I gently pushed the slightly open door until a part of the room and the cause of the strange sounds coming from within were revealed.

At first I wasn't able to process what unraveled before my eyes. But a few blinks time later an ice wave washed over me as my mind finally registered the sense of what was happening, of what I was seeing.

Greg's shirt, my fiancé Greg, was tore open on his chest, and long red fingernails were tracing his chiseled muscles. He was panting, and when the red nails reached the back of his neck, bronze tanned arms wrapped around it and he pressed his lips to... Megan's. Again.

My stupid smile from before froze on my face, turning into a grotesque grimace.

Megan's suit jacket and blouse were tossed on the couch they were standing next to and her hot pink lace bra was exposed. And her too-short grey skirt and Greg's black trousers would no doubt be gone soon, too. Bile rose in my throat, and I swallowed hard.

They were devouring each other. Greg's hands were prying all over her body, caressing and squeezing, as his mouth kissed and bit her lips, her neck, her bare shoulders, and then moved back on her lips.

My breath hitched. And my knees trembled. I was shaking all over.

"They... were... kissing..." I repeated inwardly but even my inner voice sounded out of breath and weak, just as I felt.

I took a painful deep breath that I felt slicing through my lungs, and stifled the sobs that were coming up.

And then the shock, the realization of what was happening shot through my body and brain like an electrical impulse and the true nightmare began.

The images flickered, changing into one another, intertwining, constantly shifting the scene in front of me, creating absolute chaos in my mind. A terrifying collage of past and present, here and now, then and there danced before my eyes, pinning me in place and sucking the remaining air out of my lungs. Greg and Megan were themselves then they weren't, they were replaced by the image of two teenagers, two ghosts from my past. But one thing remained the same... They. Were. Kissing.

My right hand rose on its own to my chest, resting just above my aching heart, trying to ease the pain, but instead of massaging the spot, my fingers brushed against the soft fabric of the scarf and I unconsciously wrapped them tightly around it, holding onto it so I wouldn't be swept away by the collision between present and past.

Greg's short black hair morphed into dirty blonde, a flash and went back to its normal state. The same thing happened with Megan's shoulder-length slick platinum blonde hair, which was instantly transformed into waist-length sleek chocolate brown waves. Greg's fair complexion changed to a natural light caramel tan, and Megan's fake tanned skin to a glowing olive skin. Their clothes were the next to flicker and change - from a ripped open white shirt to a dark green T-shirt, from black elegant trousers to white sports shorts, from polished formal shoes to white sneakers; from a short grey skirt, hot pink lace bra and impossibly high heels matching the bra to cheerleading uniform - sports top and pleated skirt in lavender and white, and white cheer socks and cheer shoes.

Greg now was devouring his blonde secretary, now was kissing timidly the teenage girl with chocolate brown hair. And Megan now was drinking the dark haired elegant Greg's lips, now was making out with a slightly shorter and well-built but slimmer teenager with dirty blonde hair and sportswear. And then my brain totally short-circuited because Greg was half him and half teenage boy of my past, and Megan was half her and half high school cheerleader.

Then the images began to change so quickly that my notions of reality and memories blurred. Until... the present faded and disappeared and in my mind and before my eyes a scene from the past appeared. A scene that had changed everything.

It was the beginning of August and I was utterly happy. Dad and I had just come back from Macleigh and the first thing I wanted to do and did was run to school, to the gym where the boy I loved (and my best friend) participated in the school team's volleyball practice. He himself wasn't part of the team, he didn't want to commit and limit himself to just one sport, so whenever he could he trained with the volleyball players, the basketball players or just used the wonderful pool that the whole town raised money to build at our school three years ago.

I rushed to share my joy with him as always. I was so happy and excited because I finally got braces and after a while I could enjoy the straight teeth I always dreamed of.

All the way I was thinking how I would surprise him, how he would be excited and happy along with me and... I secretly hoped that the emotion of the moment would affect him enough and he would finally kiss me. I felt that my feelings were not one-way and I patiently waited for him, for the right moment, and for the kiss I dreamed of.

I stopped outside gym locker room doors and took a deep breath before going in and telling him. I had arrived on time. There were still 15 minutes until the start of the practice.

Confidently and happily I went inside, passed the first row of lockers and benches, but when I peeked from behind the second row... I froze in place, and shock raced through my body, as if ice bucket was poured over me.

The scene that unraveled before my eyes tattooed in my brain and break my heart in pieces.

My best friend, the boy I was in love with, my boy was kissing another girl. 

Heather, one of the cheerleaders, was unmistakable with her long sleek chocolate brown hair flowing down her back and glowing olive skin and in her cheerleading uniform in the official colours of our town - lavender and white. She was the most beautiful girl in school and she was also smart, kind, and funny. We had talked many times, and I always had liked her. Always, except for that moment. She was kissing my boy. But what was worse was that he was kissing her back. Slow and somehow timidly but... He. Was. Kissing. Her. Her!

My heart sank painfully in my chest, my stomach flipped and bile rose up in my throat, and my breathing hitched.

I backed away, hid behind the lockers before they noticed me and clasped my hand over my mouth to muffle the wail of agony that was rising inside me. I quickly and stealthily slipped out of the locker room, and closed the door carefully. The last thing I wanted was to be caught, to be seen like this - broken. And the moment the mechanism clicked quietly I ran with all my might.

I ran and ran and ran until I found myself... in the middle of a lavender field - there were many of those outside the town, so it was named Lavender by the first settlers. 

I turned down one of the lanes and fell next to two bushes, and then curled into a ball between them. Tears were running down my face fast, I couldn't catch my breath, but not only because I had run all the way here, but also because of the pain that was tearing me apart. My chest felt so heavy as if an elephant had sat on it, depriving me of air. 

At one time I heard feral screams of agony, I thought that there was a wounded animal nearby, from whose throat the pain it was feeling poured out. I felt bad for it, but as another horrifying wail ripped through my throat, I realized I was alone, and that the sounds were coming from me. I was the wounded animal. 

That merely made me cry even harder. 

My whole body shook convulsively with sobs. At one point I couldn't stay curled up any longer and I started writhing in pain, waving my arms desperately trying to grab onto something - the dirt, the lavender bush, trying to find something to hold on to, something to help me pull myself up as I felt myself sinking into a pool of agony. It hurt. Oh, it hurt so badly that whatever words I try to find it wouldn't even come close to describing the actual pain I felt then. It was like... like someone gashed my heart, and my soul with a serrated knife. I felt the pain so heavily that it was as if an actual blade was going through my skin, through my body.

I was tearing apart from the inside, falling apart, like the dreams and the life I had fantasized a thousand times, the future we talked about with St... with him. I wouldn't say his name. He lost that right, and it was too painful for me to do so. The life I thought I would have was shattered before my eyes when I saw his betrayal. He broke my heart, my dreams, dreams I considered as not only mine but ours. He just... shattered me.

By kissing another he betrayed me, he betrayed our feelings, our dreams, destroyed the future we longed for together. And what's worse was that he made me doubt... doubt everything - every word, every gesture, every moment spent with him. I even doubted myself and my own perceptions.

He just broke me. 

I laid in that lavender field for hours. I cried for hours, wails and screams tearing from my throat, filling the air with the agony I felt as my tears soaked the dry ground and my fingers dug into it in a desperate attempt to find support until my fingernails started bleeding, and after that.

Then the sun went down and the day ended, and with it life as I knew it.

Darkness fell around me, the tears dried, but the pain still echoed in my soul, and my own cries rang in my ears.

And as the darkness fell, anger rose within me.

Anger at him, at me. I was angry at his betrayal. I was angry with myself for the shed tears, for the torn and sore throat, for the headache and the stiffness in my body. Until then, my anger was something that I easily suppressed. Yes, I got angry, but I didn't give it free rein.

But in that moment I released my anger and let it envelop me fully.

Then I decided to leave. To go far away from him, from my hometown, from the past, from my broken life and dreams, from everything.

My anger helped me replace my love for him with ambition, my dreams with real goals, my emotions with complete control (although that part took a while), my thoughts that were mainly devoted to him, I entirely filled with studies and later with work. I dedicated my life to work and made it the center of it, as he was before.

I came home from that field that night full of anger, with concealed pain, and ready to set my focus on something that would help me keep the ground under my feet. I was determined not to let him rob me of my life fully. He shattered the future I thought I'd have, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to live a great life. I would achieve my goals as I never got to do with my dreams. I would fill my heart with ambition and I would devote my time day and night to study and work and I'd be a confident woman in full control of her life and would gain success, independence, and stability.

After I came home from the lavender field, I couldn't speak for days because my throat was too sore, but I told one way or another my parents what I wanted and needed. I went to Macleigh to live with my uncle till the end of summer, and for most of the time of the school year, which ended up quite early for me. Mom arranged for me to complete my final year remotely and only take the exams. I told my parents not to tell him where I was and that I had left, I was gone. Even when I was at home, I kept making them repeat it, they considered it a lie and didn't liked it but it wasn't entirely untruth because from the moment he broke my heart I wasn't the same girl as before. The girl he knew was truly gone. 

The girl he knew evaporated into thin air with my wails that night, she sank into the soil with my tears and disappeared into the sunset.

I traveled to Macleigh, home and back, just to get away from him. I studied hard and graduated ahead of schedule. I was accepted to University of Rathleigh earlier in the spring and left immediately. I stayed in one of the dorms at first, and an year and a half later I moved out of it and in a small rental studio. I spent the spring semester taking different courses until I settled on journalism and enrolled in it in the fall. And so I began to build my new life. A life that was supposed to be stable and secure and nobody and nothing could destroy it.

But I was wrong.

Or I merely made an awful mistake - I tried to recreate a version of the future that I dreamed of before - a family with a husband and children. And I foolishly thought that Greg could play that role in the only fantasy I allowed myself to revive. Maybe I wanted to show myself that I could have it with someone else, or maybe I wanted to show him that. Either way, it turned out to be a terrible mistake that ruined everything I had fought for and built for myself.

My eyelids fluttered and I opened my eyes. I didn't realize I had closed them.

And now... my gaze focused on the present again. Now my fiance Greg was cheating on me with his secretary.

I stepped back, in a senseless attempt to increase the distance between me and the scene unfolding in front of me.

Just one step. My limbs felt so heavy, it was so hard to move them, to control them. I could barely breathe. The hand on my chest fell heavily down. And it was followed by the scarf, which slipped from my neck and flew down, landing in my feet in a small blue heap.

I looked at it, then back at Greg and Megan, who just then fell together on the couch, on top of each other, and her bra strap slipped forward. It was already unbuttoned.

A wave of emotions shook me all over and I physically felt how the life I had built so hard for myself here in Rathleigh crumbled and collapsed at my feet. Just like the scarf - once beautiful and comfortable, now a useless pile.

I made one more step back, shaking my head in denial.

I closed my eyes and bit into my bottom lip, feeling tears well up in my eyes. I backed away a little more, a little more, and suddenly my hip bumped into something. Instinctively I reached back and my palm was bitten by something inanimate, metallic and cold. I jerked my hand, but in doing so the thing fell to the ground with a loud thud.

I took a sharp breath and my eyes snapped open.

"NO! They can't see me now! I won't allow them to see me like that - broken, shattered. No! I must go! I must get out of here! NOW!" I thought.

I braced myself and forced my legs to move. And I ran. I ran for the elevator. While running my coat slipped off my shoulders and fell, and I left it behind, as I left the remains of my shattered life. The life I considered unbreakable. 

"Ha!" I laughed gloomily at my own stupidity.

I reached the elevator, pressed the button and soon it came. I stepped inside and turned my back to the mirror, the last thing I wanted was to see the pain written on my face, so I stared ahead, seeing the blue pile that was once my scarf and the discarded coat.

I breathed a sigh of relief that I got out in time, but just then Greg appeared in the doorway of his office and my breath caught in my throat.