Before I wake

1.

  

     ~Before I wake~

Anne Frasier

    She and Harley had stayed. She and Harley had become poster children for the project. Arden had remained out of sheer stubbornness. Harley... She didn't know what had driven him. Maybe a desire for fame. Because wasn't it every profilers dream to catch the big one?

     " We've been watching you," the agent said bluntly.

     His unapologetic admission made her feel uneasy and exposed.

    " We know everything you've been

doing."

   "I don't think I want to get involved with such Big Brother mentality."

   "You can't keep on like this," he told her softly in a concerned voice that suddenly made her throat tighten and her eyes burn.

    " What do you mean?" she asked, struggling for self-control. "I've found my niche here."

   "You've been playing a role. can't you see you've done nothing more than step into someone elses life?"

    " How do you know what I'm thinking? Feeling? And isn't stepping into someone elses life what its all about? Isn't that what I was taught to do?" She'd learned her lessons well.

    "I familiarized myself with your file," he said. " I know who you use to be, and I know who you are now."

    "What's wrong with striving for a new kind of contentment? I look at other people doing the same thing. They're Happy."

    " They are nothing like you. They will never umderstand you."

    In her mind, the flimsy cardboard life receded like a TV show she may have once been addicted to, all the while feeling guilty for the addiction because she recognized it for the fluff it was.

Escapism.

It had been okay for awhile. But lately she felt what was left of her identity slipping away. In the middle of the night she would wake up with a sense of panic. Who was she? Who was Arden Davis? What if this really became her life?

  She'd wanted to get as far away from who she'd been as possible. But when confronted with the thought of the drudgery and bleakness never ceasing, of her circumstances never changing, the novelty wore thin.