Afterwards

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I noticed there aren’t that many L. J. Smith fanfictions out there. I wish there were more, especially Forbidden Game and Dark Visions. I though L. J. Smith was like, the coolest author ever when I was a teenager. Whatever happened to her? Please read and review, any good???

I have just been made aware that if I didn\''t put a disclaimer my story it would be deleted after 10/31/05. So here it is, DISCLAIMER: I deffinately do not own these characters. Also, I will hopefully be updating this story before the new year. Its been so long because I haven\''t read these books in a long time and I forgot some details, but aparently I lost my old copies . . . . . I have to get some new ones on ebay . . . .
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The Color of Your Eyes

“Eyes the color of cypress trees . . . “ Julian’s voice reverberated in Jenny’s head as she opened her eyes. For a moment, she wondered where she was. After gathering her bearings, she realized she was not in some shadow fantasyland Julian had concocted, but in her bed, at home, lying next to Tom but feeling miles away from him, as it had been so every single day of her married life. Shadows and fantasies and even Julian’s icy gaze seemed so far away now, now that so many years had passed.

Jenny had never been the same person after all that, just a shell of her former self. The ring, she had lost it shortly after she got married. It was a beautiful thing, made of gold and opals. But she never wore it though; she kept it in a drawer until the move.

The world around Jenny had changed too. Jenny’s mother had died last spring, and the last string she had been holding onto finally snapped. After that, Jenny stopped acting happy. No one blamed her now for looking the way she’d felt for many years, wistful and vacant and empty, as if a part of her was gone forever. Despite her and Tom’s pleas, her father continued to live alone at their old house. His hair was turning gray now, and he had become nothing like the man she used to know, the jovial, loving father of her childhood.

Friends came and friends went. She formed new connections with people only to have them broken a few years later, by geography or death, or even neglect. Sometimes people just grow apart, and not even dreamlands or shadow men could change that. Dee had moved away, years ago to join the Peace Corps and educate less fortunate children in Nigeria. After the first few months, her letters became sparse, and after a year, no more came. Summer was on a modeling tour in France, but even so, they had stopped talking years before that. Zach, Jenny’s beloved and artistically talented half cousin, had died of a heroin overdose in his apartment about four years back. Yes, friends came, and friends went, and it hurt Jenny every time. The only constant in her life so far had been Audrey and Michael, who lived right down the street from her and Tom. Audrey had always been a great comfort to her, after graduation.

But they never talked about it anymore, any of them. It was like it’d never happened. It was like Julian had just . . . vanished. And so he had.