AN: The whole of this is based off one line in an absolutley amazing song called "Thunder" by a band called Boys Like Girls.

She sat on the edge of the wooden park bench, the icy wind almost burning as it whipped against her body. Her red hair flying around her head like a ring of fire. The cigarette in her right hand was burning dangerously close to her fingers now, the deliciously soft smoke rising slowly into the air.

Across the field, a single brown leaf fell silently to the ground. Coming apart from the frail branches, and for a moment it was free, the wind carrying it, taking it away from the place it had called home. All until the pull of gravity was too much, and it sank slowly to the floor, littered with hundreds of other leaves, all fallen to the same fate.

So much like her. She wasn’t always an empty shell. There was a time when she wasn’t this broken ghost of a woman. She was free, for a fleeting moment in time, she was free. Before the pull of reality dragged her down. Sometimes, those times were hard to remember. They seemed almost dream-like, but they were real.

Before he came and broke her.

------

The setting for their hurricane romance was completely flawless. Everything was perfectly placed. The air was thick with the scent of summer and the sun beat its relentless rhythm hard onto their bodies as they lay on the grass, and whisper of the cool wind brushing over their shoulders and through their hair.

She raised her head slightly and turned onto her stomach to get a better view of the boy lying next to her. He had her his closed, his long eyelashes fanned against the smooth skin of cheek and his head titled back towards the sun. His dirty blonde hair splayed recklessly around his head, almost like an off-centre halo.

“Kari…”And when he said her name it sent violent tremors through her whole body. Her heart pounding at a thousand beats a second, hammering so hard she almost feared it would break her ribs.

“Yeah?” Only had ever been able to make her voice like that. The way it appeared only as a breathy whisper, hardly even spoken at all.

“C’mere.” He raised one of his eyelids and gave her a glimpse of her favourite this about him, his eyes.

She used to hate brown eyes, the reminded her too much of her own. Plain and boring, so much like everyone else’s. But she loved his eyes and the way they would change colour with his emotion.

When he was excited, a brilliant corona of gold would appear around the pupil, and even more sparkle would show. This happened when he laughed, and it was made even more amazing when she was that one that made him laugh.

When sleep set in and he grew calm, his eyes would lighten. The warm black-brown turning almost amber. His pupil would dilate, and they turned dull. This look usually showed itself as they lay on the grass together, and she loved it.

She didn’t know it at the time, but when he was angry a ring of green would emerge from the outer ring of the iris. She would only see this once in that whole summer they spent together, and it both amazed and disturbed her at the same time, shaking her right to her core. Beautiful and terrifying all in one breath.

She nodded and slid closer to him, the warmth from his chest heating her even further as he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her even closer. His breath tickling as it hit the back of her neck. She pressed back against him even harder and rested the back of her head against his shoulder.

“Kari…” He whispered, moving his fingertips in circular motions against her stomach. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Hmm…” She answered him, relaxing under his touch.

“I think I love you.”

------

And she had believed him. Like the complete fool she was. She had fallen for the smile, and the sincere eyes. Fallen for the lies, constructed to lure her even further in. He led right into his spider-web world, and she had followed willingly. Onto to be eaten at the end of it. No one listening as she screamed for help, it was too late.

She realised the burning sensation on her fingers as the cigarette burnt down to low and she threw it. Without even thinking reached into her jeans pocket for another and took a long drag, feeling the wave of calm wash over her. This is was the closet she’d felt to control in months and even if it were artificial, she’d take it.

It’s not like anything was truly real anymore anyway. Nothing. Love, life, happiness… none of it was reality. Just a daydream that we all liked to indulge in from time to time, harmless really. The danger came when you mistook the daydream for real life. Your head got clouded with thoughts of an ideal world and a fairytale romance where he was the prince and she was the princess and they lived happily ever after.

A small bitter laugh escaped her, pushing up from her throat. She could she now how fucking stupid she’d been. How naïve. She took another long drag and scuff the top of her right Chuck Taylor covered foot into the dirt.

And she’d been even stupider to not see it coming, rushing wildly towards her from the horizon. A huge, black monster, and she’d been too blinded to even notice. Her eyes so fixed on him that she’d hadn’t even though to look up every now and then. She was drowning in him, and she didn’t even care. The water was warm and readily, she dived below, straight into the belly of the beast.

-----

“Eric?”

The lights flashed around her as the swarm of bodies moved together. Bumping and grinding furiously, sweat rising into the heavy air around her. The bass line, pounded hard into her chest from the speakers and the front of the room that was too small for this amount of people.

“Eric?”

Somehow in the riot, her grip on his hand had loosened too much and he had slipped away. Of into the mess of writing teenagers, all of them seeking the same release.

“Eric?”

She knew it was useless; her throat was raw from shouting futilely. The music was too loud and too commanding for anyone but herself to hear her pleas. And nobody would care even if they, all too far-gone into the fog of the induced euphoria.

She stood on tiptoes to see over the crowd, searching for a way out of this chaos. A door on the left hand side of the room came into view and she started moving towards it, pushing through the current of bodies.

The hallway was a different world all together, couples lining the walls, pressing each other hard into the plaster. More people stood talking, drinks in their hands and others trading pills and powder.

Scanning the faces for anyone she knew the face of, or anyone that might’ve seen Eric. Her eyes came to rest on the boy stood closest to the door at the front of the house. His brown hair falling into his hazel eyes, a cocky smirk emerging at the corner of his mouth.

His name was Kyle O’Connor, well known ladies man and Eric’s best friend.

“Kyle!” His head shot up when he heard his name, and when he saw who it was his face softened. All of Eric’s friends had developed a soft spot for Kari.

“Hey.” He called back, and started to walk over to her, slinging his right arm around her shoulders protectively. “What’s up Kar?”

She smiled up at him, “You seen Eric?”

His face darkened for a moment, to quick for her to notice it. His eyes turning almost black and his smile fading from his face, jaw clenched and brow furrowed. Before he remembered who he was with and shook it off.

“I dunno… not seen him in a while…” He trailed off, not wanting to explain anymore, scared for the girl at his side. She was too pure, too innocent, and too fragile. Not ready for this yet.

She slipped out from under his arm; confusion masking her sweet features and his heart went out to her.

“I’ll check upstairs…” Her perfect voice was tainted with resignation and disappointment. It was the stumble before the free-fall, the crack before the break.

And we watched with knowing eyes as she turned her back to him and began her journey up the steps. He didn’t even call out to stop her, she had to do this and he knew it. If she didn’t see this now, it would just be worse father down the line.

One last look at her tiny frame disappearing behind the bodies standing on the stairs and he turned back around to his friends behind him.

-----

For a long time she hated Kyle for letting her go that night. Why hadn’t he stopped her? He knew. She knew he did. Yet he didn’t stop her from going up the stairs. He just watched as she walked clueless into the trap. For so long she didn’t understand why he didn’t just shout her name and tell her that Eric was probably in the kitchen or distracting her by talking to her. For so long she hated him.

But now she understood.

If anyone else had told her about it, she never would’ve believed them. Their voice would’ve stayed in her mind, whispering the words to her all the time, but she never would’ve truly believed them. Because Eric was… he was Eric. And he would never do anything to hurt her. He’d told her that himself, and she believed him.

Fool.

She dug her baby pink nails into the palm of her left hand as she took another long drag, breathing the intoxicating smoke as far as she could manage.

Fool.

She shifted uncomfortably on the wooden bench, keeping her eyes staring dead ahead of her, at the leaves on the ground, and the bare and empty tree branches. She didn’t trust herself to look anywhere different.

Fool.

-----

“Kari!” He jumped to his feet, looking around the room frantically, searching for a plausible excuse in his mind. But it was too late. She’d seen it herself and it was too late now.

She didn’t move though, stood frozen in the doorway, unable to make her feet move. No matter how much her mind was screaming at them to run, run away.

“Kari…” And even as he moved towards her with pleading eyes, they were their normal colour now. That warm dark brown. Trying to incite to, trying to draw her in. She closed her own eyes to block them out. She shook her head.

An electric shot ran through her whole being as his arm touched her shoulder and her eye snapped open and she jumped back like she’d been burnt.

“Don’t touch me.” Her voice was hard now, venom dripping from each syllable. Every word hitting him like a tonne of bricks.

“Kari…” But she wasn’t looking at him; she stared at the girl in the room, behind him. She had thick platinum blonde hair, clear blue eyes and a flawless figure. She looked down at herself. She was too skinny, too bony, she had red hair and her eyes were a dull grey. She could never compare.

She shook her head and a tear fell silently down her check, burning its path into her skin.

She wasn’t what he wanted.

“Please, Kari…”

And she ran. Out the doorway, down the stairs, past Kyle who stared after her, out of the house and down the street. She didn’t stop running there. She kept on running, adrenaline coursing violently through her bloodstream and she didn’t stop running until the sun came up.

-----

A single tear escaped her eye and she watched as it fell as splashed on the ground.

Eric.

His voice was the soundtrack to her summer.

She loved him. Truly, madly, deeply. She loved him with everything that she was. But it wasn’t enough. Love isn’t made for this world. Humans were not programmed to feel feelings so strong; they were made to destroy, to kill. And that’s what they are best at doing.

She threw her cigarette to the dusty floor and stamped it out with her left foot.

But summer was a long time ago…