before:

The truck was filled to the brim with plush blankets and pillows, all set for the spectacle.

The telescope perched in the dusty grime gave access to the meteor shower that would light up the darkened Los Angeles sky with burning hues and would allow those to make their wish if they were naive enough to believe that they'd actually come true.

Iridescent stars speckled haphazardly across the obsidian sky glowing with neon moonlight begged to be seen through an unabashed gaze.

"Got everything we need?"

I threw my boyfriend of a few months a lazy smirk as I wrapped my arms around his waist.  We hadn't brought along any alcohol on this trip, so I prepared to lose myself in a completely different way, the isolation from the desert allowing my terrifying thoughts to close in on my consciousness, and I couldn't let that happen.

"Midnight exactly. I think we're ready."

"Perfect. Well, almost."

Ian leaned down and placed a gentle kiss upon my lips which sent my head careening somewhere completely different than simple stargazing. Good, I needed a distraction. We leaned back onto the pillows and I was starting to realize his real ulterior motive for a date that called for so much bedding.

A pair of headlights illuminated our tiny sliver of quiet darkness and we sprang apart, only to be confronted by none other than my father and his heavily pregnant new wife as she waddled out of the passenger seat of his brand new SUV which Ellen had insisted upon because 'it's for the baby!'

"Kate! What the hell do you think you're doing all the way out here at this hour with this boy?! I thought I was clear that I didn't want you seeing him. He is nothing but trouble, and you know that!"

"Dad, listen-"

But he wasn't going to listen. Those facial features that looked nothing like mine twisted up in anger. Where he was all fair skin and light eyes, I was tanned and dark eyed, my almost black hair in complete contrast to his blonde locks shorn close to his scalp.

"I am done listening. First it was the bottle of alcohol I found in your room, then the sneaking out and now this boy? You're better than this, you had everything handed to you in this life, what more could you want?"

"Oh Mitch, don't you see what she's doing? She's acting out because she's not the center of attention anymore, and the baby is. Maybe you should just have her go back with her mom, you know, until things get settled here. All of this drama is stressing me and the baby out."

And there it was, the final straw. She had said the magic words. This baby was his flesh and blood, which was something I most definitely was not. This new child took precedence over me, just like my 'sister' back home did. I'd always be a second class citizen in this family, and Ellen was just making sure that I got that message loud and clear.  I had received that message three months ago when I stumbled across the skeleton my parents thought they had sealed in their dusty closet seventeen years ago, but they didn't realize that someone had changed the locks, leaving the door primed to be opened once more. 

Didn't they know?  Every secret came out in the end.  Unluckily for them, the person who discovered it was the one person they had tried to conceal the truth from the most in the first place.  Funny how those things worked out.

The glare I shot her made her shrink back in fake fear.

"When we get home, you're packing your things and moving back to New York in the morning."

I didn't even fight my father on his 'decision'.  His reddening, pudgy face reminding me that we weren't blood related and I honestly had no sympathy for the man who stood in front of me, trying to be a responsible parent for his unborn child when the kid that he had willingly adopted was standing before him suffering and he couldn't see past the new baby glow to recognize the anguish in her eyes.

I flipped him and his new wife off and turned back to Ian to start packing up our things when I felt his arm on my shoulder, and the vehemence with which I shook his hand off of me was enough to shock even Ian.  I hadn't told him the truth, the real reason why I was so against my parents, so I supposed his surprise at the level of my anger was justified. 

"I don't even know who you are anymore," my father cried out dramatically. 

"You never knew me in the first place, you never even tried."  

But there was another thought swimming around in the back of my head, one that I was too terrified to entertain but my subconscious made me think the words anyway, just to destroy me even further.

Maybe he knew me better than I knew myself all these years, and saw me for who I really was.  Now I'm just living up to those expectations.  

Because he'd known the truth, the words that described what I was inscribed upon my soul and impossible to scrub off, no matter how hard I tried. 

"I hate you."

My father's eyes widened in shock and confusion until they finally hardened and I welcomed the anger he felt towards me.  It helped me forget about the way I felt about myself, if only for a moment or two.

now:

Groggy, my head raised from its cockeyed spot on the bed, my neck sore from the strange angle at which I had fallen asleep.  I couldn't ignore the dull, throbbing ache that encompassed my head in a fog of pain, but it was the memory of an unwanted advance from the night before that had my body shooting up from its horizontal position.

Events from the night before flashed in my mind like a movie with multiple parts missing and that was when I realized that I must have blacked out a few things that had happened, my most clear memories being the confrontation with Lachlan and Evan trying to kiss me. 

I glanced down at my body and realized that I was still in my swimsuit and a jacket that was a few sizes too large for me, so it was easy to come to the conclusion that I hadn't done anything too intimate the night before, but the imprint where Evan's body had slept the night before with the absence of said body clued me into the fact that he clearly hadn't wanted to see me in the light of day. 

I cringed remembering his lips on mine and the fact that I would have to rebuff his emotions towards me once again, but those problems would have to wait. 

First things first- hygiene.  

I dawdled through my skin care routine and my shower, taking my time to swallow back my inner turmoil and drown the sobs that threatened to echo through the empty and cold halls of my childhood home. 

The tears fell for the truth that I'd never known, for the life that I could have had and for how she had been forced to live, hating the thing growing inside of her like I was a malevolent tumor that she couldn't wait to get rid of. 

And I couldn't blame her, either, could I?  Because I would have made the same choice- or worse. 

My cell phone chirped on the counter and for some reason I had let my guard down, though I'd known what out of the blue notifications meant.

I simply wasn't thinking of the ramifications of answering that little direct message on my social media, something so innocent turned so completely malicious and damning, the message branding itself on my soul as if the words had come alive in a fire meant to trap me in my own despair. 

The words written on that LED screen in black and white letters, almost too small to read from a distance, could have been ignored had I not known the truth.

I memorized everything I could, the old pictures, the names, the home towns, every single minute detail that most would have glossed over- but this was my past, this was where I came from, so how could I not glean each and every piece of information I could before I was caught?

But, then, that was my downfall.  Because it allowed them to find me, or rather me to find them because wasn't I all too eager to grasp onto a small part of my past, a small part of who I thought I was?

How ironic that in trying to find myself I destroyed everything good I ever attributed myself with?

The murky haze that had been swirling around my head cleared the moment my eyes laid upon the message before me, and it was all I could do to keep the bile from rising up in my throat. 

The username for the profile was inconspicuous, and it was nothing more than a simple 'hello', but the implication was there all the same, because right there as the profile picture was his face that I'd studied for hours after finding out about him. 

He had messaged me, because he'd found me.  Because I had found my family...my real family, and there was no way to escape them anymore.  Because in finding them, he had found me.

And after learning the truth, I never wanted him to find me for the rest of my life, but blocking contacts and profiles and phone numbers did nothing to dissuade him, he always found a way to find me again. 

I obsessed over his profile on the floor of my bathroom, wrapped in a fluffy towel surrounded by expensive fixtures and marble whilst I felt like the cheapest thing in the room, tear tracks grazing down my cheeks as I fell apart yet again because I was terrified of what this meant. 

I didn't respond.  I never did, always blocking him and wishing upon everything that he would just give up, but after learning what he did, I knew that that was impossible.  He'd never give up, and I needed to seek out help, but how could I speak the truth out loud?

How could I say what I was, how I was made?  That I was the creation of evil and malignant pain, born out of the flames of hell?  

I shouldn't even have been alive...

If I'd been in her shoes, would I have chosen the same?

His messages kept flooding in, over and over again asking when he'd get to see me, how much he missed me and wished that he could have raised me. 

When he called himself my 'father', I lunged for the toilet bowl and emptied out my wretched insides as wave after wave of insidious nausea escaped my stomach. 

Over and over again until my throat was singed raw by the acids brought up with the bile and alcohol from the previous night, I realized that simply ignoring this mess wasn't going to accomplish anything.

I cleaned myself up and took another shower, but not before blocking and deleting the newest profile.  I set all of my security settings to private on every social media account I owned and even changed my profile picture to something without my face in it for good measure. 

Maybe I'd have to delete everything soon.

Was this what I'd been reduced to?  Once the sweet and quiet little Randolph girl, popular and almost powerful, running from my own shadow to hide from the demons that swelled inside my gut, terrified that one day they'd take over and the world would know the ugly truth as if it were tattooed across my forehead?

Ignorance is bliss, so they'd said.  I ignored that advice and was paying the ultimate price, the price that came with knowing just who exactly I came from. 

A knock sounded at the door and snapped me out of my catatonic reverie. 

"Katrina, the rest of your bags are here.  Are you ready to move back into your dorm?"

"I'll be out in a second," I shouted out, cringing yet again when I realized how hoarse and hollow my voice sounded.

I quickly cleaned up the remnants of my breakdown and panicked as I tried to decide what to do.  

Ignore. 

That's what I did best, anyway.  Ignore that my parents were shells of people that seemingly held no real emotions towards me except for crippling disappointment.  Ignore that I felt a seething rage towards my sister and ex boyfriend for what they'd done to me.  Ignore the crush that I'd had on my 'bully' since I was a little kid.  

Some of those were easier to ignore than others, but try as I might, I would ignore the fact that I was being stalked by my...

"Well hurry!  I have a nail appointment at nine!"

Hair blown out, makeup immaculate, breath fresh and teeth sparkling white, there was no way anyone could see the demons festering on the inside as long as the outside was perfect. 

The last accessory was a smile, but for some reason, I couldn't quite conjure it upon my face. I just didn't have the damn energy anymore.