Let's get on with the angst!

The world is too heavy,

too big for my shoulders,

come take the weight off me, now.

Athlete, Rubik's Cube.

Grace spent another two afternoons with Rich before it went downhill. She was trying to repair her memory, but all she was doing was finding out more and more things that she couldn't remember. It was frustrating to say the least.

The second time Grace snuck out with Rich during her study period was to go to a metal store where Rich had worked at over the summer. Apparently they had spent a lot of time together there in the staff room. Grace had stared at the dingy, foul smelling staff room and crinkled her nose in disgust.

"What did we do in this room?" She gestured around her, as she spoke in a tone of disgust. Rich tried not to look disheartened by her reaction, but he failed miserably.

"Uhm… sit down there." Grace let out a little laugh in disbelief.

"Do I have to?" But she still went to sit down there. There was a loud creaking sound as she did so and her eyes widened as the noise startled her. Rich sat a little close to her and gestured at the small television opposite them.

"Uh… remember what we were doing now?" Grace closed her eyes even though it didn't help her remember at all.

"Watching movies." She shrugged her shoulders, as her memory failed her once again. She began to rub her temples in an attempt to get rid of the constant pain in her head. Rich nodded once.

"Right. Do you want to know what kind of movies or would that spoil the story?" There was an underlying layer of sarcasm in what Rich said that took Grace a moment to figure out. She let her arms fall to her side and blinked rapidly up at Rich in shock.

"I'm sorry, Richard. What? Don't you think this is frustrating for me too?" He looked like he regretted saying anything when Grace raised her voice in her irritation.

"Yeah, of course. I just…" The words 'I love you' were on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't want to risk ruining everything.

"Well, I think that's enough for today." She stood up rather abruptly and made her way to the door.

"Are we doing this again on Thursday, or what?" Rich had a slightly desperate edge to his voice, which made him want to kick himself, but he couldn't help it.

Grace sighed. Despite the fact that she now held a great dislike for Rich, she was growing slightly obsessed over finding out her past. Rich seemed to be the link to unlocking her memories, so she ultimately needed him.

"Yes… I can come after school before my ballet class." Rich was in the middle of following her out the door, but paused momentarily in shock.

"You're starting ballet again?"

"Yes. My Dad finally agreed to it, but I don't how good I will be now." They were on the street outside now and were slowly walking back to college. She couldn't hide the worry in her voice.

"You'll be great."

"I'm confused… What is this place exactly?" Grace was standing in a large open place, but couldn't see anything due to the lights being off. Rich was fiddling with the electricity in a far off corner. Grace played with her ballet skirt while waiting for Rich's response. She had decided to get changed straight after class in case the

"Uhm... You'll see!" Rich shouted back. He swore audibly a few times before the lights turned on. Grace squinted her eyes as she tried to adjust to the brightness.

A large stage stood before her and when she turned her head slightly she could see a bar, so she automatically assumed it was a club.

Rich was rather excited as he walked closer to Grace. She bit her lip, because none of this made sense to her.

"Did we come here before?" It seemed like the most logical question to ask.

"Yeah… for this." He reached into his pocket and took out two small pieces of paper. He walked closer to Grace and handed them to her. His hand stayed on hers for a moment too long and Grace pulled away quickly. She tried to focus on the tickets that she was now holding instead of the fact that Rich was staring intensely at her.

Her cheeks were flushed, because she felt something strange when their hands touched. It was like she could remember something… a feeling or just a moment in time.

"Napalm Death?" She was so sure she was mispronouncing it, as she had never seen these words before. Rich nodded with a stupid smile on his face.

"Get on the stage." He said. She turned to stare at him as if he was mad, but when he still nodded at her she went along with it. She heaved herself up on the stage and stood there stupidly with her arms hanging by her sides.

A song started playing, which she assumed was one of Napalm Death's and as she would've guessed they were a heavy metal band.

"You were really happy up there. Probably the happiest I've seen you." She gave an awkward smile at this comment and began to stare at her feet.

"What was I doing on the stage?" She asked quietly, then realized Rich probably couldn't hear her over the music, so she started to say it louder. "What was -"

"I heard you," Rich said, and then he let out a faint laugh. "I still don't know why you got up here in the first place."

She felt the curiosity for what she was doing on the stage in the middle of a gig overcome her and she desperately searched through her mind for the answer. She tried and tried until it felt like several minutes had passed. She felt angry tears running down her face. She felt someone holding onto her hand tightly and give her a little shake. She opened her eyes and saw Rich before her.

"Grace? What's wrong?" She pulled herself out of his grip and took a few paces away from him.

"This. This is what's wrong." He didn't reply, but turned slightly away from her and started scuffing his shoes against the floor. She took this as an opportunity to have a much-needed rant. "I'm trying so hard to remember and I just can't. I can't handle the disappointed looks I get when I don't remember something from you, my Dad and my friends. And I don't even know you!"

She took a sharp intake of breath when she said that, because it was mean. It was too late to take it back though. She hopped down from the stage then turned sharply back to Rich, who was still standing with clenched fists on the stage.

"My Dad said we weren't working and I believe him. We just don't match; we don't go together." She shut her mouth, as she knew only harsh words were going to come out of her mouth now. If she continued ranting her next point would be about the fact that she disliked Rich and only agreed to the meetings because she wanted to remember things.

"Your Dad is a fucking prick, Grace." He said with a complete deadpan expression. She jutted her chin out in complete annoyance.

"You don't have a right to say anything about my father. You don't know him."

"Uh, yes I do. You know him too." But Grace was already walking towards the door.

During her long walk to the exit she quickly ran through the things she said and she ended up wanting to slap herself.

It wasn't right her getting angry with him. All he was doing was trying to help her and all she was doing was using him. That needed to stop.

When she reached the door handle she turned around slowly.

"I'm sorry… We shouldn't do this anymore. Trying to make me remember is like trying to catch clouds in the sky; Impossible… Goodbye Rich." She didn't wait to see if he had a response and left out the door. He was left standing there on the stage with only a small hope that his Grace was still in there and would eventually remember everything about him. But it was the smallest amount of hope imaginable.

If only her memories came as easy to her as Ballet did she would already remember everything that happened to her in the past year.

The teacher had given her a small sympathetic look when Grace first entered the classroom, as if to say, 'You'll probably not be able to remember any of these steps' and some other girls had pointed at the still visible scars on the side of her face. She had blushed and nervously joined the others. To her surprise she was only faltering a little with the steps. When she saw the others performing the steps, she just seemed to remember all her moves.

Nothing worked as easy as ballet did, but that had always been the case for Grace.

As they were working on arabesques, the door opened and a handsome boy around the same age as Grace walked in. He looked out of breath and ran to join the other males in the class.

"Mr. Peters, you are very late." Her Ballet teacher announced, but the boy didn't look shameful at all.

"Yes, sorry about that." A few girls let out a little giggle at the fact that his tights had a whole in them. The teacher rolled her eyes and clapped her hands.

"Let's do some pair-work now! Practice pas de deux." Grace waited for one of the male students to join her and frowned when she realized it was most likely going to be the plump boy. Instead Peters strolled over to her and held a hand out to her.

"Liam Peters. I know it's boring, but if it was anything more flamboyant people definitely would think I was gay." She had an urge to ask, 'are you?', but the way he was looking at her was an indication he was not. She had problems with a boy in Ballet class before, who was actually gay but still lead Grace on. As she remembered this she decided to clarify.

"And are you?" He smirked, which gave him adorable dimples, and shook his head. She blushed and began to appreciate his good looks. He had sandy blonde hair and was muscular. He was kind of how she imagined all the Prince Charmings in the fairytales to look like.

"Your name?" He asked, as he tried to move her into the position to do a pirouette.

"Oh, you don't know?" Maybe he was new, which suited Grace just fine. She didn't want to explain that she couldn't remember things to yet another person she knew, or supposedly knew.

"Should I?" He asked, while breathing heavily on her neck as he turned her around slowly. She eventually was facing him once more and she saw he was giving his smirk again.

"Grace Violet." She had always preferred using Violet to Blood.

"Beautiful name." His eyes fell on the light scars on her face, but he didn't ask about it, which once again Grace was thankful for.

After class he walked her back to her house and they spent a long time discussing movies and theatre and of course Ballet. He was becoming the escape that she needed from the real world, kind of like Ballet. When she was walking with him she could pretend she hadn't had an accident and she didn't have a boyfriend she couldn't remember and that she just generally couldn't remember things over a one-year period.

He was her Prince Charming coming to take her away from reality and she was enjoying it completely.

Okay, so when I was writing this I totally imagined Liam looking like Joe Cole (Luke in Skins 6).

Next chapter I will do a special mention for the people who have been reviewing, because I'll be halfway through the fic! :'( I really do appreciate all your kind words about the fic and I almost definitely still wouldn't be writing this if I didn't have you guys to motivate me!

Oh, and if any of you want to cry a lot over hardlet, I suggest you look up the videos: dance on our graves and if you are a ghost – my official song for them right now. They are both beautiful.

TheCheeryCherry