The wind tore sharply and painfully at my bare skin. My dress; my beautiful velvet violet dress, skimming down to my knees, was extinguished in filthy dirt. It blew violently along my olive skin, seeming to wave in sink with my aphotic red hair.

The cold was deadly, it was one of those days where the iciness seemed to p*censored* right through your skin as if it was an open door, and find its way into your bones. I shuddered, crossing my arms across my chest to keep warm.

The cemetery did not scare me. In fact, it seemed as if this gray and lifeless place was my sanctuary; my way of escaping life and having the chance to recreate it. Graves perched stilly over the gr*censored*. I occasionally had to step over a few of them.

            And that’s when I saw it.

I quickened my pace without thought; all the violent winds and life threatening coldness seemed to fade away into the dark clouds that hung above me. I leaned forward, dumbly thinking that that would somehow bring me closer. Collapsing near the grave, I breathed steadily yet peacefully as rain began to pour down angrily. Droplets of water ran down my shoulders, arms, and any other skin that was bare.

            I ran my hand along the gravestone, concentrating on the roughness and hardness of the rock, and yet how it seemed so smooth and gentle. Probably how they were, I supposed.

“Why can’t I remember you?” I asked the grave helplessly. My only response was the whistle of the wind.

Numbness washed over me; I no longer felt cold, or wet, or confused. Just empty. My head was filled with nothing and my feet were no longer playing silently along the damp mud. I was as still as a rock, sitting without moving, and breathing without making any noise. I slowly traced the indents of the words, believing that touching them would have more of an effect than reading them.

I heard a slamming car door and jerked my hand away from the grave as if it were on fire. “Audrina!” Drake yelled. I looked over my shoulder to see him standing at the front gate, looking as breathtaking as always. “What are you doing here?” He rushed over to me, seeming to ignore the fact that it was pouring.

I slouched down farther into the mud. “Nothing, just…. Trying to renaissance.”

Drake stood beside me, looking solemn and emotionless. “Why would you run off like that? Everyone is worried about you.”

Suddenly I felt it: the cold, the wind, the rain bucketing down on me. My dress was soaked and my legs were piled with mud. But yet, I didn’t want to go.

“Come on, Audrina, let’s go home.” He reached out his hand for me but I refused to take it.

“No,” I said stubbornly, like a young child, “I want to stay here.”

He glared at me through his deep brown eyes. “Why would you want to stay in this creepy cemetery? Let’s go, I don’t have much time and you’re holding me up.”

I shook my head and stood up. My body felt heavy and my head was spinning. “I like it here, I feel safe. I want to stay here forever. And if I’m holding you up, you might as well just leave.”

Drake grabbed my hand without any affection. “Just come,” he demanded quietly.
”It’s freezing and we’ll get sick. You can come back later, or something.” I guess he could feel the defeat in my hand, because suddenly we were striding through the cemetery. I was walking almost backwards, my gaze locked on my parents’ grave, moving farther and farther away. I didn’t like the feeling; the feeling of being ripped and torn away from the only thing I might ever know.

“I wanted to stay,” I complained to him as we slid into his car.

Drake looked as if he were going to rip apart the black interior. “Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we!”  His voice was so harsh and furious that more goose bumps rose up my arms and I sunk down as low as I could in my seat.

He looked over at me and his face softened. His voice did to. “Listen, I’m sorry I was so harsh with you. I just…. I have a lot going on. No one knew where you were and everyone was insanely worried.”

“It’s alright,” even though it really wasn’t, “I can kind of be a pain.”

He put the car in drive and began moving up the narrow road. We were the only car, and the only sounds were the patter of the rain and the windshield wipers. I could feel Drake’s intensity growing stronger.

“Aren’t we all?”

I knew it was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer him. But I did not want to stop talking.

“Have you ever felt,” I began, not quite sure where I was going. But then again, I never did. I just allowed my thoughts to surrender into spoken words. “Like you were so close to something? Like, it was in reach of your hands, and all you had to do was reach out and grab it. But suddenly, as you’re about to catch it in your palms, it becomes like a ghost, you go right through it?”

Drake’s lips became a thin, straight line. “Yes, I suppose.”

I ringed out my dress, watching some of the liquid fall on the floor. “Do you like it?”

“Of course not, no one does.” His voice was so persistent, as if he were answering facts rather than opinions.

“Imagine feeling like that all the time, Drake. I feel like that every friggin second of the day. And sometimes, you know, I just can’t take it anymore. I would rather be afraid of the truth then left wondering what it is. I hate how nobody tells me, I hate how I’m treated like a baby, I hate that I’m forced to create my own images of everything that has ever happened!” I paused to take a deep, aggravated breath. “So tell me, Drake, what did happen to me? Fill in the parts that I can’t remember.”

“No,” he spoke flatly.

“Why not? Why can’t I know my own business?”

“Because.”

I groaned and stomped my foot on the carpet hard. “Ughh! Tell me! It’s my life, I deserve to know about it! You have no right to keep that from me! You can never-”

Drake stopped the car and looked at me through hate filled, enraged eyes. “God da*n it, Audrina! You don’t have the slightest clue of what you’re talking about!”

“Yes I do-”

“No!” His voice was ferocious, it reminded me of a tiger’s roar before it devoured its pray. And me, I felt like the innocent, helpless pray who wanted nothing but justice. “You don’t! Stop pretending like you’re supposed to know everything when you’re not supposed to know anything at all! All right? So, just shut the hell up and go on with your perfect, little world, and stop trying to mess everything up!”

“It’s bad,” I said blankly to the windshield. All my anger and provoke suddenly disappeared. “It’s really bad, isn’t it? What happened to me, Drake, it’s not what they told me. Julia lied to me. She lied because my past is too horrible to repeat. And you, and everyone else, Patrick, Samara, Jasmine, lied to me so I wouldn’t have to be afraid. So what, you decided to let me roam around this planet not even knowing who I am?”

Drake looked at me intently, as if I were a puzzle he just figured out. His eyes roamed me for a moment, before he gently took his damp finger and stroked the scar on my left shoulder. It was just as red as the day I met him. “I don’t like lying to you, Audrina,” he whispered, still tracing my cut, “Believe me, I don’t. But if the truth is worse than lying, than lying is all you can do. We’re trying to protect you-”

“By leaving me helpless?”

“No. We’re trying to leave you unafraid. You wouldn’t like what you would hear, and it would cause no benefit. Everyone wants you to feel safe. Time will heal everything.”