Glitter shimmers against her high cheekbone like she had been sprinkled with stardust. The glitter makes her look like she belongs at this party. The glitter almost convinces herself that she is not just a ghost floating around the bar, and she wonders if the glitter convinces those around her. Does the glitter that decorates her body, and itches slightly convince her peers that she is happy? Does it convince those around her that she is a stranger in her own body?

She wears the same face, lives the same life, and smiles the same as they tell her she used to, but Finnley does not know herself. She has never met the girl she used to be. That girl doesn’t exist anymore outside the memory of those who knew her. She’s not her and Finnley’s not convinced that she’s ever been her. She wants to believe that the glitter hides the depression. The doctor told her it’s depression. The depression is caused by the accident, and the accident was caused by the storm. Icy roads and pouring rain. In turn its the weather that is to blame for the memories that have hidden themselves in her mind. She finds it a funny thing, trying to figure out why she's depressed when she can’t remember her life or her feelings before the accident. When you don’t know if the sadness was born in you or grew there, if you planted it or it planted you but sadness it is. The sadness is accompanied by the anxiety, and the fear of stepping out her loft door. It makes trips to the market nearly impossible let alone her weekly trip to this bar. But the doctors say she needs to have a life outside of work and home, a balance. The problem is that she might not remember herself, but she knows that she’s never had balance. One side of her body feels heavier then the other, and when she tries to bring that heaviness to her center, it gets lost along the journey.

Sadness, anxiety and fear. Fear of not knowing if she’s always been this way or if it too is the accidents' fault. She didn’t have a limp before the accident. But she’s told she had the tattoo though; it has some obscure meaning that no one can remember even though they know she had told them. She used to wear glasses, a funny thing seeing as how she woke up with 20/20 vision. When she woke up strangers told her she hadn’t had family in years, all dead in the tragic accident. But it didn’t really matter because she doesn’t remember them anyway.

Their faces sit on the dresser and haunt her with guilt for not remembering them. At times she finds herself sitting on her bed and staring at them for hours, searching for a resemblance in their smiles or eyes. But she doesn’t find it, and she can’t hear their laughter, or feel their love. She can’t find anything familiar in the photos of her parents, in the same way she can’t see herself in the mirror.

Every once and awhile she recognizes herself. A ghost, a stranger's life but there are times when she looks in the mirror and can remember the hatred she carried inside as a child. It’s a deep-rooted hatred for the blue veins that bleed through pale skin, and the bump in her nose. Some day's she is nothing more than a ghost trapped inside a body she hates.

The light dances off of the glitter adorning her face, and Finnley sighs as she wonders if the girl who lived in this body before her enjoyed dancing, or if she cried while going on a run. Sometimes she thinks she can feel the memories, limbs tangled in movement, the same eyes seeing the world, the old trails of lovers hands. They sit at the back of her mind in a haze of icy mist, calling her to dive in and never come back. In moments of silence, she wonders why she had come back from the coma, if it had been a mistake. Life might have been easier, life might have done her a kindness if she had never woken up, if her body had grown cold at the time of the accident. They tell her she was a warrior who fought against death. That the majority of people wouldn’t have made it. That her body had fought against the blood loss, and the frost bite, and the breaking of bones. That when they found her beneath the snow, they believed they were on a recovery mission and not a rescue mission. Why she had been on that damned mountain road in the middle of one of the fiercest storms that had come through the area in decades, they didn’t know, and neither did she. She couldn’t remember why. But the doctors say she was a fighter, a warrior despite her body wanting to give out. That warrior had gripped herself from the edge of death, and pulled through. And then that warrior had abandoned Finnley to a hellish nightmare. That girl, whom she once was, had never left that car accident on the snowy ridge. That girl had found peace that Finnley would never recieve.

A group of young girl's crowd around Finnley in the bathroom mirror, all looking for a space to add more glitter to their already dramatically decorated faces. Finnley doesn't hesitate before she escapes the small bathroom at the back of the pub making a bee-line for her once warm bar stool.

Thumping techno music pounds through the normally quiet pub, the sound of drunk patrons singing at the top of their lungs, and the smell of sweat hanging heavy in the air.

“You look like you could use a drink!” Shayla, the heavily tattooed bartender comments as Finnley sits back in her abandoned barstool.

She nods frantically, “I could use six!”

Her charcoal eyes widen slightly at the woman who has taken Ravi’s previous seat beside her. The blonde woman's hair is in a bird's nest atop her head, and mascara runs down her right cheek.

“I just can’t be with someone who needs to be told how to love me!” Her voice is shrill, loud over the music thumping and burns Finnley’s ears the way the amber whiskey burns her throat as she slams it back. Shayla immediately starts to refill the empty glass as it hits the bartop.

Her perfectly shaped eyebrows raise to her hairline. “The only thing a person can want in life is to have someone who already knows how to love them, who doesn’t need to be taught how to love them the way they need.” Shayla proclaims as she gives the young woman a look filled with pity.

Finnley rolls her eyes, “Where is Ravi?”

The bartender nods towards the crowd of dancing patrons. “You left and he made a bee-line for that tall blond.”

There, right in the middle of the crowd grinding against a tall blond man with glitter covered abs, is Ravi. His tanned skin and dark chest hair blend into the half naked bodies all around him. Both covered in neon paint and sweat, dancing as though they are too familiar with one another.

Finnley had only been in the restroom for a matter of minutes before Ravi had made his way towards the blond that he had been watching since they walked in. Finnley doesn’t interrupt him from his dancing, he deserves to have a little fun, heavens know she was no source of entertainment.

“Have you talked to your therapist about the man?” Shayla inquires.

“What?”

“The dream man.” Shayla says once more.

Finnley doesn’t know they had decided on that title for him. It made it seem like she was dreaming about the perfect husband rather then some man who has been popping up in her dreams...or maybe it was the perfect name for the dream man seeing as how these days she couldn’t close her eyes without him being there.

Finnley shrugs, “I stopped seeing the therapist.”

Shayla raises a strong black brow, “Why?”

“She wasn’t helping.” Finnley shrugs but the truth was that she had been helping. A little too much, Finnley had decided. Claudia, her therapist had taken Finnley on as though she was a case that needed to be solved. The longer she tried to help, the more convinced Finnley became that there was nothing to help with. There was nothing to find about her old life that would help her. Some people's lives are sad and they end up alone, she had decided. Finnley had decided that this was okay with her but Claudia thought she deserved to find out about her past and kept pushing her and pushing her and pushing. So Finnley had pushed send on the email letting Claudia know that she was no longer going to be her patient.

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“I wish I had some mysterious man that I couldn’t remember haunting my dreams.” the blonde woman says at the same time that Shayla mutters, “So you stopped taking your meds.”

Finnley takes a sip, “Believe me, it’s not fun waking up and not remembering yourself…or anyone else.” Shayla rolls her eyes, turning towards the couple on the other side of the bar.

The young girls bloodshot eyes meet hers, “I would give anything to forget who I am.”

Finnley cringes. The young girl has no idea what it’s like to forget yourself on so many levels that you can’t even remember the world but nothing about it thats actually important.

Sitting on the hard bar stool, she listens to the drunk crying blonde complain about her boyfriend. Apparently, he’s out on the dance floor with her best friend, who she thinks is having an affair with him.

Shayla, the ever-loving keeper of drunken secrets, talks to the girl like she’s a star in the sky that the man can’t see. Encourages her to find better, to do and be better for herself but as Shayla gives her advice that this girl is going to forget in the morning, Finnley takes a long painful pull of whiskey.

Finnley’s whole body tenses as leather slides against her bare arm, too close for her liking. Apparently personal space is out of the question in the pub tonight. She’s not looking for another crying drunk that wants to be her friend, so she paints a scowl on her face, and keeps watching the blonde girl cry her eyes out, like they are friends in hopes that whoever slid in next to her looks for another stranger to dump their issues on. But it’s when Shayla’s large blue eyes meet hers in an excited glance that Finnley wonders if she should glance at her new neighbor. She glances to her side discreetly, out of curiosity.

A full head of dark curls, and a chiseled jaw accompany eyes the same color as Finnley’s whiskey.

One might say he looks as though he stepped into the wrong bar, that he looks to be destined for the pub around the block where he can drink in peace in a quiet corner, instead of Shayla’s loud pop music playing, glitter filled, pink barstool pub. But the misplaced man also looks as though he could fit in and belong anywhere. His honey eyes find Finnley’s as she looks him over, and out of embarrassment of being caught gazing, she quickly looks back down to her drink.

“What can I get for you doll?” Shayla questions as the shrieking girl has gone quiet, her eyes also ranking over the man in curiosity.

“I’ll take what sparkly over here has.” It’s a voice that matches his eyes, deep and as smooth as the whiskey she drinks.

“There’s a storm brewing.”

There’s a storm brewing and there’s nothing we can do about it, it was set in to motion the moment you took your first breath.

Snapping her head toward him, their eyes meet and Finnley curses herself for looking. Soft melted honey, the kind you get stuck in, that you feel all over your hands no matter how many times you wash them.

“Excuse me?” The left side of his lip quirks up in a smirk, and he nods towards the television behind Shayla, that displays what she can only assume is a rerun of a football game. “The weather reports says a storm is headed this way."

Clearing her throat with an obnoxious gurgling sound, Finnley cringes, "I don't think anyone in here is paying attention to the news."

He nods a thanks at Shayla as she sits down a glass in front of him before he remarks, "You sure aren't."

Finnley squints her eyes at the strange man, “Do I know you?”

His smirk grows wider. He has a small assortment of freckles that lightly dust the right side of his cheek, and a hoop earring that hugs his left ear. “I once read that we all know each other in some way. From lives once lived or faceless wars fought.”

“Well I don't believe in all that stuff." She doesn’t backdown from his hard gaze as her aggressive words meet him.

“Me either.” He holds his smirk, as though there’s something else he wants to say but decides against it.

She turns back towards her preferred spot of staring, right over Shayla’s left shoulder at the arrangements of old liquor bottles.

His gaze feels like it’s a tacky, sticky feeling across her face.

His glass lands back onto the wooden bar empty, and he stands from the seat he had only occupied momentarily, but when he does he leans towards Finnley. Invading her personal space once again, his strong hand lands upon her bare shoulder, and she shivers when his breath meets her ear. “Don't get caught in the storm."

There's something in the way he says it, the tone of voice that makes her want to bite out a quick fuck you random guy but she says nothing as she watches him retreat into the crowd from the bar backs mirrored shelves. He’s easy to identify out of the neon, glitter covered crowd.

“He was dreamy!” The shirking blonde loudly announces that moment he's sank into the crowd.

Finnnley knows she should be annoyed, irritated and maybe even a little disgusted because a stranger had just invaded her personal space but the whiskey had gone to her head. That voice echoed as he walked away, sitting in the back of her mind.

There's a storm brewing.

She could hear it so vividly. The words of the face she can't remember. She had thought over those words again and again. Clearly she had not heeded the warning of whoever had spoken them. The storm had found her, and she had found out that you it's very difficult to keep all your fingers and toes after laying in the snow for more then twelve hours.

"Does you dream man happen to look anything like that?" Shayla chuckles.

"No." Finnley growls out.

Shayla lifts the almost empty whiskey bottle, and drains the rest of its contents into her glass, "I've never seen him around the village before."

"Me either." Finnley mutters.

The man seemed…familiar in a way but she had never met him. But she felt as though she knew him, the same way she felt as though the man in her dream was familiar. He was but he wasn’t, his eyes were but his words weren’t. Like when you think you recognize someone and say hello but it’s not actually them, just a stranger with a familiar face.

“That is Leo!” Ravi declares as his hip slams into the bar, his ring filled hands grasping onto Finnley’s glass of whiskey and downing it like a small child drinking water, “And we are in love! I have decided, he and I are to grow old in a seaside cottage and live a very glittery life together!” He laughs as his deep blue eyes meet my own, “He is a career banker but everyone needs a good flaw, and I love that about him.”

“Well, I am ready to go home Mr. So-in-love.” It’s not a request as she pulls her discarded jacket onto her shoulders, glancing back out towards the sea of people to try to catch another glimpse of the strange man.

He dances his body towards her, almost throwing her off the barstool, “Aye, aye captain let me rescue my lover from the sea of dancing fools!” Ravi shimmies all the way back to the blond man.

She had always admired that about Ravi. That he was able to find something to love in every person, even when he wasn’t piss drunk. Finnley could admit she was the opposite, she always found things to hate about people. Sometimes she seeks them out, drags them out of people and rips them apart. She had never met a person she couldn’t hate if she tried hard enough. Even the people she doesn’t actually hate, like Ravi or this drunken heartbroken girl next to her. She has a great sense at seeing people for their biggest flaws, and sees no redemption in them. But Ravi can see someone for all their flaws and still find the little lights within them. He see’s everyone as being humans with flaws who are worthy of being loved despite them, and accepts them completely. Finnley doesn’t believe she ever will be able to look at another human and not be able to see past all the awful things about them. She doesn’t believe she could ever accept the bad; not in strangers, not in friends, not in herself.

She doesn’t know if she’s always been this way but she imagines she has been. That before the accident that took her life but not her body that she hated people just as she does now. That hate in her blood has probably always been there. But as she watches Ravi curl himself around this stranger that he’s already found things to love about, she wonders if she’s ever loved someone that way. Had she seen past the bad parts, and loved someone to the point of it becoming a flaw? Had she ever loved herself in that unconditional way? She wonders if she had known that girl she once was, if she would miss her? She wouldn’t ever know, just like she didn’t know if she would ever be able to forgive her for losing her life and still waking up. Glancing at the mirrored bar back one last time, she smudges a hand across the glitter on her cheek before dragging Ravi and his plus one out into the cold winter night.