Pretending to glare at her, I could not fight back the smile as I giggled "You, stupid."

Lana did not sound upset or offended rather more curious when she questioned "Then why did you choose to tell Stone about your dad and not me?"

"Have you met him?" I asked rhetorically before telling her "He is a little demanding."

"So you are telling me that you the most stubborn girl in the world just gave in to him?" Her voice was dripping with disbelief as she kept going "Ella, if you truly did not want him to know then you would not have told him. You told him because you trusted him. You trust him."

I did not give her a reply. I just continued to look at the ground as if the answer to everything would appear written in the grass. Or as if the ground could swallow me whole so I did not have to deal with everything.

Moving the hair that the wind had swept onto my face, I uttered "I think I need some time alone."

She pulled away so that she was standing in front of me before she smiled and replied "I will go wait in the car with my parents."

Nodding, I smiled back at her before giving her a last hug "Thank you."

Sometimes I wished that I could live in a library for the rest of my life. There I would be able to escape everything and everyone. In among the pages of a book, I could forget my troubles and the world.

Someone enveloped my hand with their own. Someone that was not Lana.

A hand that was too large. Too calloused. Too like the man that I loved's hand.

My fingers intertwined with his unconsciously. It was against any rational thought. It was all biological. The need to be close to him. Every cell of mine wanted to touch him. I had even made the action of moving close to him so the side of me was pressed up against him.

We stood like that for a few minutes before I finally looked up at him.

His hard chiselled features were much softer and his eyes told the same story.

Stone began to speak in his husky voice "Ella, I—"

I let go of his hand like it had burned me and I forced myself to take a few steps away from him.

I really did not want his pity so I rushed over my words as I walked away "I do not want to talk about it."

The gravelled path led me past a few rows of graves before I let out a sigh of exhaustion. I hated to admit it but my body was still extremely sore.

Sometimes I could feel tired after doing the smallest of things. I did not know if that was because of the side effects of the medication or from lying to everyone about how I was not in pain.