The harsh wind felt like blades slicing through the girl’s cheeks, turning them a bright red that seemed to glow against the darkness of night. The sound of it mixed with the noise of brittle leaves, crunching beneath her bare, aching feet as she walked down the empty road. She focused her attention the pain of it all in a desperate attempt to avoid the thoughts that were pounding within the recesses of her skull. She could still feel his hand upon her flesh, his calloused and rough fingertips tracing their way along the curve between her ribcage and hip bone, the memory of it causing her body to shiver even harder in the cold, autumn air. Her numb hands trembled as she put one of his cigarettes to her pale lips and flicked at her lighter. Only when she got a steady enough flame to allow herself to coat her insides with the warmth of smoke did she begin to relax a bit, her mind slowly settling with each exhale. She looked around in an effort to figure out where she was.
     She’d been walking for over an hour and was lost, her surroundings completely unfamiliar. She debated calling her mother, her cellphone heavy in the pocket of her thin jacket, but didn’t want to deal with the lecture. Earlier that day, she’d told her parents she was staying at a friend’s house to work on a “school project” and didn’t feel like dealing with the consequences of the lie right about now. She had enough on her mind.
    The plan for tonight was supposed to be simple. She’d be dropped off  by her mother at Laura’s, change her clothes, and he’d pick her up and take her for dinner downtown. It would have been even more simple, but she wasn’t ready for her family to know about him just yet. They’d ask him far too many questions and it would ultimately end in them forbidding the relationship once they found out his age. He was five years older than her, having just turned twenty-one last month, so she decided to wait awhile before introductions. At the diner, they ate, drank, and talked, the words flowing endlessly and quickly between the two. It was these conversations that made it easier to look past the age difference, the mountains of similarities between the two quickly apparent within moments. After dinner, she was supposed to head straight back to her friend’s where they’d spend the night laughing and gushing about him, but he had another idea.
     “So,” he said as they walked out of the diner into the chilly, night air, lighting a cigarette the minute he was out the door, “Want to go for a walk around the block? I know it’s getting a bit late, but I’m not exactly ready to end the night.”
    She agreed, still fully captivated by the azure eyes staring at her through long eye-lashes as he let her take a drag of his smoke.
    They walked for a while, making their way through the city’s streets or much longer than they’d meant to. His large, muscular arm was wrapped around her tiny waist in an effort to keep her from freezing to death. It was an uncharacteristically cold night for early October, and she certainly hadn’t dressed for it. She only wore a thin jacket over a tight, low-cut shirt, a green skirt, and her mother’s old Mary Janes.. The only jewelry she wore was her favorite necklace, a gift from when she was she turned four. It had her name, Annie, engraved on it with a white diamond above it, all in a small, silver circle.  While she looked quite nice, it definitely did not keep her very warm. The only thing she was thankful for about it that she hadn’t worn heels. She usually wore them whenever they went out because otherwise he completely towered over her, his height being one of the reasons she fell for him in the first place. They talked the entire time, her staring up at him, and eventually made a circle back to his old, slightly battered car. She gratefully climbed in, her teeth chattering.
     “Jesus christ, it’s f-f-freezing,” she muttered as she rubbed her hands together. “Could you please turn on the heat? I can’t feel my toes.”
     “Yeah, sure, no problem.” He set it to high and let it run for a second while she defrosted. “Hey, so, I was thinking, you want to go back to my place? You’ve never seen it and we’ve been going out for a bit. It’s also pretty warm.”
    She hesitated a bit, thinking about the “girl’s night” she’d be wasting. She’d always been curious about his apartment, but at the same time, she’d never been very eager to visit. Still, she didn’t exactly feel ready to end the night despite the cold filling her body.
    “I guess,” she finally said, slipping her icy fingers through his, “But only for a little bit, please. Just until midnight. I have some,um, work I need to do.” She didn’t want to tell him she was hiding out at friend’s house
    The drive over was fairly quiet, one of the few silent moments they shared since they’d met. He played with the radio but the music that poured out of the tinny speakers didn’t fill the gap in words. The only noise she could register was her heart suddenly pounding with nerves.
    The inside of his studio apartment was warm, but barren and small, with only a handful of furniture decorating the place. Near the kitchenette and the entrance was a small table with two, mismatched chairs, and the living room/bedroom consisted only of an unmade futon, another small end table with an alarm clock, and a tv and stereo. The only decor that she could see was an unframed print of one of Salvador Dali’s most famous paintings, hung crookedly with tape above his unmade bed. It was nothing at all like she’d expected. From the way they talked, she’d expected something more put together and neat, at the least. Instead, the inside just made her feel even more uneasy about coming to visit.
     “I know it’s not much,” he said as he kicked off his shoes and threw his leather jacket on the table, heading over to the fridge, “But I don’t usually spend a ton of time here. School, work, parties and all. Usually all I spend most of it here sleeping or eating or whatever I have to get done. Drink?”
    “Uh, sure,” she mumbled, carefully draping her jacket over one the chairs. She left her shoes on, as they fit well with the rest of her outfit. He handed her a cold bottle off-brand beer with the top already off and the label peeling. She slowly took a sip, cringing at it’s bitter, overly fizzy taste. She had never really drunk anything besides a few sips of scotch at a party before, and cheap beer wasn’t exactly how she wanted to start.        “Thanks.”
    He nodded, smiling at her as he took long chugs from his own, downing it in under a minute.
   “You know, you look really nice tonight,” he said, placing his hand on her hip and drawing her closer, kissing her hard on the lips. She melted into him despite her surroundings. She’d always liked it when he called her that, it making her feel more mature for some reason. It made her feel as if they were made for each other and it would all work. Eventually, he pulled away.“So, what do you want to do?”
     “I don’t know. We could just watch T.V., I guess” She looked around the sparse apartments trying to get ideas before just settling on the obvious. “Or I wouldn’t mind another kiss,” she hinted, walking further into the room. He smirked at her, following her and then perching himself at the end of his futon/bed.
     “I would be okay with that,” he conceded, patting the spot beside him. She sat down and kissed him again, getting lost in the taste of his lips and the way he wrapped his arms tight around her. They stayed like that for a while and soon he was easing her on to her back so that they were lying down. She felt vaguely uneasy about it, her heart beating a tad harder, but did so anyway.
    “Hey,” he said, his voice low and raspy, much deeper and edgy than normal, “Do you think you could take off your shoes? Sorry, I just don’t want my bed getting all dirty.”
    “Oh, um, yeah. No problem, sorry.”
    She nervously sat up and began fiddling with the buckle on her shoe, struggling to get them undone. Earlier that night, she’d told him a story behind those very shoes, how her mother had given them to her when she was quite young to play dress up with, and how they’d always weirdly fit no matter her age.
    “Oh, here,” he muttered, annoyed, quickly undoing them and ripping them off her feet. He pushed her back down, kissing her roughly. Her body stiffened, shocked by the outburst. She pressed her palms to his firm chest in an effort to create some form of barrier. He simply pressed harder against her, his lips moving to her neck. She could feel his fingers crawling up the hem of her shirt, making her stomach turn. She wanted him to stop.
     “Hey,” she whispered, her voice shaky, “Could you let up a little, please? I’m sorry, I just don’t know if I’m ready for all this.”
    “All what?” he said, lifting his head. His blue eyes felt like ice against her.  “Come on. We’ve been going out for a while now, you know? You’ve had to expect this by now, babe. You know I really care about you, Annie. This isn’t freaking high school, and I thought you didn’t want a ‘childish relationship’.”
    She thought back to that conversation, how it was after they had just met at the local bookstore. She started smoking that day, trying to impress him when they walked to his car so he could drive her home. Back then she had felt so infatuated, so mature as she talked to this handsome, older man. But now, as he pressed his lips against her collarbone and slid his hand further up her shirt and caressing the skin below, she was repulsed.
     “Stop,” she begged, pushing him away. He forced himself harder against her, pinning her body to the messy bed, the one she realized was already extremely stained and filthy. “No. I don’t want this, I’m sorry.”
     “Shh.” He moved his hand to the button on her skirt. “Babe, please. It’ll be okay, I promise. We work so well, Amy, and you know it. Don’t ruin it all” He bit at her neck, pulling tight on the chain on her necklace to get to it.
    She stared at ceiling and tried to block it, him, out. She locked her eyes on the poster above them, trying to find something to focus on. He pulled at her necklace again in an effort to reach the skin on the hollow of her neck. She felt the chain tense and then snap. Bits of silver flew everywhere.
     “STOP!” She pushed him off of her with a surprising force, throwing him flat onto the futon. She moved swiftly to her feet and ran toward the front door, grabbing her  jacket on the way and leaving her necklace clenched tight in his fist. Behind her his voice bellowed and bounced against the thin walls, scolding her for leaving and begging for her to return. The only sounds she really noticed was the slamming of the door and the noise of her bare feet stomping against the stairs as she ran down them.
     She didn’t stop until a few minutes later, when she was well away from him and his apartment and her lungs were threatening to burst in her chest. Her body felt clammy and cold, her mind racing and leaving her where she was now, left to wander the streets. She lit yet another cigarette to shut out the memory from her mind for a while, burning her thumb on the hot lighter. Her eyes were searching desperately for a familiar location as she struggled to find her way back home, back to her own bed where she would lie awake all night trying to get feeling back into her now numb, frozen body. She would take a scalding shower first, though, in order to scrub away the feeling of him on her once soft skin that was now covered in a fine layer of goosebumps. After another hour of walking, she finally located a familiar street and let it lead her back to her house, around three or four in the morning. Her toes were a pale blue by then, covered in a layer of broken leaves that had fallen from the trees to lie dead on her feet. The wind and cold had only gotten worse.      She trudged her way onto the front porch, noting how none of the house’s lights were on. Not even the porch light, the one her parents had always kept on whenever she left the house at no matter what. She struggled to grab her key from the pocket of her jacket, her hands still shaking violently from the weather and him, and slowly opened the door. She wondered how she’d get her shoes back.