much simpler back then, back when I was just getting to know everyone and I assumed that everyone was good and wanted to be my friend. I look around to make sure no one else is around, but the beach is deserted, the woody forest keeping me separate from the road and the houses that lay beyond. I was alone now.

I try to get up, but my legs ache and I just allow myself to fall. This isn't fair, none of it's fair. My parents are gone. They've forgotten me. It's done. It's over. I've known this for a while now, but I'm surprised by how much it still stings. If Damien hadn't compelled my memories away, I wouldn't have done it. That's what I want to say, but I can't be sure. I don't even know who I am. Did my feelings for Hieronymous make me different somehow? Was I different before I lost my memories? Was I different after?

I think back to the memories that Potsdam had restored in her office. I remember kissing Professor Grabiner to see if he would break his vows for me. Granted I didn't know he was married to me at the time, but I still saw it as a risk he was taking to lose his magic. And Minnie, she was sworn to an oath of secrecy to prevent her from telling me anything. If she had revealed anything to me, she would have lost her magic. And I didn't even think about that. I was so busy trying to figure out what was going on with me that I didn't even care.

I always thought that Hieronymous wasn't really a nice person, bullying students and picking on them in class. But he was the nice one. He spent all this time trying to protect me, regardless of my feelings for him. And I risked Minnie's life, and his life too, kind of. Did I just use people to get what I wanted? I think back to my roommates. I hadn't really paid much attention to them lately. I didn't trust them with anything that was happening to me, and somehow their lives had ended up in danger because of it. Why didn't I tell them?

My first thought is that I didn't have a choice. But I did have a choice. I could have trusted them. I could have told them. Even when Tommy was stalking me, I still didn't tell anybody about it. Did I really want no one to know? Or did I think nobody would care? Maybe Hieronymous wasn't the only one afraid of getting hurt. Maybe I was just as bad as he was, shutting myself off from the outside world so I wouldn't have to deal with anyone or anything.

I remember how miserable and alone I felt after the whole school found out that I was married to Professor Grabiner. But now no one knew. The whole school had forgotten that we were married, and no one would need to remind them, because by the end of the month it would be over. I wouldn't be anyone's wife; I wouldn't be anyone's friend. I would mean nothing to anybody. And the worst part was that I couldn't have gone home for the summer and get away even if I wanted to now. I was alone, stuck here. Stuck facing Professor Grabiner on campus for at least the next two years, having to deal with his rejection again and again and again-

I crawl a little ways towards the water and pick up a rock in my hand. I hold it out in front of me and smash it into pieces with my mind, tearing it apart until it crushed itself into a fine powder that ran through my fingers. The rain was starting to come down around me harder now, or maybe I was just more aware of it, feeling it soaking my hair to my skin. I pushed it out of my eyes and kneeled at the water's edge, staring out at the ocean in front of me.

I try to scream. It came out only as a choked sob at first, but I scream again, feeling it burn my throat. I scream a third time, sucking in my stomach and using all the air from my diaphragm. It wasn't fair. Damien had targeted me because I had rejected him, because apparently he had been trying to steal my soul. And because of that I lost my parents, because of that I lost my friends, because of that, I lost Hieronymous. That last one stung worst of all, not just because of how back-and-forth my emotions were over him the past few months, but because I honestly expected him to understand what I was going through and be there for me. But he didn't. He didn't understand.

"I'm not her." I scream at the ocean. I don't even know what I mean by that; it just sort of came out. But it's true though, isn't it? He didn't want to be with me anymore because he had watched her die. And then he thought he had watched me die, and it sent him down that dark spiral all over again. But that's not the whole story, either. I saw the anger in his eyes. She died twelve years ago, but he still loved her in ways he couldn't love me. I saw the words he didn't say. He wanted to say that he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with her, and since he couldn't, he wanted to do it alone. My marriage to him was nothing more than an accident. I was never going to be able to convince him to stay with me. I was a pleasant distraction for him, but I was never going to be anything more.

There feels like there is so much truth in my thoughts that I bite into my sleeve to keep from crying out again, but the tears flow just the same. I try to pick back through all of my memories, one at a time, trying to catalog each one to make sure they're all still there. I don't know what the rest of my life is going to be like. Will I have to do this every morning, picking through the worst parts of my life to make sure that I haven't forgotten anything? To make sure no one took anything from me? Am I going to have to relive losing my parents, my friends, Hieronymous in the space of a few months again and again and again?

I can forget, I know that. I can ask Potsdam to erase it. All of it. I can get her to send me into the world again and then I won't have to remember magic or Hieronymous –

You don't forget the people you're in love with. That's why he never erased his memories of Violet, it's because he knew he would still be in love with her anyway. He'd forget her face, he'd forget her name, but he would never forget how he felt about this shadow lurking in the depths of his memory.

And that would be me, I realize, if I tried to forget him. I would always be left with a nagging, persistent memory. And I could be sure of that, now, because I had had my memory shielded, and I still remembered him. I still remembered my feelings for him. So, in twelve years, would I be exactly like him? Stuck in the past, afraid to move on? Would I find someone? Would I force myself to love them? Or would I just pretend to? Is that what had happened to me? Was I just a cheap substitute for him to latch onto after Violet? Was he trying to do me a favor by letting me go?

I try to yell again, but my throat aches and my cheeks burn from the tears. It's stupid to be out here, on a beach, in the middle of a rainstorm, but I don't have the power to teleport back right now. I lie on my back and stare up at the sky. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to deal with this. I don't even know all the answers yet. Had Tommy been a real person? Had he been some sweet young child, excited to head to Iris Academy and learn magic, only to be brutally murdered by Damien to get close to me? Was what he told me true? Did he really have two little brothers at home? Who was going to tell them that their brother was dead?

Idly I think back to Violet and wonder if she had any brothers or sisters. I wonder if she had made the decision to let her parents go. Is that why he mourned her so heavily? Was he afraid that if he didn't, that if he let her go, no one would be left to mourn her and she would be forgotten? Or did someone carve into him so heavily that it was his fault that it was branded onto his conscious forever?

I lie on my back in the rain, just feeling sorry for myself. Hating Damien for everything he did to me, hating Hieronymous for turning his back on me, hating myself for everything that I could control and everything that I couldn't. I wonder idly if I could just lie out here forever. It would be nice, it would be quiet. I wouldn't have to explain to anyone how I had lost my memories, how I had been stripped of the very experiences that made me, well, me. I could just lie here and feel sorry for myself for the rest of my life and no one would force me to be accountable for anything.

I can see why Hieronymous does it now. It's nice. It's quiet, aside from the raindrops crashing into the lake beside me. It stirs a memory deep within me, one that I know that no one has touched, no one has seen. I was about ten years old at the time, and I was so excited to go to the beach for my birthday party. But there were heavy storms that week, and my parents called it off. I was devastated. I refused to come out of my room. I screamed, I threw tantrums, and eventually on the day of my birthday, my parents packed me in the car and we drove three hours to the beach and they sat outside with me in the rain and celebrated my birthday with me, building sandcastles that looked like giant puddles of mud and splashing through the frozen waves. We all got incredibly sick afterwards, but it was one of the happiest times of my life.

My eyes blur with raindrops or tears, I'm not sure which. I had let go of them. I didn't have to, but I had let go of them. I could never remind them of that memory; they had forgotten it. As bitter as I am about my violated memories, I had violated theirs just the same. I close my eyes. I wish they were here with me now. I wish my mother was here to sing me a lullaby when I couldn't sleep like she had years before Hieronymous had given me a stone that linked me to his heartbeat.

I try to remember it, some old melodic Irish folk song. I try to hum it to myself, trying to remember the words, but they don't come. I let the raindrops fall against my parted lips as I close my eyes and force myself to remember every happy and painful memory that I've ever had. It feels like I'm tearing myself apart at the seams, but the pain, the fear, the loss, the confusion, it's mine, and I don't want to let go of it. I had lost it all once, and as painful as it was to remember, I didn't want to forget. Not again.