I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM -- {audio}

[gabrielle lee watson]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: dddddd; border: #cccccc solid 8px; width: 420px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE The Words: not counting The Outfit: click with a jacket The Notes I'VE MISSED OUR BABIES she was upset, and when she was upset, she shopped. it was a bad habit to get into, she knew, but she had been doing it for as long as she could remember. whenever she found herself getting down, she'd have jake walk or drive her to the mall and she would window-shop for hours. and when she had money, it would be gone. just like that. because of that she did try to spend the majority of her time at thrift stores to save money but more recently, especially since they'd been settled in hartford, she had been able to afford enough to go to bigger stores and make more risky purchases. with a steady paycheck coming in now and then donations from her brother toward her fund, she was able to purchase more, waste more, until finally they had just put aside a private account specifically for when she was feeling blue. and this account had really been getting depleted in the course of the past seven months. and that wasn't her fault. or maybe it was. she didn't know and it was always hard to tell when it came to people that she cared about. and she definitely cared about audio routing, cared for him in a way that was terrifying in its intensity and curious in its existence. because she would admit it. audio wasn't her usual type. no one around hartford was really her normal type as her normal type was very reminiscent of her brother. but she had liked audio well enough when they met, had developed an infatuation that fell into something deeper that she was a little afraid to acknowledge but at the same time intrigued by. she had never known someone like him before, someone who was able to make her laugh and not because they were trying to be funny but because they were just so honest. and he was into so much of the same stuff that she was into, the things that people wouldn't believe her to like so they never mentioned, and he treated her just so....well. like she was something worth speaking to. but then, all of a sudden, she had lost that. just like that, audio had disappeared without a warning and she hadn't gotten so much as a phone call or a text message from him. not an im. not even a tweet. it was like he never existed, like he just erased himself from her life and she didn't understand it. not in the slightest. because things had been going so well! they were really hitting it off, really connecting, and she was beginning to get the feeling that maybe...well maybe she wasn't crazy and maybe he was beginning to feel the same. and then he disappeared, completely and totally disappeared and not even jake could tell her where he had gone off to. she'd asked ani if she'd heard from him but she said that she hadn't; hell, she even ventured and asked people who she only suspected might have known him. nothing. after about the first month, she'd given up on any hope of hearing from him again. and in the span of the following six, she had tried to forget him. but it wasn't that easy. she had always been able to leave behind the demons of her past with ease but audio wasn't a demon. audio was something beautiful, a whole different sort of wonderful that she didn't know how to comprehend, and ridding him from her mind was difficult. so she had resorted to shopping all the time, every weekend, buying new items with every paycheck. her closet had never been so full. and so it was really no surprise when she chose to spend her time at the mall that day, drifting from store to store debating between buying clothes or jewelry or candy or cds. it was tough. she had bought so much in the last few months that it made it difficult for her to find something that she wanted and it was getting frustrating. she wandered out of the mall and wandered through the small strip of stores adjoining it, curiously glancing into a few before continuing on. she was so involved in finding another place to go that she wasn't really watching where she was going and as she eyed some shoes in a display of a nearby store, she suddenly found herself colliding with somebody else outside of the store. "i am so sorry!" she said, standing back to look at who she ran into but when her eyes looked up into his face she found them widening slightly in surprise. as a mixture of anger, sadness, and a turning she could only describe as elation built in the pit of her stomach, she quietly breathed, "audio," before running her fingers through her hair and averting her gaze to the ground. created by ADE! Pb-ified by WILL

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[audio]

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lucy takes the long way home, meets me in a field of stone she says "i don't know how i'm s'pose to feel my body's cold my guts are twisted steel. "and i feel like i'm some kind of frankenstein waiting for a shock to bring me back to life but i don't want to spend my time waiting for lightning to strike. so underneath the concrete sky lucy puts her hand in mine she says "life's a game we're meant to lose. but stick by me and i will stick by you."

the last seven months, what had actually seemed like seven years, had been some of the toughest months of his life. that wasn't easy to say, either, considering the rest of the months that he had been on this earth had been considerably hard to survive as well. however, his hometown of newport beach, california brought back bad memories, ones that he had stored in the very back of his mind with a mental note stamped on it that read 'never to be touched again.' santa ana heights just wasn't a place that audio would ever go back to willingly, which is exactly why he didn't. for a lack of better words, he had been forced, by more people than just one. his long distance best friend, sparta koufidakis, or as he was told to always call him, alex, and his parents had both contacted him and asked him to make the long journey from connecticut to californi, which had been almost exactly seven months ago. in the last days of august, his parents had asked him to return to their home in the hills of orange county california, for whatever odd reason. he had figured that it had just been to move the items that he still had in his parent's house out, because they were a clutter and the space that he was wasting could go to good use to store the pointless antiques they 'collected.' there was also the possibility that they just wanted to check up on him, make sure that he was still clean of any foreign substances. why they would care at this point of his life, he didn't know why, but all possibilites were considered. of course, he said he'd think about it, but instead, he hadn't. he'd ignored their calls and made no effort to give them an answer.

about a week after the phone call he had received from his lovely mother and father, he got texts, countless emails, tons of facebook messages, and a couple of phone calls from alex asking him that he needed help in california, as well, los angeles to be exact. it wasn't extremely far from newport beach, so he thought that he'd give his parents a break on this attempt, and he contacted them as well. he gave his mom and dad the good news that he would be willing to return to california for a couple of days, but instead of just a couple of days, it turned into a couple of months.

audio had been right about one thing- he had been demanded back to california by his parents for a good-natured check-up. it was quite a surprise for him, actually, because since leaving their household, they were pretty distant from each other. having conversations with his parents, nonetheless feeling cared for by them, was unusual. it was an odd feeling, but without a doubt, a good one. on the other hand, his best friend needed some aid in moving back to connecticut, which audio had done about a year before. when audio had moved to hartford, he had done so by the guidance of alex, who said he'd follow a couple of months later. however, those 'couple of months' never happened, because his buddy had met a girl, who he had gotten pretty serious with. apparently, they had broken up and now alex was serious about accompanying audio back to connecticut, which the twenty four year old was ecstatic about. the city was pretty lonely, besides a couple of friends that he had met right off the bat, one of those friends being holland beaton, the one that he had probably missed the most out of this experience.

they had planned on leaving right away, but plans sometimes changed. in this case, their plans changed by a lot. apparently, alex wasn't exactly over this girlfriend and she wasn't over him, either. long story short, the two reconciled, but instead of letting audio leave, the twenty five year old forced him to stay in los angeles, in case things went sour again- which they did, six months later. so, during that sixth month, alex's house was packed and loaded into a truck, and the boys took a month long road trip back to connecticut, which brought audio to where he was now.

it was the third day of being back in hartford and he took the first chance he had to leave his- and now alex's- apartment to take an old, routinely trip to the hartford shopping center to check out the comic store there. he had been half way to the shop when a fellow shopper had bumped right into him. he had stoppd abruptly with an oof, but in no way was he mad at whoever had bumped into him. after all, he hadn't been paying attention either. "i am so sorry!" the person said, and he had just shook his head, as if assuring her that it wasn't a problem at all. "no, i'm fi-" he had been stopped short when the 'stranger's' voice started again. "audio?" no, this wasn't happening. she was the last person he wanted to see, after disappearing like he had. no call, no email, no text- he hadn't even bothered to log into facebook. he had... he'd fallen off the earth. he'd literally disappeared and that's how he had planned on staying. he knew he would be in deep shit with her if she found out he was back, which was why he hadn't contacted her yet.

"holly, i, um, i..." how was he supposed to greet her? how was he supposed to explain to her that he hadn't contacted her on purpose? his dumbfounded expression quickly changed to a large smile, in an attempt to act like the past seven months had never happened. "funny meeting you here! crazy, little world, isn't it?!"

RENEE AS HOLLY, 979, this and like black skinny jeans like garebear always wears, THIS MIGHT BE POO BECAUSE I DIDN'T PROOFREAD AND IT'S LATE BUT OH WELL I'M PROUD OF MYSELF BTWIMISSEDTHEM

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[gabrielle lee watson]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: dddddd; border: #cccccc solid 8px; width: 420px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE The Words: not counting The Outfit: click with a jacket The Notes this sucked balls she felt sick. she felt honestly sick to her stomach, slightly dizzy and more than a little nauseous. audio. he was back - if he even left. she thought for a while maybe he had, just packed up and moved away and never looked back for reasons he would never explain. it had made her sad to think about it but it had given her a reasonable explanation. an explanation she now knew just wasn't right. instead he was there, he was in hartford and he just...he just chose not to speak to her. angry tears stung her eyes as she stared down at their feet, at her toes through her peep-toe shoes and his converse. two different worlds. she had been so stupid, so so stupid to have fallen for all of that. to believe that there was something there. stupid, stupid holly and her stupid stupid ideas about....feelings. because she had had them. they were real, she knew that they were because nothing could make a person so happy and not be real. she had really, really liked audio and when he disappeared out of nowhere, she was crushed. and she knew that; her closet was the best indicator. but she didn't know exactly how crushed she was until she ran into him again. she felt like her heart was about to break into a thousand pieces. her mouth went dry and her eyes became wet and it was like a giant damp blanket was thrown over her day. she was so...upset. so sad. she felt like crying for reasons she couldn't explain. this was not a feeling she was used to having! she should have been happy to see him, thrilled to know that he was even alive. she would admit to even checking the obituaries for a while after he disappeared. just in case. she had been absolutely terrified. and here he was. so why wasn't she happy? she knew why. because it meant he had just stopped talking to her. just completely dropped her. like she was nothing. and she had texted; she had called. she had checked facebook. nothing. zilch. nada. she didn't even know what she did wrong! she just knew that one day she was talking to him and everything was fine and the next day he was gone. just gone and he hadn't bothered to say goodbye or to tell her where he'd be or anything and evidently he hadn't found it important to seek her out. so maybe this was his hint - his hint that she needed to just give up on what she was doing. because she was obvious. embarrassingly obvious and it was clear to anyone who was around her when she was talking to him that she had feelings for him. maybe he had just been too afraid of the consequences if he told her to leave him alone. maybe he hadn't cared like she thought. his greeting was too much, too. he was just going to act like he hadn't disappeared for seven months? like he hadn't left her high and dry? she blinked back angry and sad tears and looked up at him, laughing slightly, almost bitterly. "that's it?" she asked, her voice cracking slightly. "just...hi, crazy small world?" she couldn't help it - she was a little angry, and more than a little sad. she shook her head. stupid. so so stupid. "yeah fancy meeting you here. considering i thought you were dead o-or gone or just..." she laughed again, wiping under her eye to keep any of her makeup from running. "some crazy figment of my imagination." god she felt so dumb. she pulled her jacket tighter around her, wondering why she found it so hard to move. wondering why she didn't just walk away. "just...just really crazy shit there, right?" created by ADE! Pb-ified by WILL

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[audio]

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lucy takes the long way home, meets me in a field of stone she says "i don't know how i'm s'pose to feel my body's cold my guts are twisted steel. "and i feel like i'm some kind of frankenstein waiting for a shock to bring me back to life but i don't want to spend my time waiting for lightning to strike. so underneath the concrete sky lucy puts her hand in mine she says "life's a game we're meant to lose. but stick by me and i will stick by you."

from how she had reacted to how he reacted to seeing her there, she did not look happy. hell, she looked pissed. the way she avoided eye contact with him made it even more clear that she was not happy with him and he didn't blame her for one second. he knew that he had been a dumbass and a jackass for not contacting her when he had left to california. she would have understood, right? come to think of it, why hadn't he told her where he was going to? because he was afraid she'd think he was just going on a vacation to get rid of her for a couple of weeks? or that he thought that he'd be gone for just a couple of days and that's all he needed to get alex back to connecticut. sure, he'd have some explaining to do when he arrived back home, but a couple of days was no where near seven entire months. in all actuality, though, he didn't have any idea why he had failed to tell holly that he was taking a trip to help a friend and to visit his parents. sure, she would have understood if he had just told her that. at the time, though, he thought what he was doing was an easier, much simpler, safer plan. obviously, that wasn't the case because now standing in front of holly, he could clearly see the mistake he had made by keeping california a secret. he was clearly a dumbass for leaving no trace of where he had gone for seven month for holly to sniff out.

"that's it?. just...hi, crazy small world?" she finally started and audio could already tell that explaining to her what he had happened wasn't going to be an easy task, especially since he didn't necessarily have a good answer. he had i went to california for seven months to help my best friend and get drug tested by my parents and that answer wasn't very believable when neither of the reasons took seven months to do. "yeah fancy meeting you here. considering i thought you were dead o-or gone or just... some crazy figment of my imagination." she continued and it took all audio had not to turn around and pretend like he hadn't run into her. it didn't seem that difficult to walk away from her again, because after all, the first time wasn't that hard. why should a second time be? however, messing up a second time with holly wasn't something that was in his agenda, even though all he really did want to do was act like he had never even noticed her or as if she was just a stranger that had been a victim of his horrible tendency to not watch where he was going. "just...just really crazy shit there, right?" even though it was embarrassing, for one, and two, hard to be scolded at by holly, he deserved every thing that he was getting and that he was probably going to get. he had disappeared. he'd gone missing-in-action. he had only told... actually, he hadn't told anyone about his plans to go to california, not even austin. he didn't have a job so there was no way she could have found out through a workplace. there was no way she could have known that he was alive or, like she said, just a figment of her imagination, if both theories weren't very believable- who knew these days?

"i know, this looks really bad, and i probably wouldn't blame you if you punched me in the face-" even though being punched in the face by holly wasn't on his agenda either, he had been sort of a douchebag, "i can explain why after seven months of being gone i just pop up in the middle of hartford, because i really do have a good excuse." the saddest thing was... he didn't have a good excuse. "it was... really important and if you give me a chance, i'll tell you," maybe not a good excuse, but it was important to him. after all, alex koufidakis was an important person. "just, try not to get any angrier than you already are, because technically, it wasn't my fault. technically."

RENEE AS HOLLY, 710, this and like black skinny jeans like garebear always wears, lol this was a piece of crap but idgaf.

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[gabrielle lee watson]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: dddddd; border: #cccccc solid 8px; width: 420px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE The Words: not counting The Outfit: click with a jacket The Notes I'VE MISSED OUR BABIES she didn't know why she was so angry. she had no right to be angry, absolutely none at all. audio wasn't her boyfriend before he disappeared - hell, apparently he was hardly even her friend judging by how he thought it was okay to just disappear out of nowhere like that. she had no claim to him, no reason why she should feel this hurt that he had left. they were just...acquaintances that flirted and got on really well and that she had actually developed feeling toward...but that was it, that was all it was. any flirting back that she thought she may have found, any feeling that she felt from him must have just been imagined. purely fictional. she had been stupid to think she had meant anything, stupid to think that they were leading anywhere. she felt incredibly embarrassed and more than a little creepy because she really shouldn't be feeling like this. she shouldn't. because audio was just another guy and for some reason she was getting all different sorts of worked up about him leaving her high and dry. she wasn't anything to him. just some girl who got a little too attached a little too quickly as always and got hurt for it. it was embarrassing for her to want to cry, embarrassing for him to be there seeing her be this upset. he probably thought she was so weird, so clingy, so absolutely creepy and she didn't blame him. she was getting worked up over nothing - nothing! a relationship that never existed and a friendship that barely existed, nothing more and nothing less. just again she had fallen too hard for the wrong person and now it was coming back to bite her in the ass. she was so stupid, so so so stupid.... at least he recognized he had done something wrong, though he could just be saying that to appease her. god why did she have to be so sensitive? so easily hurt so...temperamental? she didn't understand why she was acting the way she was. it wasn't normal; it wasn't usual. it was obviously one sided and she was just stupid for getting so worked up over it. but audio wanted to explain to her what was happening so he had to care. she couldn't have imagined that tiny bit of affection, right? he had to care at least a little bit about maintaining their friendship...right? she sighed. "i'm not going to punch you in the face, audi," she said quietly, almost affectionately when she reached his name. again she cursed herself for her emotions, for feeling the way she did underneath all the hurt and the feelings of betrayal. "i couldn't reach it anyway." she offered a weak smile, always having to add a humorous element to make a bad situation a little lighter. "and if you say you have a good explanation...i'm willing to listen." her expression hardened a little bit. "but don't bullshit me. please. after all that just...spare me and please don't feed me bullshit. i couldn't take it." created by ADE! Pb-ified by WILL

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[audio]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,background-color: #a79f91; width: 450px; height: 700px; background-repeat: repeat-y;]

lucy takes the long way home, meets me in a field of stone she says "i don't know how i'm s'pose to feel my body's cold my guts are twisted steel. "and i feel like i'm some kind of frankenstein waiting for a shock to bring me back to life but i don't want to spend my time waiting for lightning to strike. so underneath the concrete sky lucy puts her hand in mine she says "life's a game we're meant to lose. but stick by me and i will stick by you."

"i'm not going to punch you in the face, audi. i couldn't reach it anyway." nicknames- that was a good sign, right? rejecting the offer to punch him in the face was an even better sign, too. even though it wasn't a giant hug and a i'm so glad you're not dead, audio or a i missed you so much, audio, it was better than nothing, right? right. "and if you say you have a good explanation... i'm willing to listen." willing to listen? so far, it sounded like she wasn't mad at him, nor would she be after he told her his 'excuse' as to why he was missing in action for the past seven months- since last year. "but don't bullshit me. please. after all that just... spare me and please don't feed me bullshit. i couldn't take it." and that's where his good luck ended. hell, did he really think he'd be able to get away with telling her a bullshit excuse like i was in california helping a friend move and visiting my parents? for one, it didn't take seven months to help a friend move. a couple days, a couple weeks, a month or two tops. not seven whole months. secondly, it didn't take seven months to visit his parents, especially with the relationship that audio had with his mother and father. in the couple of months that they had known each other before he had 'disappeared,' surely audio had told her somewhere that he and his parents had a bad relationship. surely, she had figured out that audio would never take seven months out of a year to go and visit his mom and dad, of all people.

it wasn't like there wasn't facebook and phones and text messaging and computers or even mailboxes for heaven's sake in california. there were plenty of ways that audio could have gotten into contact with holly while he was in california, but he had failed to do any of them. thinking back to those seven months, almost two hundred days in los angeles, why had he disregarded letting everyone back in connecticut know where he had gone? maybe he had gotten caught up with alex or heaven forbid that he got too involved with his parents, but it certainly wasn't that he wanted any of them to forget about him- not annika, not austin, not anyone else from that crowd, and definitely not holland beaton. especially not after he had bonded so much with her, gotten so close to the girl, and gotten so infatuated with holly. so really, was there any excuse- that didn't count as bullshit- that he could give to her without getting a broken nose or red hand print on his face in return? no, which was why the twenty four year old's mind was working furiously to devise a new lie that he could tell her in place of the truth, but it was harder than it looked, especially when he was trying to make it sound honest.

however, all his mind kept going back to was his original excuse for leaving. in a swift decision, he decided that it was not only less work but a better idea in the long run to go with that instead of some even shittier alibi. audio figured that her reaction to the truth wouldn't be too bad if the way that she had when they bumped into each other wasn't. with any luck, she'd forgive him quicker, as he didn't lie directly to her face. "i was, uh... i was in california. with my family," he paused, tip-toeing into it as if he was going into a cold ocean rather than risking making a very important girl pissed. "and i was helping a friend of mine move," he said, momentarily stopping to check her reaction. then he started again. "and i know, that was actually kind of really a shitty excuse, but it sounds worse then it really is, but please, don't get mad." he said, as he offered a weak smile, although he wasn't too sure that his begging was enough to suppress her possible anger at his 'not bullshit' excuse.

RENEE AS HOLLY, 697, CLOTHES, lol this wa kinda bad s o r r y

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[gabrielle lee watson]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: dddddd; border: #cccccc solid 8px; width: 420px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE The Words: not counting The Outfit: click with a jacket The Notes I'VE MISSED OUR BABIES she didn't know what she was expecting. some lengthy story about how he got holed up wherever he was. maybe some ridiculous made up lie that was obviously just to hurt her. or maybe a proper explanation about some big family problem or something that she felt even slightly justified why he had been gone. because she wanted to believe there was a good explanation for this. she wanted to believe that he wasn't so heartless as to build her up and then leave her hanging for seven months just because he could. she liked audio. she really really liked audio and she had believed in the good that she saw in him, the part of him that made her feel like she was walking on sunshine just talking to him. so when he said he was going to give her an explanation she expected one. a really good one, something that would just...explain everything and make it stop feeling like she had just been fucked over. again. what she wan't expecting was a four second explanation saying that he spent that time with family and helping a friend move which, unless that friend was moving to india and they had to make several trips that they couldn't pay for right away so it had to take several months to accomplish or unless his family was spread throughout california and he had to walk to each individual city, she found herself doubting that either of these were activities that took seven months. the way he paused between each phrase, staring at her as though waiting for her to just blow up made her doubt even further that he was being entirely truthful and she crossed her arms across her chest and looked down at the ground as he continued to talk. the weirdest part about it, the thing she was expecting the least, though, by the time his mouth actually closed again was that she didn't even really doubt his story. not enough to accuse him of being a liar. but there were still questions to be answered. neither of the excuses (or reasons, she supposed she should start thinking of them as) really gave any explanation as to why he had cut everybody off. no one had heard from him. no one - not austin, not annika, not jake, not anyone, and though she wanted to believe him, she found herself just...unable. that was seven months without a text, a phone call, an IM, a message on facebook. hell, a status update. she got that family was important and so were friends but were they not friends too? were they not on the path to being more than that when he left her? or was that just her imagining things? "and what?" she found herself saying, still slightly bitter. "your friend moved into an amish community? your parents grounded you?" she sighed. "i'm not mad, audio, i'm not, but i am a little hurt. i thought..." she trailed off. now wasn't the time to get into that. "half a year is a long time. a long time to be visiting family and paying a favor to a friend while neglecting the rest of us. like we didn't even matter." created by ADE! Pb-ified by WILL

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