She leaves you to it and starts to act rather strange.

"Well don't worry, you're not the only one..." she softly murmured, her voice portraying just a hint of sadness again, before she then stood up and gave you a playful little slap on the back and decided to leave you to it.

"Uh, wuh-wait!" you called out after her, ignoring her rather cryptic aside for the moment, far more concerned with not letting any of this get out (certain that your dad or Allison wouldn't be quite so forgiven about your porn viewing). "You won't tell anyone about this will you?"

"Your secret's safe with me."

And with that she turned and headed out the door, leaving you to almost immediately plant your hand against your face, groaning to yourself as you did and feeling like a total fool for having been so careless - having allowed Stephanie to see something you'd been painstakingly trying to hide from every other member of your family for years!

Although for the next couple of days or so, you felt more than a littl e embarrassed and awkward around Stephanie (justifiably so), she really did seem extremely cool about it all and made no mention or reference to what had happened, giving you the impression that it was all but forgotten. You were of course very happy about this and about the fact that life seemed to be continuing on just as it always had, both at home and at school, and in fact the only real difference you noticed at all, was in Stephanie herself, who suddenly seemed to be behaving a little strangely, acting less and less like her old self (or at least less like the women you had since grown to know). She still carried out your mom's chores and things around the house same as normal of course, only now she appeared kind of vacant and lost and had begun spending a lot more time locked away on her own again. The two of you didn't really chat as much as you used to either, and you were really beginning to worry that she was retreating once more into her shell and possibly even becoming depressed.

Not wanting this to happen, you deciding one Saturday afternoon while your siblings and father were out (seeing as the rest of them were pretty much oblivious to what was going on) to find out what was up and see if there was anything you could do. And so, heading towards your parent's bedroom - where Stephanie had been for most of the day - you knocked on the door and asked, "Hey Stephanie, it's me. Can I come in and talk?"

"Sure, I guess," you heard her lackluster reply a moment later, "The door's open."

Heading inside you found her sitting there on the bed, surrounded by a collection of items seemingly tipped out of the sports bag that she'd left the hospital with. It was the personal effects Dr. Saunders had allowed her to hold onto. Items that she'd had with her before the accident. Items that had belonged to the old Stephanie Burke.

"Uh, what you doing?" you asked as you glanced briefly down at them, having not seen any of it before today. There was a few lipsticks, makeup items and various other beauty products, a hairbrush, an ipod and a sparkly pink iphone - which she currently had held in her hand and had presumably been looking through.

"Nothing much really. Just taking a trip down memory lane I suppose," she told you, picking up the bag from the floor and quickly throwing the items back in, sounding a little embarrassed as she did. "Why? What's up?"

"Well, that's uh, that's kind of what I was wondering," you replied, figuring it best to just come out and say it, "You haven't really seemed like yourself these last couple of days. Are you okay?"

"Haven't seemed myself?" she half chuckled, "That's a bit of an understatement isn't it?"

"You know what I mean. Is everything okay? Is there anything you want to talk about? I said back in the hospital that I'm here to listen and I meant it...as goofy as that sounds."

Sensing the sincerity in your voice and finally letting down her guard, Stephanie looked at you with your mother's soft brown eyes and sighed, "I don't know. I guess I've just been feeling a little 'body-sick' or something this past week. I mean you guys have been great to me, welcoming me into your house and everything and I really am grateful. It's just that..."

"...You miss you old life?" you said, completing the thought.

"Exactly. Your mom and me, we're two entirely different people, and while I like you and your family, I really miss how I used to look and the stuff I used to do - my job especially," she explained as you took a seat beside her on the bed. "My career really was everything to me. I loved it. I loved everything about it. And now...well now it's gone. A lot of things are gone. I know without the transplant and without the sacrifice your family made I wouldn't even be here, and I know I can't change things and this is how it's got to be...It's just that sometimes I wish I could still be 'me' again, if only for a little while - just to help me get by. Do you get what I mean?"

"I...I think so," you told her, suddenly getting an idea, "And maybe there is a way. If it's acting that you miss so much, maybe there's a drama group you could join some place nearby. I know it'd be a step down from doing it professionally, but it'd be a start. And who knows, maybe you could even eventually get back into infomercials."

Though you yourself had assumed this was a good suggestion, Stephanie didn't look quite so convinced, replying sardonically, "Yeah right...'infomercials'. Pausing then and letting out another deep sigh, she then turned and looked at you rather awkwardly, as if she had something to say that she really would have preferred not to. "Look, Tim, I'm going to level with you. I never appeared in any infomercials. I made that up, I'm not an actress...well not a proper actress anyway. I just told you that because I wasn't sure if you and your family would accept me if you knew what I really did."

Hearing this left you a little lost for words, having seemingly been living under false pretenses for weeks. "Wait...so, you lied?" you said, feeling a little more confused than angry, wanting to know the truth. "So, so what did you really do? Who were you before the crash?"

"I guess it'd probably be easier if I showed you," she replied, resigning herself fully to revealing whatever it was she'd been hiding as she leaned over and pulled the iphone back out of the bag. "Here, take a look for yourself."

Taking it from her, feeling a little nervous about what it was you were going to find, you looked down at the screen and as instructed went into her photos and opened them up. What you saw caused you to do something of a double take, as there on the screen was a picture of none other than Amber Knights, standing in what looked to be a club, dressed in a incredibly tight black mini dress that was barely containing her momentous chest, holding up a brightly colored drink while clinging onto some other extremely beautiful looking girl.

It took a moment or two for it to sink in, until you finally realized that she had to be messing with you, playing some sort of practical joke to do with what she'd seen on your computer the other night. "Oh I get it," you said, feeling once again humiliated as you looked back up at her, having fallen right into her trap. "Yeah, ha ha, very funny! So I happen to look up porn and like a particular porn star, big deal! Every guy my age does it."

Stephanie wasn't laughing however. "This isn't a joke, Tim. I'm serious."

"Where'd you get this picture anyway? Her twitter account or something?" you continued on, ignoring what she'd just said, knowing that there was no way it could be true.

"No, my friend Summer took it," she replied, still keeping up the act. "It's not the only one either. Go on, keep looking."

"What - so you really expect me to believe that not only are you one of the most famous porn stars in the world, but by some crazy coincidence you're also the exact same porn star you caught me checking out the other night? C'mon Stephanie, I'm not that stup..." Interrupting yourself mid speech, having discovered picture after picture of Amber and others (including a few very familiar faces) in various settings and dress as you thumbed quickly through the album, you announced with amazement, "Holy shit! There's hundreds of these! How...how did you get all these pictures? There's no way you could have..."

This time it was Stephanie's turn to finish your sentence. "..Could have them all on my phone unless I was Amber Knights?"

"No...no way! You...you can't be!" you stuttered, convinced it had to be a joke, certain that there had to be some reasonable explanation to where she got all these very private and very personal looking photos.

"Amber Knights was just my stage name. Stephanie Marie Burke was the name I was born with. Go online and check my IAFD page if you don't believe me."

Not entirely sure what that was, you just sat there staring at her rather blankly, forcing her to take the phone from you. "Here, let me do it," she said, opening up the web browser app and typing in the address, bringing up what looked to be basically a porn equivalent of IMDB. Searching then for 'Amber Knights', your jaw just about hit the floor when the page loaded, revealing a couple of very familiar looking photos of your all time favorite porn star, along with stats, aliases, and movie titles, as well as something you were certain you had never seen before (or at least had never paid attention to), and that was her real name, which was in fact 'Stephanie Burke'.