A Stagnation of Love

Chapter 8

Part 35

I didn't go to the library that day. After that little… confrontation, encounter, whatever word you want to fucking use to describe the clusterfuck between myself, Zechs, and Heero, I had suddenly lost the taste for making any attempt to relax in quiet isolation with a book, public or private. I didn't want to be around anyone, even in a quiet, mostly empty library. I didn't want to think. Most of all, I didn't want to feel anymore. So, I just went on autopilot, shoving all those twisted things deep down into me where I didn't have to look at them, because I knew that if I glanced at them even just minutes afterwards, if I remembered the things that Zechs had said, the things I had said, and worse, how Heero had looked… I couldn't get it out of my mind, I couldn't stop seeing him, just staring at me with tears in his eyes as I stabbed a knife through his heart with my words… the boy that I loved. My best friend. I couldn't stop thinking that as I walked, my heart as heavy as lead, but I had to or it was going to drive me insane.

I shut it all down as best as I was able and lived in that nebulous place in my head that I often go to that blocks out everything but simple, physical action, all the things that I need to do to keep moving forward. I know it's just an extreme form of denial and procrastination, that eventually something would break and all that shit would come back like a dam bursting, just like it had done Monday night, but in the meantime, I could breathe and go on for just a little bit longer without falling into hysterics and start looking for a knife. I found myself in front of my house with no recollection of walking there which had nothing to do with my sleep deprivation. I was tired down to my bones but I wasn't quite bad enough to start losing time, thankfully. The last thing I needed was another problem.

It made sense to me that I had gone back home like a salmon or pigeon the second I had been too stuck in my head to really think about what I was doing or where I should be going. I didn't have anywhere else to go and at least there, no one would bother me. Even if my father showed up there for his lunch break, it would be brief and I had nothing better to do with no work until 9. Our driveway was empty and the front door was locked, but that didn't mean he wouldn't show up between then and when I would need to leave for work. And if he caught me there, he might demand to know what happened between Heero and I, like he gave a shit, or rub it in my face after what I had said to them that morning. That might have kept me out of the house and probably should have in the emotional state that I was in, even if I refused to let myself acknowledge that state on a conscious level, but I just didn't care anymore.

The apathy was back in full force and I was happy to bury myself in it. If there was some switch or circuit in my head that controlled my emotions, I would happily disable or tear it out. Feeling things only made everything complicated. It only made it hurt in the end, no matter what the feeling was. Just like people. In the end, they just make everything hurt. I had tried so hard to connect with the people that I was close to. My parents, Quatre, Trowa, 'Ro, his parents… Each and every one of them had just broken my heart. I suppose that isn't a fair thing to say. Heero and his parents had never done anything to me, I had done it to myself, but that didn't change facts. Even if they had been nothing but kind to me, they had still broken my heart.

I was done with all of it. Connecting, feeling, people. Being alone is easier, it always has been. If I hadn't become friends with Quatre, I never would have had to watch him end his life right in front of me. If I hadn't dated Trowa, I never would have found out just how low and despicable I am. If I had never trusted my father, he never would have broken me. If I had never let Heero into my life, I never would have found out what being a part of a real family feels like. I never would have found out what being really loved felt like. And I never would have ruined everything. Apathy was better. It made things simple.

I unlocked the front door and went inside. Everything was exactly how I had left it when I had fled that morning, although that felt like a billion years ago somehow. I had to keep reminding myself as I looked around that it had just been a few hours ago. Justin's phone call. My father slapping me. Telling my parents that Heero and I weren't friends anymore, then running off like a child because I couldn't face my own self-made problems. It was something that I still didn't want to face, either my mother's concern and questions or my father's callous arrogance, but I knew I would have to eventually, if not when my dad got home, then certainly when my mom did. At least I had plenty of time with how late she had been getting off work early. In all likelihood, she would be so tired after her shift that night to do more than eat whatever was quickest and go to bed, it was quickly becoming her ritual. With some luck, she might even forget what I had said. Her short-term memory has been spotty since her drinking got heavy and while going sober had helped, she was still pretty scatter-brained. Add her being over-worked and I might get a few days in without having an awkward conversation with her about Heero.

I dutifully checked the answering machine and found there was one message, the blinking light sending a tiny jolt of pain through my skull like a nail of accusation. I didn't bother to check what the message was or who it was from, or stop to think that I knew exactly who it was from and why the hell he was still going at it after my father had threatened him. For how much Justin and my dad seemed like polar opposites, they both had the same stubborn streak. My father could never let go of his bad habits, whether it was a drink or a grudge. And Justin… all these months, all my mistakes, all my burdens, and he had never given up on me. As stubborn as my dad, but that kindness of his turned what could have been a nightmare into something beautiful. Something that my father would always lack.

I suppose seeing that message should have made me feel better, seeing that he was still reaching out to me. That, unlike his son, he hadn't given up on me. But I didn't see Justin and his kindness in those messages. I saw my father's stubborn grudges. I didn't know what he had said, but I knew he didn't have an ounce of kindness left for me and it would be better if he would just give up. Seeing that blinking light and thinking about how much he must hate me, just like my own father, to still be making those damned phone calls instead of letting this go, left me bleeding. It's funny, I hadn't thought I had any blood left to spill after my day at school, but life was really adept at finding new and more interesting ways of wounding me.

I deleted the message and erased the call history for good measure, just in case my father wanted to do a little sleuthing to see if Justin was heading his warning. No matter how he felt about me currently, I didn't want him to get into trouble, and my father was most definitely the sort of man that would follow through on his threat even if he knew it wouldn't go anywhere legally. Like I said, my dad can hold a grudge for decades over the tiniest thing. A big thing and well… he was never going to stop loathing Justin. If he ran into him at the grocery store thirty years from now, he wouldn't be adverse to dumping a carton of eggs on his head or maybe waiting to pop him one in the parking lot where no one would see like a grade school bully.

I stood there in the kitchen for more than a couple minutes, just staring at the phone but not really seeing it. For what felt like the billionth time since Sunday, I… didn't know what to do. There were dishes in the sink from whatever breakfast my parents had had, but what about after that? If I scrounged around the place, I was sure that I could find something broken to fix. There was always something broken. But although keeping busy was what I probably should do, to keep my head straight, I felt no urge to do anything. Not fix the light in the basement. Not vacuum the place top to bottom. I didn't feel like doing anything. Just taking a single step from where I was seemed like running a marathon. I was done with everything. I was just… just so tired.

A lot of it was my mental state and everything that had happened that day, but another good chunk of it was just how little I had been sleeping. The constant nightmares. When was the last time that I had really slept more than in sporadic, couple of hour bursts? When was the last time that I had slept deeply instead of staying up in the small hours of the morning tossing and turning and thinking dark things? Making lists and excuses and crying and feeling that crushing weight on my chest? I couldn't remember. I was sure that I had some time last week, but that was just the thing. In that moment, I couldn't remember last week clearly at all. At least, not the good times. Not those brief, few moments when I had been happy, only the bad stuff, and even that was a bit muddled.

That, more than anything else, told me how tired I was. It was an early sign that my sleep deprivation was starting to climb towards the tipping point. First came short term memory loss, followed by the loss of critical thinking skills, and then my personal favorite, time lapses. That would be just what I needed on top of going insane and becoming more and more emotionally unstable. I needed sleep, that was the answer to the question. Not chores, not distractions, just sleep. If I could just rest for a few hours without any nightmares, it would solve all sorts of problems. I could feel just a little less tired. I could sleep instead of scrounging around like a rat for the next thing to do. I might even be able to finally shake the headache that was stubbornly clinging to my skull for the past few days, even with my mom's pills.

That was actually a fair idea, I realized. Probably the only good idea I had had all day. I went to the bathroom and dug out my mother's bottle of painkillers, giving it a little shake. It was half-full, so I didn't feel too much guilt in pilfering one. It would dull the screaming pain in my head and make me drowsy, two birds with one stone. I dumped one in my hand and looked at the small, white pill like it held all the answers in the universe. Did I really want to do this? Not take the pill, but try to sleep. 'Try' being the operative word there. Even if I did manage it and, as tired as I was, that I couldn't with all the shit backing up in my head was a real possibility, I was just going to have nightmares.

I was so tired of the constant stream of endless, vivid nightmares, of all the monstrous things in my head leaking out the second that I was most vulnerable. Of all the walls and denial that I painstakingly built up not mattering at all. But what was my alternative? I needed to sleep, I couldn't keep putting it off because I was such a coward, I couldn't take some bad dreams. Even my night terrors were nothing more than that when you really got down to it. I needed to grow a fucking set and stop being such a child.

I almost popped the pill and took it dry before I realized just how dry my throat and mouth actually were and it dawned on me like a slap to the head that I couldn't even remember the last time that I had had anything to drink. I knew that I had to have had something that day, maybe in the early morning, or... or had I? It was all fuzzy. I hadn't even realized how thirsty I was. Was I really that out of it? Was I really so depressed that I was completely disconnected from my body and something as simple to take care of it as have half a glass of water? I suppose it wasn't that shocking. I hadn't been eating much, either, but my lack of appetite and my not even thinking about staying hydrated because I was just so miserable and just didn't care about anything anymore were fairly different issues.

And that was the thing. It had just struck me that I was falling even further down that rabbit hole, that I was so wrapped up in trying not to feel and keep a hold on my sanity that everything else was falling away. It should have horrified me, but it didn't. That alone, not the self-neglect, was what should have been the scariest thing, yet it didn't faze me any more than if I had been watching a news report on some far away country. That's exactly what it felt like. Like my dehydration was happening to someone far, far away that I had never met. I still poured some bitter tap water and drank down the full glass along with the pill, but I didn't scold myself. I didn't make any kind of resolution to pay better attention next time, because I really didn't care what I did to myself anymore. Not even my most basic, physical needs mattered. It's probably a good thing that breathing is automatic and reflexive or I would have forgotten to do that, too.

I ignored the dishes and just went upstairs to my bedroom, dressing in night clothes, and laid down on my mattress. Immediately, I knew it had been the right choice. It took me a good forty minutes to fall asleep, but just lying there in the dark made my head feel a little better and closing my eyes soothed some of the burning.

'Just a few hours,' I thought as I drifted, right before sleep finally dragged me down, 'That's all I need, just a few hours, please.'

Miraculously, my head or the universe or god or whoever it is that decides these things seemed to listen for once and I managed a full, two hours of sleep. It wasn't exactly restful. There were nightmares, of course, but nothing that was earth-shatteringly awful and no night terrors, and I probably would have managed at least another hour if the sound of the front door opening and then slamming shut hard enough to shake the walls hadn't jerked me right out of a nightmare and back into an even worse reality. I couldn't remember what the dream was about, but as I heard my father stomp into the house and fling open the fridge door so hard that it hit the wall, I didn't feel an ounce of confusion or grogginess. I knew where I was and what was going on even as my headache pounded in my skull from the sudden rush of adrenaline and my racing heart, making my head feel heavy. And… I groped for my alarm clock so I could look at the time and saw that it was only five.

I groaned and scrubbed my hand over my eyes. I just wanted to fall back to sleep, but that was impossible with my father there. I felt this intense frustration that almost had me throwing my clock across the room. I felt like everything was mocking me. Everything I tried… everything I did was a miserable failure, even just trying to sleep. It felt like, even if I found myself on the right track, even if I tried to do the right thing or managed to sleep or things were starting to get better by just a sliver, the universe would throw something in my way. I just wanted all of it to go away. Heero, Zechs, school, work… but especially him. I wanted my father to disappear from the face of the earth. I wanted him to just fucking leave me alone!

I don't know what it was, if it was really just my sleep deprivation and my moodiness from being so tired, the events of that day, or if it was just him, knowing that I was suffering in large part because of what he had done to me, not just lately with his stupid issues about Heero or even the rapes, but just everything he had done to me in my life. Whatever the reason, this burning rage filled me at him. Not just that he had woken me up or played a part in my decision to break up with Heero, but just that he existed in the world, that on top of everything else piling up on my shoulders, I had to deal with him, too. Had to deal with a man that didn't even know what he had done and, if he did, wouldn't care. Wouldn't even just not care, but would gloat about it. Just like when I had asked him to stop hurting me and he had mocked me for it.

My anger boiling, I listened to him storming around the kitchen, clearly putting something together for a meal, but doing it with a lot more ire than the act warranted. He was in a mood, as he often was lately when he got away from work. Good. I was in quite a mood myself. I kicked off my sheets and climbed to my feet. I didn't see the point in lying there and waiting for him to go away. I could, but he sounded like he was in the mood to start something if he figured out I was there and since my shoes were right by the door, he had to have noticed it. Besides, even if he left in the next couple of minutes, I knew I wasn't getting back to sleep. If I just had someplace else, someplace where I could lie down away from my father, someplace that didn't make me so anxious, maybe I could drift off again…

I cut that thought off at the knees because I knew exactly where it would lead to. This was where I had to sleep, my bedroom, my house, the only place I had and I just needed to deal with that. If I had to wait for my father to go to bed every night before I got any rest myself, so be it. I would adjust, I always do. It wasn't even anything different, it was just that I had fallen out of my old patterns. I had been spoiled all these months into forgetting, but it would be like riding a bike. It had to be. I had nothing else.

I quickly dressed back into the clothes that I had had for school and shored myself up for what I was sure was going to be a big fight. He would ask what I was doing home, or just jump into gloating that Heero and I weren't friends anymore, which, in the mood I was in, was going to make me snap. Even if I could control myself, I would have to confess to being unable to get my other Tuesday shift back, which was going to piss him off. If I was lucky, I could just get out of there without talking to him at all, just bolt for the door or sneak past him, but I had a feeling that, with how the day I had been going, I wasn't going to luck out.

I crept downstairs cautiously, not worrying about taking anything with me, it would just weigh me down if I really did need to make a hasty escape. He would be long gone by the time I needed to go to work anyway if he was stopping by now on his lunch or dinner break or whatever this was for him, so I could change into my uniform then. For all I knew, he could just be grabbing a quick snack and would leave without bothering me. Yeah, right. I should just leave no matter what mood he was in, I thought, even if I had nowhere to go and no real desire to leave the house outside of not wanting to deal with him. But I found myself hesitating at the foot of the stairs, all the old, familiar fears returning as that childish, animal side of me listened keenly, trying to gauge what my father was doing and what his temperament was before it would allow me to blunder into things.

I could hear him still rifling through the fridge for something and making the maximum amount of noise doing it, cursing under his breath. I almost jumped when he suddenly slammed the door closed, my heart going a mile a second. I didn't even care if he beat me or about anything else he could possibly do to me in his obvious temper, but I couldn't shake that ancient fear of him anyway and it left me paralyzed as this tiny voice in the back of my head demanded to know what the hell I thought I was doing, to just go back upstairs and hope he hadn't realized I was there until he went away. It was a possibility, but the thought of going up there where I would be trapped made my skin crawl. I snapped out of my frozen state when I heard the too familiar click and hiss of a can being opened and a shot of anger went through me, erasing my numb fear.

I'd say that I couldn't believe that he was drinking on his break, or even that it surprised me, but it didn't at all because I had seen him do it before. It just enraged me, that he couldn't even go ten hours without a drink after all the damage his drinking had done to his last job. I knew he hated working at the mill. I knew he found it incredibly stressful and, infinitely worse, degrading. And I knew he didn't care about putting any effort into it, but it was because of his stupid drinking that we had fallen so deeply in debt, why he was trapped in that job in the first place! He didn't even care, and I knew that, too. He could be fired tomorrow and he would gripe about it, but I don't think he would be as enraged as when he got fired from the force, I think he might even secretly be glad to have an excuse, not even thinking that all it meant was he would need to search for another job, one that he might hate even more.

That was the most frightening part, that my father and his drinking had degraded to the point where he no longer thought about, not just consequences, but what was going to happen the next day or week from now. He had always been a bit impulsive when he got mad or drunk, but now it was just constantly and the sound of that beer being opened should have scared the shit out of me, but it only made me furious. It was the sound of him putting my mom and mine's livelihoods at risk again. It was the sound of more long shifts and no days off and tears, of debt and stress and what pissed me off so much was knowing that he wasn't even thinking about it. That he didn't care one bit about anyone but himself, while he just took out every, tiny thing that was wrong in his own life on us.

Or maybe, deep down where I refused to look at it, I was angry at the both of us. Angry because all I did was look to the future, make these plans that fell through, and then, in a moment of impulse, had destroyed everything that had ever mattered to me. Angry because nothing I did made anything better while he never even tried and nothing touched him. Angry because I couldn't even pick up an extra shift or help my mother at all, angry because we were both weighing her down, the same way I was weighing Heero down. Angry because I hated the both of us. He didn't deserve Mom and I didn't deserve Heero. We just kept hurting everyone.

It was that senseless rage that had me stepping out into the kitchen. Not that I had any plan to do anything with my anger. I was disgusted, but I had no desire to confront him about his drinking or have it out with him, but any fear that I had had of him had suddenly vanished. There really was an opened can of beer on the kitchen table, along with the makings of a sandwich, but he hadn't so much as taken a bite out of that. He wasn't drinking, either, but slowly pacing the kitchen, running a hand through his wild hair and lost in some thought. His entire body was tense and radiating with this crazy energy that was so familiar, but I couldn't exactly place. Even his eyes were overly bright. He was acting the same way he would when he was drunk and stressed about something, but that wasn't possible. There was only the one can of beer out and he hadn't been home long enough to have more than that. Besides, he was acting weird and chaotic, irritated and on edge, but his face wasn't flushed and he wasn't stumbling, just agitated.

Suddenly, it hit me as I watched him finally stop, snag his sandwich, and take an angry bite of the thing with the same mannerism that my mother used to have in the early days of her sobriety when she had taken a drink of water or juice when all she had really wanted was booze. He wasn't acting drunk, not really. It was about a thousand times worse than that and I don't know why I hadn't recognized this behavior the instant I had seen it. Before I could do anything with this knowledge, he turned and finally seemed to notice me. The bulge in his pants should have been all I had needed to tell me what kind of mood he was really in, but it was his eyes that made me realize I was right.

When he looked at me, it wasn't with irritation or disgust or even anger, but raw, repulsive want. He wasn't drunk, he was fucking horny and pissed about it because the only real outlet he had before he had to go back to work was his hand or to simply ignore the urge altogether. Only there I was, his favorite outlet. I should have felt utter terror to have those eyes on me, to know what he wanted to do to me. I was already hanging on by a thread, him raping me in our kitchen because he couldn't control himself, or rather, didn't feel like he needed to control himself, might finish the job of making me snap. But I didn't. Oddly, I just felt more of that bitter, pulsating anger. If anything, the rage I felt was worse than if he had just been wasted and I still have no idea why.

I expected him to just grab me and get it over with. He had zero reason not to. I was there for him, right? He hadn't held back once in six months, so why stop now? It wasn't like I had enough of a heart left for him to rip out, so what did it even matter? At least I could be of use to someone. At least I had a fucking purpose besides taking up air and food. But he just stood there, staring at me, like he was trying to make up his mind. I might have even made it past him, but I realized that I didn't care about escaping. I was tired of it and it didn't matter. He would get his way eventually, whether it was now or that night or the next night was irrelevant. And I deserved it. I deserved any sick thing he wanted to do to me. But he wasn't moving. Why? Why even think about it?! He had never had to before, not since the first time, certainly not when I had begged him to stop! His hesitation made my fury explode.

'If you're going to rape me, then just rape me!' I screamed at him in my head.

Just do it. Rape me. Break me. Degrade me even more than you already have. Just fucking punish me like I deserve to be punished!

My father's eyes hardened and I finally felt a spark of fear, although it was so tiny, it was barely noticeable at all, just a knee-jerk reflex of recognizing the change of the air and his expression when he starts to get really pissed off about something. Had he seen the anger in my eyes and thought I was going to start shit with him? He dropped his sandwich back down on the plate and took a threatening step towards me. Something in me cringed and I felt frozen again, unsure of what was going to happen. Unsure of what I even wanted to happen, my bitterness and anger towards myself warring with a lifetime of fear.

The open hate on his face for me only made me loathe myself more because it shouldn't have fazed me at all. I didn't care about him or my love for the man anymore. I didn't care about anything, especially the person who had helped make me so miserable, who had raped me and almost beaten me and my mother to death more than once. And even if I did care, it wasn't anything new. I had seen that expression on his face countless times since he had started raping me. I knew that he might need me for that physical release, but he hated that need, especially when he was sober enough to really realize what he was doing and who he was doing it to, and more than that, more than his disgust for his urges or his anger at my mother for not giving him what he wanted, he hated me because he blamed me for them.

If I didn't look like her, if I didn't remind him of her so much, and if I wasn't such an easy outlet, he wouldn't be a rapist. He wouldn't be fucking his own son. Whether that was right or wrong didn't matter, it was what he clearly believed when he looked at me when he was finally done and that need had passed until the next time. I should hate him for that, especially now that I had nothing else but him and his hate and not even an illusion of love to keep me going. That look on his face should make me angry. I should have lashed out at him for it. But somehow, it didn't make me enraged like his drinking did. It only hurt. Just like it had the first time I had noticed it. Just like all the times he had looked at me like that when he had been drunk when I had been a kid and I had wondered if my father secretly hated me for weighing him down, for him needing to take care of not just a child he hadn't wanted, but one that had turned out to be so useless. It's funny, I hadn't thought that I had been capable of feeling more hurt that day, and if I had, I certainly hadn't thought it would come from my father looking at me no differently than he has the last few months.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!" he snarled at me.

I blinked stupidly at him for a second, not having expected that to be the first thing to come out of his mouth.

"I… I don't have work right now," I recovered quickly, but still feeling baffled. I could understand him snapping at me, but I had already told him that Heero and I weren't friends anymore, so where else did I have to go on a Tuesday? Unless he hadn't taken me seriously and thought it was another lie, I hadn't considered that possibility.
"You think I'm such a fucking moron that I don't know that?!" he snapped, almost making me flinch, "Christ, I can't even get away from you for a single lunch break, can I?!"

I wisely kept my mouth shut, not rising to his bait even to point out that he barely saw me during his breaks between work and usually having been hanging out with Heero, or all the tantrums he had thrown from me not being home. Because that's exactly what this was, another one of his tantrums. Only it wasn't from anything I had done this time, or even anything that he thought I had done or hadn't done, but that disturbing sexual tension in the air like electricity. He hated it almost as much as I did, and he hated me for putting it there and it didn't matter to him if what he was saying or feeling made any sense, he was going to do what he always did and take it out on me. When he did finally cave and rape me, like he always caves, it was going to be a punishing, violent thing.

Good. I could handle that. I could handle any awful pain he dished out. It was that tender side that he sometimes shows when he's drunk and using me to fulfill some fantasy instead of just being a convenient hole for him that I was frightened of. I couldn't take another one of his 'I love you's. Not then, maybe not ever again. Not when it was too dangerous to remember what I had traded for them, the real love that I had willingly lost. My father glared at me and I saw it naked all over his face how much he wanted me to say something back to him, though hell if I knew why. He had never needed a reason to take his fury out on me, whether it was through his fists or his cock. I wanted to scream at him to cut the shit and I suppose I could have. I could have called him a loser and cut through it myself, make him hurt me in whatever way suited him, but the words stuck in my throat for some reason. Even more strangely, my silence only seemed to enrage him further and this dark, twisted hate grew in his eyes, an utter contempt for me that was so strong, it was nearly a physical thing and he exploded.

"I'm so sick to death of you! I'm sick of your fucking face, everywhere I fucking look! I'm sick of being saddled with you like a burden to bear! No, like a tumor, stuck to this family and killing it with every breath you take! Why don't you do your mother and I a favor for once in your miserable, pathetic life and just disappear!" he screamed at me, "All you do is ruin everything! That's all you are to us, a parasite! A bit of rot!" I was so sure that he was going to take a swing at me, or throw me against the kitchen table to rape me in anger like he had the night he had made that stupid deal with Justin, but he jabbed his finger in the direction of the door instead, surprising me, "Get the hell out of here! I can't stand the sight of you for even another minute! Get the hell out and if you really want to do something for this family, you'll stay gone!"

Stunned, I bolted, not even giving it a thought before he could lob something at me and escaped out the door. I wasn't stunned by anything that he had said, having heard it from him many times before, but by the pure hatred in his voice and even more than that, that he had kicked me out of the house instead of beaten me to a pulp or raped me. Though really, what was the most shocking as I hit the sidewalk was the realization that those things he had said, how furious he had been at me over nothing except for existing, should have bounced right off me. It was old hat for me and, compared to the new, terrible pain of losing Heero and the aching emptiness and loneliness that I felt, it should have been a paper cut after a broken bone, so insignificant that I didn't even feel it at all. But it wasn't. Inexplicably, each one of those words had cut a bloody path across my ruined heart, adding to the pain that I already felt instead of becoming diluted and trivial because of it.

I couldn't understand it, why it mattered at all to me. It was just like I had told Heero when I had broken up with him. I knew that my father hated me. I know he thinks I'm useless. I knew that he thought I was a burden to him and a parasite, no matter how hard I worked at being better or making sure that the house was spotless or how many shifts I took to give him and my mother some financial breathing room. None of that mattered to him, as much as he would lose his shit if I didn't do any of those things. So why did it still hurt hearing him call me a tumor? Or that I should just disappear and knowing that it wasn't just something he was screaming because he was angry, that he really meant that? He would be happy if I vanished, just like I'm sure Heero would.

"All you do is ruin everything!"

'You have no idea,' I thought dejectedly, feeling no humor at all, 'You really have no idea, Dad.'

I can't keep anything. I clutch on to the things that I love with both hands so tightly, but I always lose them anyway. That wasn't the universe's fault, although I blame it sometimes. It's mine. The things I do and say, or don't, ruin and destroy everything important. I'm a stupid, disgusting person who never learns anything. Not how to keep myself from getting hurt and certainly not from hurting others. My parents. Quatre. Trowa. Heero, Mariela. Justin. Pepper. Even my friendship with Solo was falling to pieces and I was sure that, given enough time, I would lose my mom again as well. How long would it be before I lost the only home I had left, before my father finally got tired of putting up with me and realized that I wasn't worth keeping around?

I kept seeing his face as I trudged down my street, that psychotic mix of lust and want and rage and hate and this eviscerating storm of loneliness and emptiness rose in my guts. The feeling was too vast and sickening and consuming for me to cry and I swore to myself that I couldn't control crying over Heero, but I would not cry over my father, not over this. Not over something that was more ancient than my friendship with Heero and I should have gotten over months ago. Even if the fact that this man was one of the very few things I had left made that emptiness bite so much more vicious.

"If you really want to do something for this family, you'll stay gone!"

I stopped walking to rub at my tired eyes, wishing I could just slam my head into something to clear out his voice like nothing more than a bit of ringing. Like I've ever been able to drown him out with anything.

'I chose this,' I thought bitterly, 'I chose Dad over 'Ro.'

I laughed, unable to stop myself anymore than I had been able to stop my crying fit that morning. A woman that had been walking past me, staring at a piece of paper in her hand, stopped to stare at me with nervous suspicion like I had just grown a pair of claws, then hurried on her way before I could do more than just laugh crazily over nothing. I didn't care, the ugly humor of it all was just too much. Because maybe some of my reasons had been altruistic and made perfect sense at the time, but when you got right down to it, wasn't that really why I had broken up with Heero? I had made a choice between staying with the boy that I had loved, or keeping this secret that my father and I had, of continuing on the way things had always been before I had met Heero, staying with my father. I had chosen a man that hated me and wished that I would disappear because I was a burden, because I made him want disgusting things, over the boy that had loved me purely and honestly, with all his heart and had only wanted to support me.

I knew that I was becoming unhinged, but thinking those things, I couldn't stop laughing and knew that I wasn't really laughing at any humor of my situation, although that punchline was pretty damned hilarious, but laughing at myself. Mocking myself. Because you can't really get any stupider or more pathetic than me, can you? I didn't feel sorry for myself, for the pain I had felt all day watching Heero from afar or the pain I felt right then getting kicked out of the only place I had left, my one constant. I hated myself too much to feel pity. I deserved this mess, every bit of it. So yeah, instead of crying, all I could really do was laugh at myself and that entire day, even if that laugh was crazy and gasping and almost sounded like I was sobbing. Serves me right for ever hoping for anything better. Serves me right for ever reaching for something that couldn't ever be mine, whether it was the love of a boy that was so much better than trash like me, or the affections and acceptance of a man whose life I had been destroying since the day I had been born.

My insane, hysterical laughter petered out, but that bitter self-loathing only grew in my chest as I began to walk again. I was losing it, but I didn't even care about that, either. I had expected that it would happen between my stress, depression, and sleep deprivation, I just hadn't thought it would happen so quickly. It didn't matter. I didn't have anyone to save face for anymore or to be embarrassed about how I was acting or feeling except for maybe my mother. Solo, if he hadn't completely given up on me after acting like a psycho, but I was sure that he had. At least I had that much. At least I didn't need to slap on a mask of being completely fine and stable and sane and normal anymore. I didn't have to lie and act like I wasn't depressed. I didn't have to be ok so the people around me wouldn't worry. If I wanted to fall apart, I could, and that was a relief because I didn't know what else to do, or how to stop the things that I was feeling. In a way, that emptiness wasn't so bad. At least there was only one person left that I could hurt or disappoint that still cared about me. I had cried over becoming a ghost earlier that day, but right then, after my father had flipped out at me and evicted me like I was some stray, diseased animal he had found squatting in his home, becoming invisible sounded kind of nice.

My heart as heavy as a stone, I wandered aimlessly through Nausten. I had been thinking it all day that I had nowhere to go and nothing to do anymore, which I suppose sounds awfully melodramatic. Losing Heero hadn't erased all the places that I used to haunt before he had moved here from existence, but I had lost any kind of drive to go anywhere, even more than I had before we had become friends. I felt almost exactly like I had right after Quatre had died, lost and stuck in place. But right then, with my house barred to me and having so many hours left before I had anywhere to really go, I never felt it stronger, how listless and alone I was.

'I could go to Heero's.'

The thought slipped into my head like an invading, slimy parasite, and I jerked to a stop, actually feeling a very real bolt of pain go through my skull that was completely dwarfed by a wave of nausea and horror and, oddly, betrayal. I saw it all in my mind in an instant, how this might have gone a week ago if my father had kicked me out of the house. It would have still hurt, but after that initial sting of his insults and loathing, I would have used the opportunity to go to Heero's house and just by being there with him and his family, I would have been able to shake off that pain, at least for a while. I could do it, that traitorous thought continued, callous to the agony in my chest and my feeble attempts to cut it off. I could walk there right now, go inside with the spare key that I still had. Hug my cat. Play with the dog. Do my homework. Sit down with Heero and his family for dinner. Mariela and Justin would be surprised at my just showing up out of the blue, but it would be a pleasant surprise and she would smile at me and usher me into the kitchen, demanding that I eat. Justin would ask how my day was and if I had time to relax before work. And Heero-

I grabbed at my aching head and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block the wonderful, but poisonous images tearing my mind and heart to shreds.

'Stop, stop, stop, just stop!' I screamed at myself.

I stayed like that for a solid minute, refusing to open my eyes until my head cleared. Well, the images cleared. My head, however, felt like it was being grounded between two stones. What was wrong with me? How could I think something so crazy, and so strongly? I knew it was a habit, going there when I was upset or even just had some free time, but how could it just slip in there like... like muscle memory? That part of my life was done with, and any thoughts about it should have been locked away. So why couldn't I stop thinking about it? About doing all the things that I had for the last few months? Why couldn't I just let Heero and his family go like I had set out to do when I had broken up with him? Was I deranged? Was I really so desperate for that part of my life back that I would slip into a temporary state of amnesia or something?

I felt myself start to walk again, my body moving ahead of my paralyzed brain and knew, even in my panic, that it was the right decision. I needed to keep going. I needed something, anything to distract me from myself. I didn't even care what it was anymore or if I had any energy to do it, I couldn't keep doing this to myself or I was going to lose what little nerve I had left to the shit that was coming and going through my mind like flies. If only I had gotten the chance to take my homework with me, I could just find a park bench or something. The library would close in little over an hour so, while that was tempting, I didn't relish the thought of having to relocate again, even if I would be free to return home by then. The school was probably closed up, too, for the night.

I debated finding a book store that would let me loiter before realizing that I wasn't a paying customer and kicking me out when I realized that my supposed aimless wanderings had brought me to the beach. The complete auto-pilot was concerning, but it was as good a place as anywhere else. The sky was a foreboding grey and there was a cool wind ruffling my hair that told me it was almost certainly going to rain in a few hours, which meant that there weren't likely to be many people milling about. I could be alone and watch the waves for a while or hope that the salty air might improve my still non-existent appetite. It beat just walking from street to street and trying not to think.

I walked down the beach for a long stretch, just watching the gulls fly lazily overhead, looking for any food that careless beach goers might have left behind. The place wasn't completely deserted, but with the clouds completely blocking the sun, it was rather gloomy and most of the people on the beach seemed to just be joggers and elderly couples taking a leisurely walk either before or after dinner. I didn't see anyone my age, let alone anyone that would make trouble for me, before I hit the boardwalk. There were a few teenagers getting a quick dinner from one of the burger stands, but they were huddled in spring jackets and didn't look too keen in loitering around and there was no one among them that I pegged as a possible problem. I thought about hiding under the boardwalk and sitting in the sand until I needed to go back home. It was nice and dark under there and I could have a spectacular view of the water while being completely sheltered from any potential rain or people, but even though it was a good idea, especially for my aching head, I found that my body wasn't exactly in sync with my brain and my legs kept moving past the boardwalk.

I think I knew that my wanderings weren't completely random and that I was heading quite purposefully towards the jetty even before I saw that long track of stone leading out over the water. Something icy gripped my heart and gave it a small but sharp squeeze. What the hell was I thinking? Even if it was on autopilot, what the hell was wrong with me? I was trying to walk away from my memories of Heero and bar that door in my head, not chase after them! There were a bunch of places in town that held too many memories of him, both painful and sweet. The courtyard behind the library where we would hang out all the time and where he had confessed his feelings for me. The cemetery where he had helped me face my darkest demons. The boardwalk where we had had so many after school snacks and where he had helped me after Relena had attacked me that one time. All the restaurants we had gone to, the movie theater, the park… but if there was one place that was absolutely forbidden, with the exception of Heero's house, it was the jetty.

It was where Heero had first begun to open up to me and show me the beautiful person that was inside. The place where he had started to doubt and reach out and reminded me of what it felt like to have someone to talk to, even if that person had been my enemy at the time. It was the place where I had fallen more and more in love with him and I had realized that he wasn't the person I had assumed he was, for better or for worse. It was where our friendship had really first began, even if every time we had talked, it had only deeply hurt me and made me bitter and resentful of him, it had still been the place where the first stones had been laid.

And after we had become friends, it had just become our spot through some strange, unspoken communication. We ate lunch there all the time, took walks with his dog from one end to the other. Just sat there together and watched the tide and talked about stupid things that didn't really matter, enjoying each other's company no matter the rocky start we had had. Even more than the courtyard, when I thought about that place, it was like some grand symbol for the entirety of our relationship, both our friendship and our romance. And it was the one place in the entire town that I should never, ever go, not if I didn't want to remember things, both the things that had hurt me and the things that had once been some of my most cherished memories. Although I guess they amount to the same thing now.

That place was dangerous, for so many reasons. So why was I still walking towards it? Was I really that much of a masochist? Did I really want to hurt myself that much or was I so desperate to remember what it felt like back when I had been happy that I was willing to kill myself for a taste of that poisoned bait? I needed to turn around. Turn around and find some place neutral to hunker down in. I didn't even dare to walk past the damned place, so why was I still walking forward? Why couldn't I force myself away from this bizarre siren's song?

I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks, but it wasn't from any kind of new-found strength to heed my common sense. My heart stopped dead in my chest before exploding in a rapid, terrified rhythm as I saw that there was someone out there, all the way down at the ending of the jetty. That would have been enough to scare the crap out of me, even though I knew plenty of people walked it and hung out down there, but that wasn't the reason for my shock. The jetty is a long walk, so I couldn't see much from where I was, but I didn't need to. I didn't need binocular vision to recognize that wild, inky black hair, or that dark green jacket. It was the same jacket that I had helped Heero clean of piss in what felt like another lifetime ago, just at the start of our relationship.

My initial instinct, which was half sense and half frightened, rabbit instinct, was to bolt, but I was frozen to the spot like someone had cemented my feet to the sand. I tried to tell myself that it was in my head, that I was so tangled up in knots about 'Ro, I was seeing him everywhere and that person down there had to be someone else, anyone else. What reason could he possibly have for being there, after all? I didn't see Kanuck there, so he wasn't out walking him and I knew that it meant as much to him as it did to me. Why go back there when he was clearly hurting because of me?

Did he want to remember the good times like I did? Did he go there to mourn? Was he hoping that I would be there?

Stop it.

I tore my eyes away from him with a very real, physical effort. What the fuck was I thinking? He didn't want to see me. He never wanted to see me again after what I had done, both days ago and that day. He had only gone out there to be alone and watch the waves, same as me. The jetty was just the best place for him to be alone, that was all!

'Then why is he there now? It's dinner time, he should be home with his parents. Why is he here?'

I suddenly itched to go out there and ask him if he was alright, wanting to make sure that he was ok and not upset or not wanting to go home because he had been out here crying or even thinking about falling into that choppy water. Which was ridiculous, but it was a thought that I had had several times since breaking up with him. Going out there and just let myself fall. But it wasn't my place anymore. I had no right to go out there and talk to him, to try to help him.

'Just like he did me back then.'

The thought popped into my head out of nowhere and that thin membrane of control between me and my memories shredded like wet paper. I remembered all the times I had gone out there, upset and just wanting to be left alone and then there had been this smug asshole, invading my solitude, making me hate him and love him at the same time. I remembered all the things that he had told me about himself, about where he had come from, how he didn't like reading, how curious he was about me even though he was trying to pretend he wasn't interested and failing miserably. All those little conversations and things he had said that were painted so differently now that I knew he had liked me back then. Him getting upset when I confessed that my father had been the one to beat the shit out of me and not Zechs. Him giving me his food while pretending he just hadn't liked it.

Seeing him after my father had raped me and wanting things I should have never wanted in the first place. Hurting so badly and having this strange person simultaneously twist that knife deeper and give me the slice of normality that I had desperately needed back then as the rest of my life fell apart. Demanding that he leave me alone. But he never listened. Because he had known, somehow, how much I needed him.

"Stick with your sadistic friends and keep bullshitting them that you're just like them. That's what you're good at. I had a friend once and now, I don't want another one. I don't need any friends, and I especially don't want one like you."

"That's not true."

Stop it!

I screamed at myself. Just stop remembering! How is this helpful?! It doesn't matter anymore! Nothing between us fucking mattered! But now that it was in my head, I couldn't stop thinking about that moment when he had first really reached out to me. I had told him that I didn't need friends, and after Quatre, then Trowa, I had thought that was the truth. I had been done with all of it, just like I was now. Only unlike now, I had thought that I would be fine on my own, just like I had been for the last three years. I didn't need anyone. They would just leave and take the biggest chunk out of me they could as they left. Even if Heero had never bullied me and had just been himself that entire time and still reached out to be my friend, I think I would have reacted the same. Maybe not with as much anger as I had, but I would have pushed him away.

But then he had said those three little words to me. Called me on my bullshit like he always does… did. "That's not true." And it hadn't been. For all my bravado when I had said that to him, for all my sureties that I was just fine without friends, I really had been full of shit. Even as I had known how much I was circling the drain after my father had raped me, I had felt, with absolute certainty, that letting anyone get close to me would only end in more disaster that I couldn't afford on top of everything else. No, after what my father had done to me, I was even more sure that letting anyone in would be a stupid mistake. But Heero had been right. I had been dying, little by little. I had needed someone. I just hadn't realized how much until he had brought me home with him like a stray and shown me just how empty my life had been, even when I had been with Trowa.

I suppose, remembering that, you would think it would have renewed my faith in other people and reminded me that, having friends and family and someone to connect to might hurt, but I needed them. But this whole thing with Heero, while it had certainly taught me that I needed people in my life and not only that I was a better person with them, I was infinitely worse on my own, it had also taught me that it didn't matter. I might need a friend, but I couldn't keep anyone, so it did nothing to change my resolution. I was so tired of finding something good, of trying my hardest and getting that shard of, if not happiness, then at least comfort and camaraderie and contentment, only to get knocked back down into place. If this solitude and loneliness was really where I belonged, as life seemed to keep telling me it was, then I would break the cycle. I would stop hoping and stop taking risks with others. I had learned a long time ago as a kid that what I needed and what I got were seldom the same thing and just like back then, I would have to make do, even if it broke my heart.

Unable to stop myself like an addict, even thinking those things and remembering those dark days before our friendship, I watched Heero for a few minutes from the safety of where I was, knowing that even if he looked in my direction, he probably wouldn't recognize me from that far away. I had recognized him, but that, and my inability to just walk off like I was supposed to, just made me feel like some sick stalker. That I was the one that had walked away in the first place only made it more disgusting, but I still couldn't pull myself away. I even wished that I was closer so I could actually see what he was doing out there, even if I hated myself for thinking things like that. I remembered the very first time that he had walked up on me when I had been sitting out there, how he had demanded that I leave. I wondered if he had secretly hoped that I wouldn't so he could talk to me without breaking his cover, or if he had just wanted me gone because it had been too dangerous having me around him.

I remembered how he had sat down on the other edge of the jetty from me, pouting like some petulant child, but also how each time he had sat down there after that, a little more of the ice and distance between us had chipped away until it had almost felt companionable, being there with him. Suddenly, remembering that feeling, remembering how much I had loved just being around him day after day, my grief turned that feeling around my heart from a gentle squeeze to a violent wringing. I was never going to sit out there with him again. I was never going to share a lunch with him again. I was never going to have one of those friendly talks or just enjoy being around him. Now, in those few moments when we would have to be around each other, it would only hurt the both of us. My eyes burned painfully as I watched him, but there were no tears this time.

"Well, you can have my spot to yourself."

"Hey! Stay out of my spot."

"Oh, fuck off."

My head throbbed, hot and heavy, with each memory that slipped through my walls.

"Should I start marking my territory?"

"What do you want?"

"I want to sit there."

"Free country."

I rubbed at my eyes wearily as they took in the familiar way that the wind tousled Heero's hair and wondered why just that little, faint detail that I could barely even see broke my heart all over again.

"You don't have to leave."

"Yeah, I do."

"What are you still doing here?"

"I like it here. Are you going to order me to leave?"

I felt that brutal, callous, wringing thing in my chest again and was finally able to look away from him.

'It's yours now, Heero,' I thought miserably, 'You can have it if you want it. You don't need to worry about me showing up anymore and hurting you. It can just be your spot now. I won't bother you anymore.'

I walked back down the beach in the direction that I had come from, depressed and aimless again as something in me screamed to look back at him one more time. But in that at least, I was stronger and managed to ignore it. It seemed like such a tiny thing to give him. I knew that he had never really wanted me to surrender the jetty to him after that first time, and I shouldn't have wanted to go there anyway even though that had been what I had thought of as my spot since I had been six years old, back when my father had still taken me out there for lunches or walks after dinner like a normal parent. After that, even when he had stopped, I had always gone there to think or be comforted by watching the water and the sun setting or rising, with the thought that a shitty day was ending, maybe the next one would be just a little better. But what did it matter? Heero deserved some place without me in it, deserved some peace of mind, so if he wanted to have the jetty, that was fine. I surrendered it to him. It was a small thing, but something that I could and should do for him. And if it hurt, turning my back on that place, and especially him in that place, that was fine. It just melted in with all the other hurts anyway.

I didn't really feel like walking around trying to find some place to waste some time after that, so I just walked back home, essentially making one huge, pointless circle. I didn't care if my father was still home, as incredibly unlikely as that was, and would be pissed that I was disobeying him. I didn't care about him at all or spare a thought for him, too wrapped up in my grief to give a shit about him. The house ended up being empty anyway and, in retrospect, I wish that I had just hid nearby and waited for him to leave in the first place instead of ripping my heart open. I think he had left pretty quickly after I had, because there were no dirty dishes in the sink, so he had probably taken his food with him. The table was covered in breadcrumbs, though, and a few drops of spilled beer along with the empty can, so I tossed it and scrubbed the table down, making sure the kitchen was clean out of habit and a desperate need to distract myself.

Then I was once again stuck with a stretch of time with nothing to do. I had lost any interest in leaving the house for the rest of the day, but I still had a couple hours to kill before I really needed to leave for work. I didn't even want to leave a little early for my shift even though south Nausten was pretty safe, both from my memories and from any possible likelihood of running into Heero again because I didn't want to run into Solo. I was feeling down enough without answering the question of if my coworker was pissed and wanted nothing to do with me. I felt like I couldn't win from every angle, every portion of my life, whether it was work, school, or home. I wanted to just lie down and give up on everything, but I wasn't quite there yet. Somehow, I wasn't looking for something sharp and surrendering to the inevitable. I can't say why because I have no clue.

I was sure that I would get there eventually, but I still mostly felt numb, like none of this was actually real. Everything was just so... wrong now. Everything felt both the same as it had always been, and completely different. There was this oppressive weight in the air, making it hard to breathe. I didn't know why I was bothering trying to pretend that things were normal, that I just needed to keep on going. I kept telling myself that it was just like how it had been after Quatre had died, but that isn't true, not really. The pain is similar and the grey and apathy are about the same, but there's this layer of bitter anger that I hadn't felt back then.

Don't get me wrong, I had been plenty angry after Quatre. Angry at Trowa, at Quatre's family, at Zechs, at Relena, and most of all at myself. But even though I had blamed myself, I had still tried to be a good friend to him, and what had happened had happened in a blink of the eye, so quick and so sudden, and that suddenness itself had been a violent source of horror for me for so long. Things hadn't been fine leading up to it, but if you had told me that morning that in just a few hours, they would be scraping my best friend off the train tracks, I would have rolled my eyes. I had worried about Quatre, sure, especially after he had broken his arm and become so despondent about Trowa, but when I had worried, I had thought about him running away from home or snapping and antagonizing Relena or Zechs, not killing himself.

But now with Heero... this hadn't come out of the blue, and I had no one else to blame this time. I had seen it coming, and it had happened because of me. I could make myself feel better by saying that a lot of this was because of my dad, and it was, but I had still chosen to act on it. I was only angry at myself, and every time I saw Heero, saw how miserable and unhappy he was because of what I had said to him, that guilt and that anger grew. And that was just the biggest thing, that wasn't even taking into account how different everything else was compared to back then. My father hadn't been raping me for one, but even more than that rather large burden on my head was how much my life had changed for the better these last few months. How I had had something that made everything seem brighter and worthwhile. I hadn't had anything better before Heero to shore me up except for Solo and I didn't know what I was supposed to do with my life now. How I was supposed to cope with all of it ripped away. How could I use those years without Quatre as a frame of reference on how to survive this when it felt like everything in my world was completely different? My inability to get a grip made me feel pathetic and melodramatic, but it did nothing to change the very real fact that something was happening to me. I wasn't just losing it, I was... I was circling the drain and I didn't even know what I wanted to do, if I wanted to survive and find something to cling to and pretend that I wasn't falling apart or just give up and let everything fall to pieces because I was sure, no matter what I did, it was going to anyway.

I scrubbed uselessly at my face. I felt so tired again, like I hadn't slept that afternoon at all. But I didn't even bother entertaining the possibility that I could return to my aborted nap, no matter how much time I had left. The way that I currently felt, I was just going to toss and turn restlessly until it would be time to leave, and if by some miracle I did manage to sleep, I was just going to have nightmares. And the thought of so much as trying to lie down and rest my eyes and go through that whole song and dance of trying and failing to sleep exhausted me even further. I knew that it was a product of my depression and that I was going to need to suck it up and go to sleep eventually that day or I was going to crash hard, and pretty quickly at the rate I was going, but I couldn't force myself to do it then.

It was just a couple hours, I could find something to do that wouldn't over-tax my diminishing mental capacity. I stood there for a few more minutes, my head completely empty and lost before it suddenly clicked that I had never finished my homework. The whirlwind of utter relief that swept through me was disgusting, and it certainly didn't count as something that wouldn't over-tax me, but I didn't care anymore. Pathetic or not, just having something to focus on made me so relieved, I could have cried. I went up to my room and grabbed the book bag I had left there that morning and all the work sheets I had put on my desk before my aborted nap. I considered doing it at my desk since it was quiet and dark up there, perfect for my headache and mood, but it just felt oddly stifling up there, like I couldn't breathe. But the kitchen didn't sound so bad and it was kind of nice knowing that I could take advantage of this time when my father wouldn't be home and I could have the place to myself.

I thought I was doing pretty well for myself as I slung my book bag over my shoulder and started to go back down the stairs. My father was at work, I wasn't a crying mess at that particular moment, and I had something to stick my mind to. I might not have felt happy about any of that, but it was something. Then, before I was even halfway down, I was hit by a strong dizzy spell that almost had me tripping over my own feet. I grabbed at the wall and managed to steady myself, but only just barely. What the hell?

'Did I eat today?' the thought suddenly came to me.

Hadn't I? I thought furiously, and that I even needed to put more than a couple second's worth of mental effort into remembering if I had eaten that day said it all. I was sure that I had eaten something, but I was trying so hard to block certain memories of that day from myself that it was incredibly difficult to remember the rest of it. I knew I had skipped lunch, but that just made me violently swing away from that thought because I couldn't bear to remember how I had actually spent my lunch period. I had had breakfast though, hadn't I? I remembered having a slice of french toast-

'No, that was yesterday,' I recalled and immediately felt like an idiot, 'I made it for mom and she made me have a piece. I didn't have breakfast today because Justin ca-,'

I cut that memory off neatly at the knees. Ok, so I had apparently skipped eating all day. That was probably bad, but easily fixed.

'And yesterday?'

I paused. Even with a little bit of sleep under my belt, I… I couldn't remember much of yesterday, certainly not enough to recall what I had eaten for dinner. I should probably be worried about that. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours, but it wasn't about that. I didn't want to remember if I had had dinner because I didn't want to remember that night at all any more than I wanted to remember my day at school, and what did it really matter anyway? I might not remember what I had or had not eaten, but I remembered why I probably had skipped meals. I knew it was a bad habit that wasn't likely going away any time soon, but even if I knew that I needed to eat, I still felt such a malaise about it. I just didn't care if I felt faint or that it was probably making my headache worse. I didn't care about what I should be doing or that I was falling down that rabbit hole so quickly or thoroughly.

The thought of eating anything only made me realize just how apathetic I was, that I hadn't so much as forgotten something as essential as food as just put it out of my mind as something trivial compared to how depressed and miserable and angry I was. I should have felt scared. I should have been deeply concerned about my mental state after only two days, but even though I conceded that I was going to have to fight through that apathy and find something to eat before I went to work, it still felt inconsequential, like forgetting to take out the trash. As hungry as I should have been, I still had no appetite, but I just told myself that it was another thing to do to pass the time.

I dropped my bag down by the kitchen table and looked through the pantry for something to eat. I had both the time and the resources to make something from scratch that would taste halfway decent. We didn't have the tomatoes for sauce, but there was a box of penne and a jar of tomato sauce that I could spice up to be less bland. Or I could make pancakes or go over to Ms. Liddle's and see if she would be willing to give me meat or vegetables if I promised to do more chores for her that weekend, but even the thought of cooking for myself, or even enough to leave my mother something for dinner, something that had once always been a comfort to me, just felt tiring and pointless. I didn't want to cook or bake or any of it. I didn't want anything.

I thought about just heating up some vegetable soup, but I felt like I had been eating a lot of that stuff recently and it wasn't very filling. If I was doing this, I might as well put a little more effort in. And wasn't that a pathetic statement to my mental and emotional state? I had to force myself just to eat something that wasn't soup broth and shreds of pre-cooked vegetables just to get through the rest of my day. I rooted around further and found some canned spaghetti with sauce, one of those meals you just dump in a bowl and heat up that my father sometimes takes to work with him, grumbling about it the entire time. But they were cheap and hot and quick and low effort, which is exactly what I needed. Not as good as homemade, but the next best thing if I couldn't make myself cook something.

I heated up the food and worked on my homework as I mechanically shoveled pasta into my mouth. It tasted bland but familiar. I had eaten that stuff all the time from when I was a kid, so it wasn't unpleasant. It just felt… strange eating it again. I couldn't remember the last time I had had some, not since Heero and I had become friends and both he and his mother had renewed my interest in cooking for myself and she had taken every possible opportunity to feed me something homemade. If she had seen me eating pasta from a can, she would have been disgusted and rushed to make me something. The mental image of her horror was bittersweet and almost funny, but it almost made me burst into hysterical laughter again that would only result in me weeping like a stupid child, so I shut down that whole train of thought immediately and just focused on eating and reading. It was just a return to normal, that was all, I just needed to keep reminding myself of that.

Doing my homework felt the same as eating that canned pasta. That bitter feeling of familiarity. I had done my homework by myself countless of times when I had been friends with Heero, but this was the first time in months that I had to do without any help if I got tripped up. Which of course I did the second I moved on to my calculus homework. It felt too much like before Heero had come into my life and shown me that just because I had a hard time doing something, it didn't make me an idiot. I felt like an idiot all over again as I struggled to get through one, stupid subject, no matter what Justin and Heero had told me. A part of me knew that they were right, just like another part knew that I was being hard on myself, that I had skipped a day of school and not paid great attention in class that day to boot. On top of my tiredness and stress and how distracted I was, it was no shocker that I was having difficulty, but even if I knew those things, I couldn't stop from looking down at myself for reasons that had nothing to do with calculus.

I didn't feel any relief when I finally finished my calculus homework, either. I was sure that a bunch of problems were wrong and the rest had plenty of little mistakes that Harkins would be happy to mark me down for, and I still had a pile of reading and a couple more worksheets to do before I could go to bed when I got off work. But that was ok, at least reading was nothing I had to struggle with and feel like an incompetent moron about, and I had already taken care of dinner so I didn't need to waste my work break doing anything else but homework. Doing all these things that I was supposed to do, even drinking down a full glass of water and taking a quick shower before I left for the factory district made me feel a tiny bit better. If I wanted to, I could even lie to myself that I was moving on and things were returning to normal. Not that I believed that for a second, but those words sounded nice even if they were complete bullshit.

The little weight that I had managed to shrug off immediately returned onto my shoulders tenfold as I walked towards that factory and it dawned on me that I was going to have to face Solo again. That wasn't some grand epiphany, but I had been putting what that actually meant out of my head all day. It was the one thing that I had managed to be successful in. When I was trying to survive the bleeding wounds on my heart from seeing Heero, thinking about the fracturing relationship with my coworker was a small thing. But now that I had to see him again, the thought of doing so and remembering what a complete ass I had acted both to him and around him through both of our shifts Monday had an icy hand of apprehension squeezing my heart. It wasn't that I thought he was going to do anything to me. Solo might have a temper but he isn't that spiteful. If someone pisses him off, he'll just not deal with them after the fact instead of seek them out in retribution.

But that was what scared me, stepping into work and meeting instead of a lazy wave, his cold shoulder. I had been thinking that I had already lost his friendship all day but hadn't taken a second to really let that settle into my heart. I was certain of it, but there was still a shred of hope in me that I was mistaken. How many times had I done something stupid and thought that Heero would hate me for it, only to have him brush it off like it was nothing at all? But Solo isn't Heero, he isn't that forgiving or that patient. He liked me by his own admission, but how strong was that like that I would really think he would tolerate me blowing up at him and acting like a lunatic?

And the more that I started really considering it as fact that I had just lost another friend, the more it eviscerated me. I kept remembering all these little moments that we had, all those companionable little chats. Him offering me a place to say, always treating me with more respect than any of my other coworkers or pretty much everyone else even though he had every reason to not even bother with me from my age to who my dad is, always giving me levelheaded advice when I needed it but never coddling me… and then all that shit with my homophobic coworkers and him being the only one that had my back. When I thought that he might never tease me again or ask me to bake cookies for him or ruffle my hair, it became difficult to breathe. That I might have lost two friends in as many days because of my own inadequacies was unbearable, but I kept circling around to the thought that it was probably all that I deserved, and certainly what they deserved.

By the time I got to work, I was almost in tears, but it was impossible to differentiate between my grief over Solo, my grief over Heero, and my exhaustion. I was really in no condition to be going to work. All it would take was one stupid mistake to get myself or someone else hurt, and I was tired enough that that was a good possibility. And I was too on edge to deal with Lorathe or Caleb, wafting between apathy and being overly sensitive. I kept thinking I was handling things fine, only to snap at the smallest bit of stress. I had held back from punching Leneski, but I actually liked the guy and the job and he hadn't really done anything to warrant it. Lorathe, on the other hand, only needed to breathe for me want to clean his clock.

My mood and his snide personality was a toxic mix that could go off at any moment. It was that personality that kept me from just asking him for a longer shift to pick up Leneski's slack. But that was just the point. Asking for a day or two off because I wasn't feeling mentally competent would risk losing the shifts I had gotten back. Besides, I didn't want to stay home, either. At least I could keep busy there. Which was exactly what I needed to do, suck up my pathetic, stupid emotions and do my damned job. If Solo didn't want to hang with me anymore, I could handle it. If I could survive breaking up with Heero, I sure as hell could handle anything else the universe wanted to throw at me.

Those thoughts did nothing to give me any kind of inner strength as I went to the lockers and already found Solo at his. There was a tiny, childish part of myself that just wanted to turn around and find a place to hide until he went away. It was the same part of myself that had wanted to bolt from school every time I had seen Heero that day. It was easier to ignore this time, though not because I was any stronger, but just because I had nowhere to hide and all I had to do was imagine Solo's disgust if he figured out that I was avoiding and cowering from him like a child.

I shored myself up to face whatever was bound to happen and walked past him to my own. He stopped midway in taking his jacket off to glance at me. Despite my trying to hide what I was feeling and thinking and any nervousness around him, I felt myself go entirely stiff and my heart froze in my chest. My hands fumbled with my lock clumsily and it took me four tries just to get the stupid thing open. I was sure he had to notice it. I'm usually the one he goes to when he's too hungover to open his own and the only time he's ever seen me struggle with it like that is when I haven't been sleeping for extended periods of time. Normally, he would joke around about it and intercede on my behalf the same way that I would for him, but even though I could still feel his eyes on me, he didn't say a thing, which was just as unnatural for him as my inability to open a fucking lock.

Not that I needed him to say anything to me. If he wanted to, he would, that's the kind of guy he is. So, if all he was doing was staring at me, probably glaring at me if he was still pissed, that was all the answer I needed, wasn't it? He hadn't said hi to me. Hadn't ribbed me for acting like a little shit. I finally got my lock undone and angrily jerked the locker open, although my anger had nothing to do with my inability to do a task that I did every, single day. I was angry at myself for losing another thing that had mattered to me, not even from a dumb mistake, but pretty much on purpose. And I was angry at myself for being so miserable about it, like I had any right to be.

I heard Solo sigh in heavy exasperation and continue with taking his jacket off and putting it in his own locker. The sound of that sigh almost made me flinch because I knew it was directed at me. He was probably disgusted at my little display of temper at nothing and sick of dealing with my moods. He had always harped on how mature I was, but I had done nothing since the day before but act like a child. He was probably wondering why he had ever tried to be nice to me in the first place when all it had gotten him was being snapped at for doing a good thing for me and wondering what the hell my problem was. It was a good question. He was probably thinking that the rest of our coworker's had the right of it and I wasn't worth talking to, let alone being a friend to when I treated my friends like this. I could have told him all of that myself, but that didn't mean that knowing he was most likely thinking all those things didn't hurt.

I practically threw my bag into my locker and hastily locked it before storming off, but it wasn't out of anger. I just couldn't take being around him and his cold shoulder, knowing the cost of my shitty behavior, wondering if I had done this to myself intentionally and how I was going to handle this. I went to the restroom which, unlike Leneski's, was actually a proper, public bathroom and not just a single toilet, the only real place in the building I could have some privacy. I found an empty stall, closed the toilet lid, and sat down on it, hiding my face in my hands. I didn't cry for once, but I felt like it.

This almost felt like it did when I had unintentionally come out at my other job and watched as all the guys that I had worked with for months suddenly turned on me like I was a leper or a pedophile and had thought that I was completely alone, that no one was ever going to be able to stand being around me again. It wasn't as bad as that, but in a way, it was worse. I didn't really care about my other coworkers, but Solo... was I overreacting? Going to go sulk in the bathroom like the moody teenager from some ancient cliche? This wasn't like losing Heero and I certainly hadn't cut ties with my coworker in the same dramatic finality. Solo didn't mean as much to me as Heero had. I had known him a lot longer and, before Trowa, he had been the only one I ever could have talked to about anything, even if I hadn't opened up much to him back then. But still... why did this hurt me like this?

My first day of work at the factory two years ago had been... far from stellar and so had my first impressions of Solo. I hadn't had any formal interview with Lorathe or the other higherups there, my dad had essentially barked at me that I would be working there, told me when my first shift was, given me my uniform, and that was that. Thankfully, I had walked through the factory district before, so I knew where to go, but the rest of it had been a mystery. I had hated my boss from the first time he had opened his mouth, curved into a superior, arrogant sneer, to basically tell me that I didn't belong there and the second that I stepped out of line even a little, he would can me.

I didn't need him to tell me that he hated me because I was a teenager, a waste of his time, and for being my father's son and someone he had pretty much been blackmailed into dealing with, that was practically oozing from every look of contempt he gave me, and that initially he hadn't even let me work cargo with the rest of the guys. At first I had thought he was being nice and giving me time to adjust to the sudden abrupt turn from typical, part-time waiting jobs to harder work but I quickly figured out that he just didn't like me and considered me to be barely better than the janitorial staff by having me emptying the dumpsters and cleaning the bathrooms and making his damned coffee for three days straight. I think he only eventually put me on the line because he was paranoid that I would tell my dad and he would put up a fuss, Lorathe not realizing that my dad didn't give a shit what I did so long as I was bringing home a paycheck, but I sure as hell wouldn't be the one to inform him of that.

Even though my first day there hadn't seen me doing anything different than I did at my two other jobs, minus waiting on customers and making pizza boxes (he even made me clean up the break room and wash any dishes in there, a task that not even the janitorial staff did because it was really up to whoever used the dishes and cutlery to wash them, proving more than anything else exactly where I stood on the totem pole in Lorathe's eyes), I had been incredibly stressed being there. I had always felt out of place at my other two jobs, the kid trying to be a teenager, and it had been kind of nice getting old enough to fit in with the other teenagers there. Being just a normal fifteen-year-old with a shitty, minimum wage job that they hated had been a bit of a balm on everything else going on in my life.

So now being a teenager surrounded by adults, I felt like I had been knocked back down to square one. Only it was worse there between my boss' threat to fire me over every little thing, having no training at all, and no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't know what scared me worse about being fired which, given Lorathe's attitude towards me, seemed like a guarantee, that my father would be pissed about me losing the job and would beat the shit out of me for wasting his time and effort, or that he would laugh at me for being so pathetic, I couldn't keep my first, real job.

So, even before I had met any of my coworkers, I had been on edge and in a foul mood. It wasn't just my dad, I wanted to succeed. I needed to. I had just been fifteen, but my future constantly loomed over my head. If I couldn't survive in an adult job for a measly year, how the hell was I going to when my father eventually kicked me out in a few years? Then, during one trip to take out the trash in the break room, I had overheard a few of my coworkers in there on a brief coffee break and had lingered out in the hall, waiting for them to leave. It was stupid and cowardly, but although I hadn't really crossed paths with any of them at that point, I recognized a few of them as parents of the same kids that made my life a living hell.

Not that I had met any of them, but I had seen them in the school parking lot or recognized their names and features. I felt no desire to answer the question if being an asshole was genetic, so I had been happy to not have to deal with them, especially Ralph and Caleb who, like their sons, were thick as thieves. So naturally, those were the two voices that I heard that night, along with a couple others that I didn't. I know it was childish, hiding from them like that, but I was in such a bad mood, I just didn't want to find out if they knew who I was and if they believed all the bullshit rumors their kids threw around about me. I didn't want to deal with anyone, I just wanted to do my job and go home and get some sleep and put that miserable shift behind me, so I was fine with skulking around until they left.

Then, I heard Ralph say my last name and I went rigid, thinking that I had been spotted, but when I peeked into the room, I saw that he was busy chatting with Caleb and wasn't even facing the doorway.

"I didn't realize this place was so hard up for workers that they're hiring babies now," Caleb had sneered.

"I give him a week, two tops," Ralph had joked, taking a sip of his coffee, "Why the hell Lorathe would hire him instead of another beaner to take out the trash, but he looks like a stiff wind would blow him over. He'll leave as soon as he has to do a real man's job for more than a minute. Or Lorathe will can him."

"I give him a day," Caleb said in this snide tone that I recognized from how his son often spoke about me, "Second he tries to lift anything heavier than a trash barrel, he'll snap like a twig and go home crying. My kid says he's nothing but a pansy who's too busy with his nose in a book to have any friends. He isn't even on a team at school. Types like that are all the same."

"I don't know, Williams," a voice I didn't recognize said, "your fat ass is still here."

Although I had been seething at that point, I found myself peeking into the room and got my first glimpse of Solo Bennet. I hadn't thought much of him at first. He was one of the younger guys on the crew, handsome, but with an edge to him, like a wolf. Tall, tanned from working outside, tattoos covering his right arm, dark blonde hair that was only just long enough for him to squeeze into a tight, tiny ponytail, and some of the most piercing eyes I had ever seen, he had been imposing. Caleb and Ralph might have reminded me of their sons, but Solo reminded me of Zechs. That's laughable now and I'm ashamed of it, but I instantly pegged him as just another bully with a cruel streak and clearly a close friend of the other two and therefore joining in on their little bitch session over me.

It wouldn't be for another year that I would realize that Caleb and Solo hated each other and any of his comments and laughter that day had been at Caleb's expense, not mine, but if there's one thing that's gotten under my skin worse than anything else since the time I was nine-years-old, it's hearing people laugh at me. So when I heard Ralph laugh at Solo's quip, that's all that really registered to me, that these guys were just standing around making fun of the stupid brat that had thought he could get an adult job and that the things that I had been stressed and anxious about all night were just a joke to them didn't hurt me, it enraged me. There was a part of me that wanted to march right up to Lorathe and tell him that I quit.

My other jobs had been far from glamorous, and one of my bosses treated me like a snot-nosed punk, but I had never been treated like that by not just my boss, but all my coworkers before. Another part of me wanted to walk right into the breakroom and let them know that they might call themselves men, but they were no different than their kids. Just a bunch of stuck-up shits that thought too highly of themselves and didn't know fuck-all. But it was my stubbornness more than my sense that had me fading into the background and wait for them to leave.

As I listened to Caleb explode at Solo for calling him fat, which only made everyone else in the room laugh at him, all I had thought was 'fuck them.' They were no different than the pricks at school, they were just older, and if I could handle their kids, I could handle them. I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of quitting, I was going to keep at it until I was fired even if I hated the job, if only to spite them. I never said I was well-adjusted or mature, ok? I was pissed and frustrated and, worst of all, embarrassed, and I've never reacted well to all those emotions at once. I waited as they continued to banter with each other until they finished their coffee and went back to their stations. They didn't even notice me, one of the perks of being unimportant, I guess.

I didn't really meet Solo properly until my second shift. I had been so pissed off on my first day that I had spent my break walking around the factory district, trying to work out some of my frustrations, but I had had little run ins with my coworkers the next day and decided it was time to utilize the breakroom. Not that I wanted to deal with any of them, but I had to at some point and at least it was Friday, so a lot of the guys had gone off to pizza places to have dinner. The breakroom was almost deserted when I went in and I easily found an empty table of my own to sit down at with my sandwich and one of my textbooks to read. I only vaguely noticed Solo when he walked into the room, too focused on trying to get my homework done to pay him much attention. Right up until he finished heating up his own meal and sat down at my table.

I had looked up from my reading, utterly baffled at what the hell he had been doing when there were still half a dozen other empty tables he could sit at, or if he wanted company, he could have sat with anyone else. Why would he want to sit with the new kid? Especially one that he clearly didn't think anything of. Unless he was trying to pull something, just like the assholes at school. I had expected to find him smirking at me, ready to say some snide joke like Ralph and Caleb, but he was just reading a pulp magazine and chewing. We had passed the entire break that way, just eating and reading, him relaxed and me completely on edge, waiting for when he would show his true colors just like everyone else.

But he hadn't. He had just finished his meal and his magazine and gone on his way when our hour was over. I had just felt bewildered by the whole thing and that he hadn't done or said anything to me hadn't made me feel more relaxed, but more paranoid. I had only felt better by telling myself that it had nothing to do with me at all, that that had just been his table or something. My next shift, I had made sure to sit at a different one, only to be more perplexed when he sat at mine again anyway. It had been busier that night and there hadn't been any other empty tables, but it still confused the hell out of me why he was sitting at mine instead of someone he might be friendly with.

It had gone on like that for a week. He would just sit at my table and eat or do whatever and not say a thing to me, but not impose or be mean, either. Not that my other coworkers bullied me at all, they just went out of their way to avoid me and I did the same to them. But that had just made Solo's behavior ten times weirder. I couldn't tell if he was just ignoring me or if my existence really didn't matter to him or what he was doing. Then, things had gotten even weirder. After a week, Lorathe, very begrudgingly, pulled me off janitorial duty and on cargo duty with the rest of my coworkers, I think just out of desperation for more workers. That would have been great if he hadn't coolly informed me that he didn't have time to train me and that every guy on his team needed a spotter, so whoever he assigned me was going to have to do it themselves. And guess who he had picked?

I would have pegged it as my incredibly shitty luck coming into play if I hadn't figured out that it had been entirely intentional. Lorathe being Lorathe hadn't randomly chosen Solo because he was one of the lower guys on his totem pole, but because he had hoped that the ex-con would intimidate me enough that I would quit or would be so blasé about training me that I would do something that would get me sacked. Solo, however, in his typical fashion, had completely burst Lorathe's bubble by being entirely professional towards me and a better trainer than the other ones I had gotten at my other jobs. He had patiently shown me all the equipment and given me tips on how to lift without breaking my spine and hadn't been shy in correcting me about anything he saw that I was doing wrong, but never snapping at me or bullying me about anything. I had just been... the new employee to him. Some of the other guys had snickered and called him a babysitter, but to my surprise, he had just rolled his eyes at them and otherwise ignored the comments.

The more time I had spent with him, the less I understood him. Not that any of it made me more relaxed or trustworthy around him. I guess I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him or one of my other coworkers to start shit with me or for Lorathe to do something or for me to fuck up so badly I would get canned. I knew that I was being unfair to Solo by being so nervous around him, and that I was making snap judgements based on his looks and what I perceived to be his personality from one overheard conversation, but it wasn't something that I could stop. Life had taught me a lot of valuable lessons and one of the bigger ones is that sometimes you can judge a book by its cover and sometimes doing that can save your ass by the time that person turns on you. I had know that Bran was trouble long before I found out that he was Zechs's best friend and had managed to avoid him for quite a long time because of it. So if my coworker made me feel on edge, there might be a good reason for that and it would just be best to be cautious.

So two days after he had started training me, when he sat down at my table at break again and said the first thing he had ever said to me off the clock, I had already been wary before he bumbled in and said something that, to him, had probably been completely innocent, but had immediately set me off.

"Hey, you're a book worm, right?" he asked the very second his butt had hit the seat.

This had been the moment I had been dreading and there was a part of me that had just wanted to get up and walk out of there, sure that he was making fun of me even if what he had said had been pretty innocuous. He saw me reading or doing homework every day instead of joining in with our other coworkers in boisterously talking about sports or girls or whatever else normal guys talk about. Not that I had seen him talking about that stuff, either, but I hadn't realized that at the time. In my mind, his contempt for my being an obvious nerd was inevitable, even if he thought he was just teasing me, it always was. I had looked up from the algebra homework I had been agonizing over (to the shock of no one, it was my worst subject back then). I expected him to be wearing a smirk, ready to deliver some joke at my expense, but he looked so completely neutral, it put me off balance again.

"I guess," I admitted after some hesitation, feeling incredibly defensive before he had even said anything wrong.

To my complete shock, instead of sneering, his handsome face brightened and broke out into this triumphant grin that was entirely endearing, or would have been if I hadn't been waiting for the anvil to drop.

"Cool," he said like it really was that and not a dorky hobby. He pulled his chair in and leaned in close like we were two bosom friends having a chat and proceeded to further bewilder me by asking, "then you'd know where to get obscure books, right? I mean, not the popular stuff, but shit no one's heard of?"

I had stared at him for a moment, trying to gauge what the hell this conversation was and floundered. I hadn't really... talked to anyone in two years, not in this easy, friendly way. I was rusty as hell at it and felt paralyzed between that revelation and trying to figure out if he was genuinely asking me for advice or if he was setting up some prank. 'On edge' doesn't accurately describe how I had felt. 'Scared' is closer. I told myself I was scared because he was bigger and stronger than me and I had overheard enough stories about him going to jail because he beat someone up so badly they needed surgery, but that wasn't exactly true. In terms of getting the shit beaten out of me, I was much more frightened of my father.

I think what scared me about Solo in that moment was that he was being genuine, and the knowledge that no one had really reached out to me and wanted to talk to me since Quatre's suicide. Two years is a long time. Long enough, apparently, for something like social skills and connecting with someone to have fallen to disuse. I had never been good at it in the first place, and add in what had happened the last time I had opened up to anyone, and I was a lot more leery of this man than I would have been if he had just punched me in the face for no reason. I got bullying, even senseless bullying, but why anyone, let alone a grown man, would want to talk to a dumb, nerdy kid like me was completely beyond my scope of understanding.

"I..." I fumbled for what I was supposed to say, if I was really having this conversation with him or if I should start looking for the exit, "Maybe. It depends on the book, I guess."

"Ok, so here's the thing," he bulled forward without so much as taking a breath or seeming to register what I had said, completely overwhelming me as he spoke to me like I was either a friend or a sales clerk he was begging for help, "my girlfriend is way into reading, like you, but she likes all these weird books that I've never heard of. Her birthday is next week and she's been talking about this book she wants to read, but she says the local library doesn't have, The Invisible Man. You know, like that super old horror movie?" he asked but, before I even had the chance to decipher all that, he went on, "I guess it was a book before it was a movie or something. But I don't have a clue where to even look for that shit. You got any ideas?"

I just kind of stared at him incredulously. He wanted to know where he could buy a book for his girlfriend? That was seriously what this was about? Did he not know anyone else that had ever been to a bookstore? I couldn't get my head around him, how he could just ask someone he barely knew, someone that he shouldn't even like, just like all my other coworkers, something out of the blue like that. He reminded me of the proverbial bull in the china shop and his line of inquiry felt so random and out of place that I didn't even entertain the notion that it was so trick or an outright lie. I had never met anyone as blunt and oblivious as him in my life, at least until I had met Heero. They had that same quality of just jumping headfirst without really thinking things through, or caring about things like social niceties or appearances once Heero had given up on his mask. Solo had continued to stare at me and I snapped out of my confused thoughts, realizing that I was supposed to actually answer him instead of look bewildered.

"Uh... I, uh, I've never heard of it," I stammered, thrown so far off balance by this bizarre conversation that I fumbled just to form a coherent sentence, "I mean, I've heard of the movie, but I've never heard of it being a book," I had read Frankenstein and Dracula when I had been a kid, but I didn't tell him that, still unsure if he looked down on me for reading a lot, "Who's the author?"

"Uhhhh," it was his turn to struggle, but it finally came to him, "Ralph Emerson or something like that."

I stared at him incredulously for a completely different reason than why he was bothering to talk to me or what he could want. I read a lot, but I certainly don't know every author out there, or every book an author that I do know has written. I'm pretty much limited to whatever is at the library, what I get to read during school, what I can scrounge at the dump, or what's either being given away at book stores or on clearance for the rare times I have money to spend. I hadn't even read most of Neil Gaiman's works before Solo had gifted me with that collection and I spent a good deal of time trying to track down anything of his that I could as a kid. That being said, I was 100% positive that a transcendentalist philosopher and poet hadn't been responsible for a piece of science fiction about a scientist gone insane from his own experiments. As I tried to puzzle out if Solo's girlfriend was nuts or if there was just another Ralph Emerson out there writing novels, something had dawned on me.

"Wait, do you mean Ralph Ellison?" I had asked in suspicion.

A light went on in Solo's face and he snapped his fingers.

"Yeah, that's the one!" he said brightly, "So you've heard of it."

I had briefly covered my face with a hand out of a mix of sudden amusement and exasperation at him. Later, I would realize that it was this moment that had completely disarmed me, not him reaching out to ask me a favor, but just his silly misunderstanding and how he hadn't even bothered to research what he was looking for, he had, just like he always does, bulled forward to step 5 before realizing that steps 1-4 even existed.

"The book she's looking for is called 'Invisible Man,'" I informed him after scrubbing my face and hiding any trace of humor in case he thought I was making fun of him, "not 'The Invisible Man'. And it's not about the monster movie, it's about racism and identity in America. The invisible part is a metaphor, it isn't literal."

I thought he might snap at me as I corrected him. My dad does that all the time. Even when he realizes he's wrong, he can never stand anyone pointing it out. The right or wrong doesn't matter to him, it's the embarrassment that drives him off the deep end. Beyond that, I was just a teenager and I had zero gauge on Solo's personality, but I'm a pessimist and I instantly prepared myself for him taking it personally. Instead, he surprised me again by giving me an owlish look before shaking it off and rubbing at the back of his head sheepishly.

"Oh," he said simply, "that actually makes a lot more sense. She's into all that high-brow shit, I thought it was weird she would be interested in a horror book."

"The library used to have a copy. I read it a while back," I told him, neglecting to say that 'a while back' actually meant when I had been ten, having been working my way through adult fiction at the library at the time, because I was sure he would either think me a total freak or a liar, "but some asshole wrote slurs all over it and they didn't have the money to get another copy, so you can't find it there anymore."

He looked put out by that, although I couldn't tell if it was because the book had been defaced by some racist pricks or if he had lost his easy way out.

"But I know there's a thrift store on Heath St that has one for fairly cheap," I rushed to appease him.

It embarrassed and disgusted the hell out of me back then, that flare of desperation. I had wished it had just been a case of me being nervous about pissing this potentially dangerous man off and protecting myself. Normally, it would be, the fear of someone, especially a man, that was so much bigger than I was being angry with me so ingrained in me from my father and Zechs that I had no control over it, but it wasn't that. I was desperate to give him what he wanted because, for a moment, I had been terrified, not of his anger, but his disappointment. For that moment, I had been scared that he was going to get up and walk away and never talk to me again because I had proved to be useless, just like always. It was stupid, I didn't even know him, and he intimidated me. I hadn't wanted him to talk to me in the first place, but now that he had, I remembered how good it felt, having someone to talk to, even if we were just talking about getting him a book.

The loneliness in me had me scrambling to give him something, anything to keep him talking to me. I hated that part of myself, and still do. Just look at how I had acted at school that day. And back then, that disgust was worse, in a way, because it was long before I had met Heero, long before I had even become friends with Trowa. After Quatre's death, a very large part of me had welcomed the return to solitude. I missed my friend. I missed having someone to talk to. So badly that I had tried to kill myself over it and not much had gotten better since then besides the thick skin I had grown over my emotional scars and the brick walls I had built around myself. Having a friend had only brought me horror and had broken me in ways that, four years later, I'm still discovering, so I had embraced having no one around besides my parents that could hurt me like that again. I had willfully forgotten what it felt like, just connecting with someone, just being noticed and talked to like I was a normal person instead of a maggot and punching bag, even if that person was just some coworker I barely knew. How pathetic can you get?

It had the desired effect, or at least I had believed so at the time, not knowing what Solo was really like. He had immediately brightened, written down the name and address of the shop, and thanked me profusely, more than I thought just giving him a scrap of information he could have gotten from calling the few bookstores in the area himself warranted. It had embarrassed the hell out of me, him acting like I had cut off my leg for him or something, so when he showed up at our next break together carrying a pizza he had picked up and plopped it down in front of me and told me to 'dig in', I had just gawked at him, not understanding what he meant by that.

"What?" I asked him, sounding like an idiot again.

"You. Me. This pizza," he said in dry amusement, "For helping me find that book. My girlfriend loves it, by the way."

"I just answered a simple question, I didn't really do anything," I murmured, "You didn't need to give me anything."

"You didn't need to answer me," he said cheekily, taking a bite of pizza, "It's just a pizza, kid, not an engagement ring."

I flushed in embarrassment and just stared at the pizza. I wanted to tell him thanks, but I didn't need any kind of repayment for anything. But it had been a very long time since anyone had bought anything for me, or shared a meal with me and I found myself digging a slice out of the box.

"Thank you, but this wasn't necessary," I said stubbornly, "You don't need to thank me for anything. I know none of you want me here in the first place."

He paused in taking another bite of pizza and raised an eyebrow at me.

"What gave you that impression?" he asked in confusion.

I hesitated for a moment, wondering what had possessed me to even mention that when it wasn't something that should bother me at all. So what if no one there liked me or even resented me? I should have been used to being the odd one out, the freak, by then.

"I overheard Mr. Williams and a few others talking about it," I admitted.

I almost lumped Solo in with that before I suddenly dawned on me as I replayed that overheard conversation in my head that I actually hadn't heard him say a single thing about me. He had poked fun at Caleb and laughed at him, effectively drawing their attention away from me. Why hadn't I noticed that at the time? Had I really been so hurt and angry from some dumb, immature insults that I had just assumed Solo must have been making fun of me, too?

Solo snorted.

"He's one to talk," he said with derision, "Williams is a prick and the only person around here that likes him is that best friend of his. He's had a stick up his ass since the moment I started working here and actually tried to complain to the boss about hiring another ex-con. Said all sorts of shit about me like Lorathe wasn't well aware of all of it when he hired me."

I had blinked at him in surprise, partially because he was actually taking my side and because of the whole 'ex-con' thing. Not that he was one, I had known that a few of my coworkers were, just the way he had said it, so bluntly, like he was telling me he was Jewish.

"He's an arrogant piece of shit that thinks he's better than everyone else. If you were ten years older, he'd still find something about you to bitch about, that's just the kind of person he is. He thinks he's hot shit, but anyone new coming in here he sees as a threat, so don't take it personally. I can't speak for the rest of the guys, but I have no issue with you. You haven't started any shit and one more person on the line just makes the work go by quicker, so who gives a fuck if you're underaged? The only person it would cause issues for is Lorathe and there's not a single guy here that wouldn't love to see his ass canned for any kind of violation. I mean you're what? 17? 18? It's not legal and really no one under 25 should be doing this shit work, but that's old enough to make your own damned decisions, and if it turns out to be too much, the only one it'll affect is you anyway."

I was so stunned by what Solo had said that I didn't answer him at first. Not by what he had said about Caleb because his son was pretty much the same way. He was a shitty person and had been even back when we had been in middle school together and I had pegged his father to be the same kind of person on day one of my working there. No, what blew me away had been this person saying that he didn't mind me being there and didn't think that anyone there really had a reason to complain about me, and his continuing nonchalance about the whole thing. Just that he didn't see me as a pest that was bringing him down the entire time amazed me. I took a bite of pizza to hide my surprise and instantly recognized it as from one of the better pizza places in south Nausten, definitely not one of the ones that I was working at back then, but also not the closest one to the factory. That only made me feel more bewildered, and made me realize that this wasn't just some offhanded, blasé gesture of his or something that he felt he had to.

'Or maybe he just really likes this pizza,' I had thought with irritation at myself, knowing that I was reading too much into things like I always do.

"15," I murmured around another bite of pizza.

Solo paused again, this time in taking a sip of soda that had come with the pizza.

"Huh?" he asked in confusion.

"I'm not seventeen, I'm fifteen," I clarified, not seeing the point in lying about it when he was bound to find out from one of our other coworkers that knew what grade I was in.

He stared at me incredulously and even put his soda down, looking a bit like a startled owl, which did not suit him at all.

"Wait, wha-," he had sputtered, "Are you fucking serious? I know Lorathe is desperate to hire more guys, but-,"

"It wasn't him," I explained, "My dad got me the job."

He shook his head at that.

"That's insane. Your dad is a whack job," he grumbled, "I had some shit jobs at your age thanks to my old man, but nothing like this."

I had just shrugged, but inside, I felt stupidly… not happy, but vindicated, I guess? No one had called my dad crazy to my face before because of how he treated me, and if I had ever thought someone would say something like that and take my side, it would be over the physical abuse, not something that I had always thought was rather reasonable, working a job to help my family, even if I had no business doing that job. I had thought Solo might continue to harp on it, but he dropped it and we had finished our lunch in an oddly companionable silence. His demeanor was so completely opposite to Quatre's. Quatre would have felt uncomfortable about my working there, but been too nervous to say anything about it, and it would have just created this tension between us for a while, something we would never talk about but we both keenly felt. Solo just said his piece and moved on. It was kind of refreshing.

So, I had left my shift that night feeling depressed. Solo had gotten what he wanted from me and had paid me back, which is more than I had been expecting, but now he had no reason to hang around me or eat lunch with me. It shouldn't have bothered me, it wasn't like we were friends and I liked my solitude, but knowing that there was just another person turning their back on me, even if he had only really talked to me a couple times, gutted me for some reason. It was just the way things were, I told myself. He was twice my age and had only looked at me twice in the first place because he had needed something from me, just like everyone else. Now that he didn't, why would he want to be around me? He didn't hate or resent me, which was great, but I was still just a kid, and now that he knew that I was a full two years younger than he had assumed I was, he was going to put as much distance between us as possible unless he wanted the rest of the guys to make fun of him for it. They already called him my babysitter to his face and although he grinned about it, now that I knew him better, I could tell that it irritated him. I had even caught him telling Ralph to fuck off about it and that he needed better jokes.

"If I'm the kid's babysitter," I had heard him say to Hillis, one of the guys that he was a lot friendlier with, "then Ralph must be Williams' dog-sitter."

The two of them had had a good laugh about the quip, and Solo clearly wasn't bothered by the whole 'babysitter' thing, but I didn't expect him to stick around me. So, when our next break together came around and he sat at my table again, I was beyond shocked. I had started to wonder if the guy might have a screw or two loose. I covertly stared at him over the top of the book I had been reading, but he was back to his usual shtick of eating and reading text messages off his phone, I assumed from his girlfriend. I returned to my book as well, but still felt confused. It went on like that for another week. We would mostly spend our breaks together in a weird, part-comfortable, part-awkward quiet, but sometimes Solo would interrupt my studying with some subject, never anything trivial that I would call blather, but he never gave me any clues as to why he was talking to me instead of one of the other guys. He never got fed up with my quiet demeanor and how I had just let him lead the conversation, either. Finally, during one of our quiet breaks, I snapped.

"Why are you sitting with me?" I had blurted out, with all the social grace of the cliched turd in the punch bowl.

He had looked up from his phone and blinked at me owlishly.

"Am I bothering you?" he asked with honesty instead of cattily, misunderstanding me, which was pretty understandable with how bluntly I had asked him that stupid question, "I can sit somewhere else-,"

He had started to get up and I realized with horror that he really thought he was pissing me off or something.

"No!" I panicked, "I didn't mean that, you don't have sit somewhere else!"

To my relief, he had sat back down, but I could have slapped myself for my verbal blunder. Why was talking to people so fucking difficult for me? How could I ace all my spelling and grammar and essays but I couldn't hold a single conversation like a normal human being? I guess not a lot had changed in two years. Once a loser, always a loser.

"I-I just meant," I stammered like a moron when he shot me a puzzled look, "why do you always sit with me? Why not with one of your friends?"

He quirked an eyebrow at me.

"And what friends would that be?" he grinned and I couldn't tell if he was teasing me or being serious, in true Solo fashion.

"Hillis or one of the other guys," I had clarified.

Solo snorted and I bristled a little, assuming that he was making fun of me, but he just jerked his thumb behind him where Hillis was sitting with a few others on our crew, completely oblivious that we were talking about him.

"Who, that blabbermouth? He's not my friend," he told me, "Sure, we chat sometimes and he isn't a snob like Caleb and he's not a bad sort to hang out with, but the man doesn't shut up for one than a second. I swear, he thinks if he isn't blathering about something, he'll stop breathing."

I had to choke off an amused snort of my own as I glanced over at the man in question and saw that, sure enough, he was chatting endlessly with one of the other guys who looked bored out of his mind.

"It's tolerable for a few minutes," Solo had continued, "but for an entire hour? No way in hell. I'd like to hear my own, damned thoughts once in a while. I ain't got any friends here, kid. Hell, I've worked this fucking job for years now and you're the only person I've worked with that I actually like."

I gawked at him. He… what? He liked me? Why the hell would he like me of all people?

"What? That's…" I had to look away from him and down at the chicken-scratch notes I had been making and my voice fell away to a stiff, almost bitter murmur, "I'm not anyone to like."

He was making fun of me, I realized. It might not sound like it, it might sound like he was giving me a compliment, but I was familiar with that game. Relena and her stupid friends played it all the time, especially back in those first few months of public school, back before I had known everyone and what circles they had run in. Back when I had been too stupid and too hopeful that maybe, just maybe there were other kids like Quatre that could be nice, that would want to be my friend. Back before I had grown thick enough skin for bullshit pranks like that to not hurt as much. That's what this had to be. He didn't even know anything about me! So what the hell could anyone, let alone a guy like him, like about me?

"That's a load of horseshit," Solo had suddenly said and the bluntness of it completely derailed my paranoia like if he had slapped me out of some stupor, "You're plenty likeable, especially compared to some of the dipshits I'm usually forced to work with. You aren't an idiot or a pompous asshole, and more importantly, you don't treat me like an idiot, even when I know I say stupid shit, like getting that book wrong. You might not talk a lot and are pretty blunt when you do, but I like people like that. I like guys that are quiet and straightforward, guys that actually have something to say that's important and say what they mean over most of the other guys here that are just a lot of bluster and squawk endlessly like chickens over their wives and kids and stupid shit like sports. When I sit with you, I don't get pulled into prattle that I don't give two shits about."

"But, I'm just a kid-," I tried to protest, still bewildered about his reasoning. I got that he liked my personality, somehow, at least what was on the surface, but between my father and my bosses and a good deal of my teachers, I had learned a long time ago that adults never want to deal with kids or teenagers unless it was absolutely necessary and said kids and teenagers should stay out of their way. So dealing with a guy that didn't seem to care and actually talked to me like I wasn't half his age was bizarre at the time, long before I had met Heero's parents.

"So?" he challenged.

"So, I don't belong here," I pointed out, "Everyone says so. Even Lorathe doesn't want me here, I only got the job because my father strong-armed him."

And I was sure, even when I had first been hired, that my dad had blackmailed him or something. Lorathe seemed to strangely resent him and I really didn't think that it was because my father had asked him nicely to hire me.

"Yeah?" Solo shot back, "I'm a good for nothing ex-con that drinks and smokes too much. Williams is an asshole who eats cheese out of a bloody can and goes to strip bars on his wife's birthday," I was suddenly glad that I wasn't eating anything or I would have choked on it at that little tidbit. I wondered if Connie knew that about his dad, not that it was something I could hold over him or use in any way, and not that my own father was any better, but with how Caleb held himself, like he shat gold bricks and was the hardest worker and any boss he had should be on their knees thanking him just for breathing, that new information almost had me laughing, "Stuart gambles and does cocaine," Solo continued to rant, not even caring to keep his voice down and I heard a couple guys at the table next to ours laugh through their mouthfuls.

Stuart hadn't been in the break room that day, but I had an inkling that even if he had been, Solo wouldn't have censored himself, even if it would have gotten him into a fistfight. That's just the kind of guy he is, "None of us are exactly model employees, in case you haven't noticed. Everyone is just here to earn a paycheck and not break our backs, how does that make you any different? It's not like you're slacking off, either, so if anyone gives you shit, just tell them to fuck off, they're a bunch of hypocrites."

I had blinked at him in astonishment. I think it was the most I had ever heard him say since I had started working there. I hadn't had an adult come to my defense over anything since I had left Mrs. Khushrenada behind in middle school. Any thoughts I had had about him playing a prank on me or being disingenuous vanished in the face of his blunt honesty. I still thought he was nuts to think I was likeable, but he was right. I was smaller and weaker than the other guys, but I pulled my weight and I didn't make waves and Solo clearly thought that was all that really mattered. I wasn't causing him or anyone else problems, so no one could complain about my age, even him, that's how he saw it.

I won't say that our little talk that day made me completely comfortable around him or that we because fast friends because of it, but it had helped ease some of my fears that he was going to turn out to be another problem in my life, or that he was making fun of me behind my back like a few of the other guys. If nothing else, I knew that he intimidated a few of the other guys, Caleb especially, so the more he hung out at my table at breaktime, the less they would care to mess with me. We started to open up more to each other after he cleared away that little misunderstanding. Not that we became bosom buddies or shared our deepest, darkest secrets, neither of us were those kinds of people. But I felt a little more comfortable talking to him and he would ask me things sometimes like he valued my opinion, which was in some ways just as valuable to me as friendship. Respect was another thing that had vacated my life the moment that Quatre had collided with that train.

So, when I showed up to work two weeks after that beat to hell by my father, complete with a black eye, split lip, and bruises all over my face, I had been completely on edge and as close as I had ever gotten to calling out of work without being actually sick or too seriously hurt to do my job. Not because I was worried someone might say or suspect, but because I didn't want to lose Solo's respect if he thought I had been beat up by some classmates or worse, realized the truth that it had happened at home. That was the price of letting someone in, I had thought to myself bitterly. That was the price of gaining back a shard of humanity. It's so easy to just rip it away and shatter it again. The nicer something is, the more you need it and want it to get by, the more fragile it is by design. Quatre had taught me that, but it's a lesson that I only finished learning this week.

It was my sense of responsibility that had me going in that day, and how pathetic I had felt for even considering skipping work when I knew it was going to happen again. I had almost instantly regretted that decision when I got there and caught several weird looks from the rest of the team and Caleb making some comment under his breath to Ralph that I didn't quite catch, but from his snide look when he had glanced at me, I knew it was at my expense. I ignored all of them in irritation, but when I joined Solo at our station, I felt incredibly shy, positive that he was going to say something, too. I had spent enough time around him at that point that I knew he wasn't likely to say something cruel. Not that I trusted him, but I was at least a little confident at reading his personality. However, I knew enough about him to know that he liked to tease people and wasn't sure if seeing that I had gotten the shit beaten out of me would make me a target. That was another thing that public school had taught me at an early age: people are perfectly capable of being cruel without even realizing that they were, all for the sake of a stupid joke.

I had tensed when he had finally noticed me and eyed the bruises on my face, but, to my continuous surprise with him, that was the extent of it. We just went on and did our job without any kind of fuss, but I also didn't get the feeling that he had ignored my injuries. He had just acknowledged them in his own way and deemed them something he didn't need to mention, either because he felt it was none of his business or he knew I didn't want him to. For a guy that calls himself a useless thug with no manners, he has a lot more tact than most of the other people I know. I became nervous again when we broke for dinner, thinking he might ask the dreaded 'who did that to you' question when he walked into the break room after me. I was still in a foul mood from the fight (entirely one-sided) I had had with my father that had gotten me those bruises and hadn't wanted to talk about them or anything else.

After hours of being on my feet and moving heavy boxes around, the contusions on my face and the unseen one on my arms where I had tried to block my father's blows were aching like hell and all I wanted to do was go home and lie down. Back before things like sleeping in my house had become such a poisoned, double-edged sword. I miss that. I had been at the point that night when I was looking at the clock constantly to see how close I was to the end of my shift, only to always find that time had slowed to an agonizing crawl, so to say that my mood wasn't great by the time we got our break and I realized that, not only were we only half done, I now had to deal with any inquiries from my coworker, is putting things rather mildly.

So, I was incredibly tense and ready to snap when Solo strode into the break room, only for him to completely disarm me in that strange way of his by walking right past me to the fridge, digging something out of the freezer and tossing it to me. The throw had been light and I easily caught it even with my shitty reflexes. It was an ice pack. I tensed a little again, expecting this to be the moment when he would finally demand to know what the hell had happened to me, but he took his lunch out of the fridge and just sat down across from me like it was any other day. I wrapped the icepack up in a towel and pressed it to my black eye, which had been steadily throbbing my entire shift, almost sighing at the soothing feeling of cold on my skin.

Solo took a bite of his sandwich and stared at me thoughtfully, but I quickly realized that he was zoning out and not studying me or getting the courage to bring attention to my injuries. I returned to my own work and sandwich, still tense, but hopeful that this would just be another quiet lunch.

"My girlfriend broke up with me," Solo suddenly blurted out, almost making me jump.

My head jerked up in shock and it actually took me a second to realize that he had said something that had absolutely nothing to do with how I looked.

"What?" it took me another moment for my brain to defog enough to connect 'girlfriend' with the reason why he had asked me about that book, "Oh, I'm sorry."

I internally cringed at my own inability to talk naturally and actually console someone that was probably upset. Even when Quatre had been around, I had been awful at it. I felt awkward that he was even talking to me about it at all, like I was someone to confide in. What the hell was I supposed to say anyway? Breakups were not in my repertoire, at least not back then.

"She left me for some highbrow college professor. Can you believe that shit?" he griped and sounded more angry than sad about the whole thing, "It's like from a really bad soap opera or something. The prick is even married," he snorted derisively and took a much angrier bite of his sandwich, "She actually thinks he isn't just two-timing her and is going to leave his wife for her! She had this whole spiel about how charming and intelligent he is. I bet," he said bitterly, "Too smart and too charming for someone like her to see how full of shit he is, more like. She actually accused me of being an 'un-intellectual', like she didn't know exactly who I was when she started dating me. If she didn't want to date a fucking moron, she shouldn't have settled for a loser ex-con that wouldn't know the difference between Shakespeare and Playboy."

"You aren't a moron," I said sympathetically, knowing exactly how it felt to be called stupid by someone that was supposed to care about you, "Maybe you don't read a book a day, but you aren't ignorant and you certainly aren't stupid."

"That means a lot, coming from you," he gave me a wry smile, and mystifying me about what that even meant, he didn't sound like he was being sarcastic, but I didn't see how my calling him not stupid meant anything, "Thanks. We always used to fight about it, you know? She was always so high on herself because she went to some piddly community college for a couple years and thought that made her hot shit. She'd always gripe about how she was too good for this shit town and how she could never have a real conversation with me because I never understood all her stupid literary references and she'd have to dumb everything down. But I think there's two kinds of smart people in the world: people that bury their heads in books and think that's all it takes, and people that are smart enough to see where the wind is blowing," he took a swig of his soda and suddenly paused, looking at me a bit wide-eyed in that classical 'oh shit, did I really just say that' expression and threw his hands up, "I didn't mean anything by that. I don't think you're stuck up and there's nothing wrong with people that read and I definitely don't think you're that kind of person," he babbled awkwardly.

Seeing him fumble with his words, I couldn't help but smile. It was refreshing being around someone else that struggled with stuff like this and while there had been a moment when I had thought he thought I was stuck up just for liking to read, his embarrassment disarmed me again.

"It's fine, I know you didn't mean it like that," I told him, "I'm sorry she broke up with you over something as stupid as that."

"Yeah well, maybe it was for the best," he admitted, running his fingers through his wild, golden hair, "Maybe I haven't read a real, you know, academic book since middle school but at least I'm not stupid enough to think some big-shot professor is going to leave his entire family and ruin his reputation for some unemployed trailer trash from the south end. I almost regret buying her that book. I even thought about returning it. It was only ten bucks, but it's the principle of the thing, right?"

I just nodded although I had zero idea about the principles on things like this. Though, I guess if I had loved someone and they had hurt me like that, I wouldn't want any of their stuff around. Remembering all this, I felt a strong stab of pain in my heart as I thought about all the stuff that I had left at Heero's and how, not only was he probably going to chuck it the same way that Solo had wanted to chuck that book, I felt horrible about it. Not about losing those things, although I did, not that I had the right to feel that way when I was the one who didn't have the spine to go get them. I felt horrible because, maybe I hadn't done it on purpose, but seeing all those things, all my books and my clothes and my cat, probably made Heero miserable. It hurt, but I wouldn't blame him for throwing my stuff out if it made him feel even just a little bit better.

"But I was feeling kind of spiteful at the end, between her saying I was too dumb for her and rubbing my face in cheating on me, so I read the damn thing. To prove her wrong, you know?" he said.

I nodded, knowing all about that spiteful drive to prove someone wrong that had hurt you, even at your own expense. I also felt a bit of admiration for him for admitting that to me. Few guys would have the balls to admit to some kid they barely knew that their girlfriend had cheated on them. It sounds strange, but I felt like that told me more about his character than him buying me that pizza.

"She was kind of right, I guess," he admitted, "I didn't understand some of it, but I still liked it a lot. It was interesting. If you got anymore recommendations, I'm all ears."

"Oh," I almost sputtered, feeling immensely flattered that he thought my opinion about anything, let alone picking something out for him to read, meant something, "yeah, I could think of a few."

"Cool. In the meantime," he snagged his backpack that he had tossed over his chair where he usually stored uniforms for his other jobs and magazines and pulled out a plastic bag that I recognized from the bookstore I had sent him to and he tossed it on the table in front of me, "I went back and found this."

Curious, but confused, I reached into the back and pulled out a copy of The Lord of the Rings. It was a collection, too, I could tell just from the length of the thing. It was obviously a used copy, but was in very good shape. Still, it wasn't something that I would have expected Solo to be into, even if he had confessed to wanting to read more. I especially didn't understand why he was showing it to me since he wasn't the kind of guy to boast about anything.

"I don't understand," I said.

"It's for you," he smirked in amusement, "For putting up with me."

"What? But you bought me that pizza! I didn't do anything-," I protested.

"You gave me more than the time of day and a dirty look, for one," he countered, "Plus that book made me feel a lot better about myself when I felt like shit, so the way I see it, you did me two favors instead of one, and it's not like I have a lot of people to throw shit at. Just take the damn thing. It's the only book in that place I actually recognized the name of and I've seen you reading that fantasy stuff. If you already have it, I can find you something else."

"I-I don't. I had the first book and second book, but I wasn't able to find a copy of the third and my dad threw out the other two after we got into a fight, it's just…" I struggled to come up with the words to describe the mix of awkwardness, disbelief, and gratitude that I felt, "I… thanks," I finally said meekly, "Whatever it cost, I can pay you back, it just might take me a little while-"

"It's a gift, you dumbass," he laughed, taking any sting out of the insult, "Or repayment for doing me a solid, however you want to think of it, but it's not something you pay someone back for, kind of defeats the purpose of it being me paying you back in the first place or we'll be doing this for the rest of the year. What? Have you never gotten a gift before?"

His words were teasing, but they fell flat as I went quiet and I think he sensed that he stumbled onto something a bit graver than he had intended.

"It's been a few years," I murmured.

I didn't know why I had said that and still don't. A lie would have sounded a lot better and made me look less pathetic, but it had just slipped out at the stab of pain I felt as I remembered my last real birthday, two years ago, and the last time anyone had given me a gift. And not just the kind of gift that Solo had given me, but something purely because someone cared and wanted to do something nice, not because they were returning a favor. There were no tears as I got caught up in that memory. After a couple years, they came rarer, but the heavy depression these moments usually caused me always felt so much worse and they always made it difficult to breathe, like there was a hand squeezing my throat.

Solo fell silent, not even having some witty quip to try to lighten the mood, somehow knowing that the somber mood that had suddenly fallen over us wasn't something a joke was going to clear away. I don't know if he realized that cracking a joke then would have been disrespectful, if he really sensed that this was something serious and not just me being a moody teenager, but I appreciated him not being offhanded about it and actually letting me have my moment where I think a lot of guys would have practically chewed their own leg off to get away. We were both awkwardly silent for a few minutes, Solo not even finishing off his sandwich. When he did finally speak, there was a sincerity and seriousness to his voice that I had never heard from him before.

"You know," he said with a strange mix of candid and gravity, "you can talk to me whenever, if you ever want to. I unloaded a lot on you just now and I appreciate you listening to my whiny bullshit, but that door swings both ways. I mean, if there's anything you want to talk about, even if it's just something to get off your chest. Sometimes just blabbing all this stuff out makes me feel better, even if the other person doesn't say anything back at all or thinks I'm being dumb. So, if you ever need to let out a little steam, I sure as hell don't mind. I can't string two intelligent words together to save my life, but I've been told I'm a pretty good listener."

That hand squeezed down harder and I had to struggle not to let it show on my face, just how much those words affected me. I knew, just from how he had said that and the way that he was looking at me that he wasn't just offering it to be nice, he was talking about the bruises all over my face. That should have sent me into a panic, but it didn't. Even though I had been nervous about it all day, my paranoia about someone figuring out that my father was beating on me didn't hold a candle to Solo's offer. Someone to talk to… I hadn't really talked to anyone like this in two years.

I didn't know Solo well enough back then to call him a friend, but looking back at it, I realize now that he had been the closest thing to one back then, even before we had known each other for long and really connected. I might not have realized that, but his offer still affected me strongly, just to have someone to talk about these things to. I never would, I knew, but just that he said I could and actually meant it was enough. Even if I insisted to myself that I was reading too much into things, that he was just being nice because I had listened to him rant about something that was obviously bothering him a great deal and had been sympathetic. It didn't mean anything more than that.

"Thanks," I said with a great deal of awkward shyness, "but I don't really have much to talk about. And I don't talk… much."

I almost winced at that confession, wondering for the hundredth time what someone like Solo saw in me. What anyone could possibly see in me. Sure, he said that he liked that I wasn't someone who was really chatty, but there's a big difference between someone who's a little quiet and a bump on a log. I never initiated conversation with the guy and anything that I could say would just be boring as toast, so why he liked talking to me at all was still a mystery to me. To my continuous surprise, he just grinned at my admission.

"I've noticed," he joked, but not in a cruel way, "But the offer's open whenever, don't think you need an invitation."

We fell into a companionable silence as we both finished up our dinners and I mulled over what he had said, and why. His offer had felt so casual, just some offhanded thing, like offering to let me borrow his phone to make a call or one of his magazines to read. That was our friendship in a nutshell, I guess, although it took me a couple more years to realize that we were friends instead of just being coworkers that didn't hate each other. Had. That had been our friendship. Easy, effortless, like I had imagined making friends was supposed to be as a kid, before I realized how rare connecting with people was and just how little there was in me to be friends with. Or how it was a lot easier destroying something than keeping it. Just because it had been effortless, so quick and subtle that I hadn't even noticed it, it didn't mean that losing that friendship didn't hurt.

Remembering all that, there was a part of me that wanted to track Solo down and apologize to him, beg him to forgive me. When I thought about losing another friend, about losing all that history that we had together, even if most people wouldn't think that it was anything special, I felt this crushing mix of anxiety and depression. Not even in the ballpark of the pain I felt about losing Heero, but in some ways it was worse because of how differently it had gone down. Solo had been the one person I could talk to openly and honestly about things who I hadn't worried about hurting but had known would understand me. And I hadn't thrown him away on purpose after deliberating about it and deciding that I needed to in order to protect him from myself.

It had just… happened, like this completely natural thing out of my control. Like it's just my destiny to lose everything around me, and I guess it is. If it wasn't, then why, whether it was on purpose or design or I had just fucked it up, didn't I have a single person left besides my mother who, let's be honest, would be better off if she didn't give a shit about me, too? I just keep telling myself that it's for the best. I don't need anyone, I never have, my desperate clinging to the people in my life is out of want, not a need to survive. But whether that was true or not, whether I was lying to myself or I had been leaning on a crutch of interpersonal relationships this whole time, it didn't really matter if it was 'for the best.'

It didn't matter if I had good intentions or if, further down the road, I saw that I had done the best thing for Heero. It hurt. It hurt more than I can possibly describe on these pages and I still couldn't wrap my head around that pain. I was starting to suspect, even back then, that I never would be able to and this was just something that I was going to have to live with, for however long this worthless life decides to last, even if that ends up being forty, fifty, sixty years from now. But I can't bear to think about that kind of length of time, I can't even think about my life in terms of next year, let alone decades of this… this shit. It's too awful.

I was jostled from my thoughts as someone came into the bathroom and went into the stall next to me. Not really wanting to deal with anyone, even as background noise and not knowing how long I had been in there for, I quickly flushed the toilet, washed my hands, and left the bathroom, but still loitered by the door. I didn't want to have to meet Solo on the work floor and face working the rest of the night with him. I didn't want to remember everything that I had thrown away, all from my snappish behavior. I still didn't even know why I had lost it at him. I had been mad and my temper had been high already that day before Leneski had sent me home early, but every time I looked back at it, I only wondered if I had a screw loose for getting so pissed and storming out over something so small and insignificant. If I had just been taking out my anger over what had happened at school and then having my request for my shifts back denied out on Solo. Or… or if I had blown up at him on purpose, if a part of me knew that I didn't deserve to have him as a friend and it would just be best for everyone if I severed this last connection.

I didn't want to believe that I was so completely unhinged that I would do something like that on purpose. But my head was just so mixed up between 'Ro, trying to protect myself from my memories and emotions, this crushing and strangulating thing in my chest, Solo, Zechs, my exhaustion, and everything else, it made it too difficult to straighten things out. I was just so tired. Emotionally and physically. I couldn't do shit about the emotional stuff, but I was slowly getting to the point where I could admit to myself that I really needed to deal with the physical bit. Logic was beginning to become a bit… taxing for me. I could keep telling myself that it was a warning sign, but I needed to do something about it eventually, even if that something meant spending the night on a park bench. It wouldn't do shit for the nightmares, but at least my dad wouldn't be able to wake me up. I didn't think it was that bad quite yet, but it seemed like a better plan than going another few nights without sleeping or just waking up every hour.

I rubbed at my face in tired frustration. This was stupid. If I could get through the school day around Heero, I could get through work with Solo. I might not have dealt with Heero's cold shoulder with a whole lot of grace, but I had still done it.

'It's just another day,' I insisted to myself, 'Just another shift. Man up.'

It was a nice sentiment, the same one I had tried to drill into myself as I had tried to get through the day at school. It did work for a while, this time. I buried myself in the repetition of the job, working with a mindless furor so I wouldn't have to think or feel anything except for how tired I was and how my muscles were starting to ache. Solo just became another worker in my vicinity. But after an hour, the silence between us started to wear on me. We didn't talk all the time, but Solo would usually have something to talk about or would hum or rib one of the other guys. That night, there was a silence that was completely unnatural that kept taking me out of my defensive headspace. It was like this splinter, something small but impossible to ignore.

After the second hour, I realized that I was pushing myself too hard as the aches in my back and arms went from a minor annoyance to a steady, painful throb, and my vision was starting to swim a little. The meal I had had before work had helped a little, but I had skipped too many meals and sleep lately and my body was taxing too easily. I needed to pull myself out of this funk and stop walking around like a zombie, but I couldn't seem to do it. I couldn't even drudge up the energy to care.

I felt deep relief when we were released for our break. I hadn't packed anything to eat anyway and I felt a desperate need to get some fresh air. I spent my break walking around the factory district and staying far away from the break room. It was nice at first. That area of town is pretty true to its name. It's just a cluster of various factories, including the steel mill that my father works at, that looks like a hybrid between a small town and a chaotic rat's nest. There isn't much down there beyond cheap apartments, a couple bars, a deli, and a pizza place, all catering to the factory workers. There's nothing in the way of shops or malls and at almost midnight, it wasn't just dead of much activity, it was pretty dark, too, the only lights coming from the street lights or steaming from the windows of the factories.

The night air was cool, not quite cold enough to be uncomfortable, but not exactly warm, spring air, either. It felt like winter was still digging its claws in to have one more go before it was beaten back. That coolness felt good and eased my headache just a portion as I felt I could properly breathe for the first time in hours, finally away from the stuffiness of the factory. There was a quiet that was almost blissful, a solitude that I craved after being surrounded by so many people. I felt like I could think again. Or rather, the buzzing thoughts in my head had finally quieted. It was a cloudless night and I could see the stars above my head, the moon nothing more than a sliver. It was the kind of night that I would have enjoyed taking a walk with Heero, or even just by myself at the beach.

I don't know if it was that forbidden thought or if it was just inevitable, but it didn't take long at all for the same solitude that I had been reveling in to suddenly turn into something hollow and twisted. The quiet became cold and bitter, filling me with a biting emptiness. In that solitude, I felt an eviscerating loneliness. I didn't feel like I was just talking a walk to clear my head, I felt like I had been exiled for some grievous crime. While my coworkers hung out in the warm breakroom, chatting and eating, I was walking aimlessly in the dark, not just because I needed some distance away from Solo and my mistakes, but because under that, I knew no one wanted me there. Solo wasn't looking for me to share a lunch with and some banter with anymore and the rest of my coworkers either didn't even notice me or in Caleb's case, plain didn't want me around at all.

The thing that drove that spike of loneliness down deep in me was knowing that I was just having a moment of melancholy after a hard day. This was normal. This was what my life was now and I needed to get used to it. This bottomless, empty pit in my chest... not having anyone to talk to, let alone someone that would listen to how I was feeling and sympathize, not even someone who might greet me with a smile and a wave besides my mom, none of it was going away. It being just a return to the usual for me should have made it easier, but it only made it harder somehow. I kept telling myself 'it's for the best' but what I should have been thinking was 'it's inevitable' because it seems like, no matter what good happens in my life, no matter how much I try, I always end up back here again. I can't hold on to anything. My 'good intentions' are always for shit.

As I trudged back to the factory in time to punch back in, I felt a deep loathing towards myself for what felt like the billionth time that I had ever told Heero that I liked him back and was willing to try dating him that night. I felt a spark of anger at him for telling me how he felt, too. If he hadn't said anything, we would still be friends. If he hadn't said anything, I wouldn't be miserable and neither would he. I never would have found out just how ugly I really am. I wouldn't be alone. But then I just hated myself even more for feeling those things. It wasn't Heero's fault, I knew that, and it wasn't fair to think those things about him, even if those thoughts only stayed in my head. This was because of me and I knew, just like I had known the day that he had dragged me home with him for the first time, that that friendship would just end, too. Maybe it would have taken longer, and it wouldn't have ended via me ripping it out bloody and hurting, but it would have ended anyway. Because this is what I do. Maybe I wasn't entirely responsible for Quatre's death and how things had ended with Trowa, but I had still impulsively thrown a wedge between them all those years ago, and I had still helped the deterioration of our relationship along at break-neck speed. I destroy things, one way or another. It's just like Justin said, everything has its time. And everything ends. Especially in my fumbling hands.

'So when is it my turn?'

The thought suddenly popped into my head. I didn't recoil from it. It wasn't exactly a thought that was new to me, especially after breaking up with Heero, but I didn't know how to answer it. Like the end of my relationship, it seemed inevitable, either by my own hand or simply from losing myself like I had all those months ago when my father had started to rape me, when I hadn't had a good friend and kind people to distract me from my pain yet. Everything ends. The stupid thing was the only reason why I hadn't done anything yet wasn't because I had any real reason to fight and continue on, but simply because I hadn't found the motivation yet.

The rest of my shift only fueled that feeling of loneliness and isolation. I felt like such a freak as Solo and I continued to work in silence as our other coworkers chatted around us. Eventually, one of the full timers around Solo's age pulled him into a conversation about the state's football teams. Solo doesn't even like sports, he finds them boring and the hype around them juvenile, but obviously knew just enough about football to nod along and input things here and there. Normally, he would have brushed the guy off or teased him about the rival team being better, but I guess he was sick of the silence, too. Something squeezed my chest as I faded into the background as the two of them bickered about something that I wouldn't have even been able to join in on even if Solo and I had been talking to each other. I had that feeling again. The feeling when I had been a kid of my father ignoring me or throwing me out of the house after a bad day at work, not because I had done anything wrong, but just because I had dared to exist. The feeling on that first day of school when everyone had gone off with their group of friends, too busy to care about the new kid. The feeling of watching Heero act like I didn't even exist. The feeling of being left behind. I felt… irrelevant.

My loneliness was a solid, aching weight by the time that I got off work and trudged back home. I had gotten to the rather pathetic point where I was actually relieved to be going home for what felt like the first time in months, just so I could see my mom and be around someone that still cared about me. For however long that was going to last. I didn't even care that my father was going to be there, too. There wasn't much he could do to me to make things worse. So, when I got there and found that my mother wasn't home yet and my father was already drunk and in a mood, what little spirit I had managed to muster up sank again. He was standing at the fridge, rifling through it almost violently, pulling out things haphazardly and tossing them onto the counter next to him: milk, takeout containers, condiments, anything he could reach before growling and throwing them back in angrily.

I almost flinched as he threw a jar of mustard back in so hard that I could clearly hear a loud cracking noise, right before he slammed the fridge door shut, making the thing rattle. Clearly he was in no better mood than when he had kicked me out of the house earlier. Maybe he would do it again and save me having to be around him. Although I hadn't made a sound and my opening and closing the door should have been masked under the racket he was making, my father whirled on me, his grey eyes hard and sharper than I liked, like he had read my thought.

"Why the fuck isn't there any beer in here?" he snarled at me.

'Probably because you drank all of it,' the snide thought immediately popped up in my head and almost came flying off my tongue.

The snappish, bitter, self-destructive part of myself that had almost nailed my boss and had caused me to flip out at Solo wanted to say it. It didn't care about the consequences, it just wanted to lash out at him. It wasn't even purely because I wanted him to beat the shit out of me in punishment or that I just didn't care about anything anymore. It was because his state and his words infuriated me. I was holding on to the scraps of my world with my fingernails. Everything hurt. My memories. Taking a breath. Just… keeping going like nothing was wrong when it was all I could do anymore just to not scream or cry or disappear somewhere. And my dad was worried about beer. Beer that he could just go to the store his own fucking self to buy if he wanted it so badly. But no, it was my job. My responsibility to keep him loaded up so he could beat the shit out of me or Mom later.

I hated him so much in that moment. I hated the hate for me in his eyes. I hated his pettiness. I hated how ugly and small he was, not just that he had run out of his precious supplies and he cared more about that than dinner or sleep or watching television or anything else, but that he was turning it on me like he always does and I was so fucking sick of it. So sick of always being the one to blame. Sick of being the fuck up. But under all that, under the fury, I felt that deep loneliness and pain again. In that moment, I missed Justin so much that, for a brief second, my mind didn't have a single idea how to react to what I was feeling, if it wanted to break down in sorrow, cry, crumple to the ground, or just run back out the door. The only thing that I did know was that, in the face of that grief, missing the man that, despite all my caution and good sense, I had begun to love more than I did my own father, my father just looked so pathetic. He disgusted me.

But, even with all that swirling around in me, autopilot managed to engage and I held back that snarling, rabid coyote in my head that's my angry, violent impulses, although just barely. I managed to ignore the urge to run, too, not out of fear of him hitting me, but just because I couldn't stand him.

"I didn't know you were out," I told him in a flat, and what I hoped was inoffensive, tone, "and it isn't shopping day, so I didn't think-,"

"That's you in a fucking nutshell, isn't it?" he sneered at me, "You don't ever fucking think, do you? Your head's been full of rocks since the day you were born! The only thing that filters through is a bunch of useless, womanly shit! Now I have to waste time when I have to get up early tomorrow going out and buy more because you couldn't be bothered to do one, simple thing!"

'Or you could just skip the boozing for a night, Dad,' I thought angrily, 'How about you try that for a change? A little variation from the ritual isn't going to kill you.'

I had to literally bite my tongue to keep from saying anything at all or glaring at him.

"When are you going to grow the fuck up and stop being such a useless waste of space?" he snapped at me and strode forward.

I tensed, thinking he was about to strike me, but he abruptly stopped right before he would have collided into me.

"Get the hell out of my way, you moron!" he growled, grabbed my arm, and forcefully pulled me out of his path, "Jesus, even a flea-bitten mutt has more going on upstairs than you."

My back hit the wall hard and pain shot through my shoulder, but I was used to him tossing me around when he was in a mood. Even more used to his drunken, mean-spirited insults, I continued to keep my mouth shut even when I wanted nothing more than to scream whatever hurtful, venomous thing would pop into my head at his retreating back, purely to be petty, even though none of this should have fazed me at all. I suppose that, out of everyone left in my life, my father was the one person I wouldn't feel guilty about unloading on. And who probably would deserve it. But I just glared at his back as he strode out the front door and slammed it shut, making the walls rattle like the outside of the house had been struck by a strong wind instead of one of his tantrums.

I should have felt relieved as I listened to his car roar to life and him peel out of our driveway like his ass was on fire. I sure as hell didn't want to deal with him on top of everything else that had happened that day. Even if he wasn't going to be gone for very long, any reprieve was a good thing, wasn't it? But I didn't feel anything at all. I just felt hollow and empty, even anger, my constant companion those last few days had abandoned me. And why not? Everyone else was, little by little. Without my father there with his banging around and yelling, quiet and stillness seeped into the house like an acrid mist, turning it into a tomb and making something inside of me ache.

I was suddenly acutely aware that I didn't want to be there. I don't know if it was the things that my father had snapped at me or finding myself completely alone, but I had the urge to leave and go anywhere else. There were plenty of bars around my area of town where there would be people and no one to yell at a teenager loitering around unless he tried to go inside. Some of them wouldn't even care if he did. But the thought that I was so messed up, I wanted to hang around places where people might be, even some shady dive, because being by myself scared me, was just too pathetic even for me, so I sucked it up.

I rubbed at the back of my right shoulder with a small wince, feeling the bruise there, but it was just an ache and not even worth looking at. There was that masochistic part of me that really wished he had just unloaded on me instead of pushed me around, not even because I thought I deserved it, but just so I could have something else to focus on besides how miserable I felt. Not wanting to think about that stillness or the thing that had a solid grip around my heart, I busied myself with making dinner for my mom and doing the dishes my father had left in the sink from his own meal, which smelled like tuna fish. He hadn't bothered to make enough for anyone else, unsurprisingly, I was more surprised that he had bothered to make himself dinner and hadn't waited around to demand me to do it, but I guess he had been feeling more hungry than lazy.

We had a lot more food than booze, apparently (for once), but nothing really to write home about. I wondered if Ms. Liddle would have some chores for me to do that weekend to trade for some meat to make some decent dinners. It would give me something to do, both to keep my hands busy and my mind off my first weekend without Heero, and to do something nice for my mom. It was all I could do for anyone anymore. My dad hated me too much to accept anything from me, even if I didn't hate him so much to want to do something for him, too. I couldn't do anything for Heero or his family anymore besides what I already was doing: staying as far away as possible. At least my mom and my neighbor didn't hate me yet. I didn't want to think about what would happen when I didn't even have that much, when I had absolutely nothing again.

I made a small stew from what we had, a little bit of beef and chicken and whatever vegetables I could find and put it on simmer for whenever she got home. Nothing left to do in the kitchen until someone messed it up again, I dragged myself upstairs to the attic, not that there was anything waiting for me up there, either. I sat down heavily in my desk chair and hung my face in my hands. Being up there in the cool, musty, windowless attic was even worse than being downstairs in the equally empty kitchen had been. Even up there, I could hear all the little sounds from outside that had always been home to me, the neighbor dogs barking as cars sped past, laughter from people walking past the house, honking and yelling, all those little things that come with any sign of humanity. But it didn't make me feel any less alone or isolated, like I was trapped in some high tower and everything that I was hearing was happening in some parallel universe I couldn't hope to reach.

I rubbed at my tired face and felt that aching emptiness eat away at me. I had a little bit of homework left to do and I should sleep while I could, before my father came back, but I just sat there like a paralyzed lump, staring at nothing. I could say that I didn't see the point in either sleeping or doing my homework or scraping together a dinner for myself that I knew I should eat but also knew I wasn't going to bother with, or even that I was waiting for my mother to come home just so I could have someone around that cared about me. But, somehow, I also knew that it wouldn't help, not really. I loved her and seeing her smile at me and talk to me after the cold shoulders I had been getting all day would be a balm, but what could I possibly say to her? What could I tell her about this extraordinarily shitty day to make her understand how much I was hurting when I didn't even want to think about that pain myself? When the thought of making myself that vulnerable around anyone, even her, even if most of what I could tell her was just a quarter truth, made me sick?

And even if I did tell her everything, even if I opened up to her fully for the first time in over ten years, told her about my sexuality, told her about Heero, even told her about Solo and almost hitting my bosses and Zechs and how hard it was, just to find the will to keep on breathing, I still knew it wouldn't help. Because she wasn't the one that I really wanted to talk to. She wasn't the one that I wanted to bare my soul to. And she wasn't the voice that I wanted to hear so badly, it was like a knife through my heart, slowly tearing through me knowing it was the one voice I could never reach out to, never hear soothing me ever again.

In those small hours of the morning when sanity flees and leaves you with wanting and fear, I think I would have done anything in the entire world of possibility to go back to last week, just for a few minutes. To be able to pick up the phone and call Heero and tell him that I was feeling sad and upset and have him talk me to sleep again. To be able to close my eyes and have his gentle, loving words wash over me and make all the shit go away for a little while. To just tell him that I was scared and I didn't know what to do.

I scrubbed at my face again and let my hands drop, my exhaustion suddenly hitting me like a metric ton of bricks. Like I was in a dream, one of my hands reached out and grasped the knob on the top desk drawer and, without any mental input from me at all, slid it open.

'What am I doing?' I asked myself in total bewilderment.

My body continuing to move on its own, my hand reached inside the drawer and fumbled around for something that only it seemed to know. That bewilderment quickly turned to horror as my fingers closed around the very familiar shape of my cell phone.

'What the fuck are you doing?' I demanded myself, 'Are you insane?'

I might as well have been because even that horror wasn't enough to stop myself as, instead of dropping it like the hot potato that it was, I took the cell phone out of the drawer and gently placed it on the desk. It looked so purely innocent as it sat there instead of the loaded gun that it was. What the hell was I doing? I wasn't really thinking about using it, was I? Was I really that far gone to think that was even an option? Heero didn't want to hear from me, no one did. The most logical and sane thing I could do was just toss the damn phone out. I probably didn't even have service anymore. Why the hell would Justin want to keep me on their plan? And there was no way Heero would answer if he saw I was calling, if he hadn't changed his number to keep that from happening. I didn't think that he would be that desperate to never hear from me, and I had been the one to tell him that I didn't want to talk to him, but maybe it had made him feel better, cutting off any possibility of my contacting him.

'Then what difference would it make to just call him?' the thought came floating up out of the ether of my mind like debris, almost making me flinch, 'If he won't answer, he won't answer. But what if he does? What if you could hear his voice? What if he doesn't check his caller ID and doesn't know that it's you? What's the worst that could happen?'

I almost laughed bitterly at that. The worst wasn't that he wouldn't pick up. The worst wasn't even finding out if my service really had been disconnected or he had blocked my number or however else you deal with an ex trying to call you. The worst would be him picking up the phone and demanding to know why I was hurting him by calling him. The worst would be him telling me to go fuck myself and leave him alone like I had claimed I wanted to. Talk to me? Why would he ever? And why would I want that? I had broken up with him, I had closed that door on us, so why was I even thinking about reaching out to him like this? Why did I think I even had that right anymore? Even if that right was just to a sliver of temporary comfort?

'Just throw it away,' I demanded, 'The temptation is too awful, having this... this connection to him. It's useless, anyway. It's not like I have anyone else to call, so why torture myself with holding on to it? Just toss it or give it back to Heero at school or drop it off at his place when no one is there, or whatever you need to do before you do something incredibly stupid.'

Great advice, for once. I clearly couldn't trust myself or my so-called good intentions worth shit. I had had the right of it from the get-go. It was best if I just cut myself off from Heero entirely, but I hadn't realized just how impossible that was to do. Not even because we lived in the same town, but just how impossible it was for me to listen to myself and do what needed to be done. But if I wanted to remain sane at all, this was what needed to be done, I told myself as I grabbed the cursed phone off my desk and prepared to toss it in the trash. I was sure that Heero wouldn't give a shit if I did, it wasn't like he was going to want to use it or return it. Fingers shaking a little, I flipped open the phone.

'Stop it!' I snapped at myself fearfully, not even knowing what I was doing anymore, but unable to get my hands to listen to me, 'Just stop!'

I wasn't really doing this, was I? This was insane.

I turned the phone on, my heart racing with panic that only made the cheery little song the phone played as it booted up sound oddly sinister and mocking. My mind was a complete, scared blank as the home screen came on and I waited for it to show me my messages. I had no idea what I was going to do when it did, if I was really going to dial Heero's number and go through with this craziness. My lack of control was terrifying. What the hell was wrong with me? I knew the score, I knew what I needed to do, I knew what was right, but I felt completely outside of myself. Like there was something inside of me that was taking the reins in a weak moment, or that loneliness coiling around my heart had poisoned me.

The phone beeped, indicating that it was pulling up notifications and when I read what was on the screen, I felt like I had been slapped. From the last time I had stupidly looked at it instead of tossing it like I should have the second I had broken up with Heero, I had almost a dozen new messages. That wasn't entirely surprising, given how Justin wouldn't quit trying to contact me, for some bizarre reason, even when he had to realize by now that I wasn't going to answer him. What horrified me was that they weren't all missed calls from him. They were a mix of voicemails and texts, not just from him, but from Mariela, too. What the hell? I could understand if the messages from her were from that first night, her gut reaction to finding out what I had done, but why continue to leave me messages? Unless she was that thoroughly pissed and disgusted with me. I never would have thought that of her, not the sweet woman who had always greeted me with a cheery smile and a hug or homecooked meal, but I also knew how much she loved her son and how straight and true her own moral compass was, how much like a mother bear she could get if someone hurt one of hers. That I now had to count myself, not as one of hers, but as the one she was clearly angry at, hurt more than I can say.

But it was the last notification that was the real clincher to the sick, squirming feeling in my guts. It was the most recent message, a voice mail. Only this one was from Heero. My heart in my throat and this sour, acidic taste in my mouth, I had to look at the message stamp three times before it really sunk into my head. Heero had called me. Not right after I had broken up with him, or even right after we had crossed paths at school. He had called me that night, just an hour after I had seen him on the beach.

My mind whirled trying to piece that together, trying to figure out why. Heero had no reason at all to call me, unless it was to tell me to fuck off. He had been hurt after what I had said to Zechs in gym, but not angry. At least, he hadn't seemed to be. He had just wanted to get as far away from me as possible, and that was certainly understandable. So why call me? To hurt me like I had hurt him? To tell me to lose his number and stay away from him? Why call me at all? I couldn't wrap my head around it and, the more I thought about it, the more I considered that the phone was mistaken or he had dialed the wrong number. But then why the voicemail? There was a part of me that burned to open the message and listen to it. Listen to his voice, even if he was angry and screaming at me. I could hear his voice without him ever knowing that I had wanted to call him. I could listen to all his messages and let his voice soothe me or punish me or whatever the hell I needed from it without ever having to hurt him. Just for a little while. Just… just until this pain went away a little, that wouldn't be so awful, would it? If I could just lie to myself that he was really there, really talking to me… if I could lie to myself that I wasn't alone…

I closed my cellphone with a loud snap, throwing it into the drawer and slamming it back closed like it had burned my hand. What the hell was my problem? It had only been a few days and I was already completely losing it. Where was my resolve? Where was my common, goddamn sense? I had ended things, it was over, so why couldn't I just let go? Why was I so eviscerated just from a single, bad day, and why was I acting so pathetic? Hearing that message wasn't going to make anything better, for myself or for Heero. Clinging to him, to the memories of him was only making things worse.

But it was like trying to break up with him all over again. Knowing what I needed to do, knowing what was right didn't help me to act. It didn't make me stop missing him. Stop… wanting things. I didn't know how to be strong, to just move past this pain in my heart or the cold emptiness all around me, but calling him even just to hear him say 'hello' before hanging up, or listening or even thinking of the message he had left, letting myself hope when I was sure he hadn't called me for any other reason than out of anger or to plead me to leave him alone, which was a thousand times worse, would be one of the worst ideas I've had. I might be weak and despicable, but I wasn't a complete moron to naively think hope was anything but a very bitter pill. Maybe I didn't have the spine to throw the phone away, but I had had the right of it the first time. Better to just bury it deep in my desk and forget it even existed and just hope I wasn't tempted again. Let the battery run out and never look at those messages ever again. It might not cure my loneliness, but maybe it would cure at least a little of my stupidity.

All of that sounded good, a perfectly reasonable solution if I couldn't get my head out of my ass, but it did nothing to ease those feelings of isolation or my melancholy, especially when I heard the front door open ten minutes later. My father had come home with his bounty. I expected him to come find me and beat the shit out of me now that his mission was complete, but I just heard him rifle around in the kitchen for a bit before retiring to the living room to drink and watch television and hopefully just pass out. When I was sure that he had situated himself and wasn't going to come gunning for me any time soon, I dug my CD player out of my backpack, along with one of the blank CDs that Heero had burned for me what felt like two lifetimes ago.

I knew that it was a bad idea. As bad of an idea as listening to Heero's message would have been, but just like with the damned phone, it was like I literally couldn't help myself. The memories were poison and the most sensical thing I could do was to bury them along with that damned player, but I needed it too much. I needed something that reminded me, not just of Heero and his love and his kindness, but a time when I had been happy. When I hadn't been lonely and I hadn't gotten around to completely fucking everything up yet. Back when we had just been best friends and he had wanted to make a grievous wound better for me.

Despite my every effort, tears filled my eyes. I missed it. I missed it more than I could I bear. Compared to how things had deteriorated, those times when Heero and I had just been good friends seemed blissful, a wonderful dream. Maybe even the happiest times of my life, before things had started to go to shit. Before I had really started to see the end looming on the horizon. Before he had told me how he felt about me and I had sensed, not just a change in our relationship, but that a door had just closed on us. Even more than being his boyfriend, more than the kissing and pure joy I had felt every time we had lain together or gone out on a date, I wanted that time back. I wanted my friend back. I wanted to see his smile and have him ask me if I was ok and talk to him about stupid shit and go to his house after school for a snack and call him to tell him that I couldn't sleep without having to worry him or wonder if he resented me or how much time I had left before he pushed too hard and found out all the things I couldn't bear for him to know about me.

I turned the blank CD in its jewel case around in my hands, studying Heero's handwriting on it. He hadn't just taken the time to burn a mix of songs that had been on my broken CDs and ones that he thought I might like, but had also painstakingly written the list of songs on each one. That handwriting was almost as painful as seeing that new message on my phone. I had seen it on dozens of classroom notes, dozens of post-its and homework assignments, even some of my own that I had been too tired or sick or injured to finish myself. It was this little piece of him, one of the few I had left, just like the damn CDs. I only had four left on me, the rest were all at Heero's house. I suppose I should have counted myself lucky that I had any on me, but like anyone with an addiction or a crutch, having it probably wasn't the best thing for me. But at that moment, I really didn't give a shit, I only felt this crushing relief as I very gingerly opened the case and put the disc in the player.

The sweet, tender notes of a saxophone and violin solo filled my ears as I slipped on my headphones, drowning out the rest of the world. It was one of the songs that Quatre had gotten for me, a purely instrumental jazz piece that I had loved listening to late at night when I couldn't sleep or when my parents had one of their screaming fights. It was the song that I had listened to the most after Quatre's death because when he had introduced me to it even before he had given me the CD player, he had said it was one of his favorite compositions and it had been one of the few things that had helped me remember my happier memories of him.

Only this time, as I listened to that achingly familiar song, it wasn't just Quatre and I listening to the song together that I remembered, but that night that I had made the mad dash to Heero's place with Pepper in my arms, desperately focusing on just saving her and not thinking about all the things that my father had just destroyed. Only for Heero to do everything in his power to give me those pieces of memory back. He had spent countless hours finding every song, even the ones that I couldn't remember the name for, using only a few lyrics that I could remember, and more songs from the same artists that I hadn't heard before. He had bought me a new CD player with his own money, despite my protests, only giving me that soft smile of his and telling me that this was more important than some dumb video game he might want to buy, like it was no big deal at all. He never did understand that it was one of the kindest things that anyone had ever done for me.

Tears poured down my face as the song switched to the next track, this time one of the newer ones that Heero had found for me, a song that the both of us had often listened to together during our many studying sessions in his room. My grief sat in my chest like an iron ball. I should have turned the damned thing off at that point, but it was like I was paralyzed. I sat there at my desk for hours, listening to that CD, letting it loop when it got to the end, and crying with a bitter mix of loneliness, loss, and memories that used to be sweet, but now only reminded me of how empty everything that was left was. I cried until my eyes felt swollen, my throat was raw, and my vision swam, my exhaustion weighing me down in a heavy shroud, but I still couldn't find the will or ability to move or do more than sit there and be miserable with longing. Then again, it's probably for the best that I didn't try to move. I had reached a level of pure tiredness where I would have likely fallen right on my face, my body caught between shaking and swaying.

I jolted from my drowsy trance as I felt very familiar hands on my shoulders and heard a voice right in my ear, over the music coming from my headphones.

"Duo, go to sleep."

The voice was soft and pleasant and soothing, but the realness of it had me nearly bolting out of my chair because the voice didn't belong to my mother, or even my father. It was Justin's. I tore off my headphones and whirled in my chair, fully expecting to actually see him standing behind me, maybe with that kind smile of his that always reminds me of Heero. But of course, there was no one there, not even my mom. And why would there be? The thought that Justin would actually be in my home, let alone my room, was insane. Even if he or anyone else had been, there was no way I would have heard them so clearly with my music blasting. But that was just the thing. I had heard it so perfectly, and the feeling of those hands on my shoulders had been so real. It was even the sort of thing that Justin would have done and said if he found me awake at that hour. He would tell me to go to sleep, gently herd me up from my desk to the bed and tuck me in despite any protests that I wouldn't be able to sleep, just saying to rest my eyes.

My hallucination completely rattled me, not just that I had had one at all, but how utterly real it had been. I'm no stranger to things like hallucinations or microsleeps when I'm sleep deprived, but this hadn't felt like that at all. For one, I wasn't tired enough for that to happen yet, and I had never had a hallucination like that before. It was usually just objects, sounds, little snippets of things that aren't really there from whatever weird, chemical sorcery happens when you don't sleep for days. Any time I've had someone talk to me like that wasn't there, it was from one of my night terrors or my imagining them there like I used to do with Quatre. The auditory hallucination was bad enough, but I've never hallucinated something touching me like that, especially not strongly enough for me to seriously believe it was there.

'I just need sleep,' I told myself, 'that's all it is. Hallucination or not, Justi-… it's right. I'm just tired.'

That or I was going just plain going crazy, that was certainly a possibility. If it was that, just my time to snap finally, my break-up the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, there was nothing I could do about it anyway. Maybe it wouldn't even be that bad, if a few hallucinations of Justin still giving a shit about me were the worst things I had to look forward to. I switched my player off and hid it away in the same desk drawer that I had put my cellphone. It wasn't safe to carry it around in my bookbag anyway, I was lucky that Zechs hadn't broken it. The desk drawer wasn't entirely safe, either, but I just hoped my father wouldn't have another one of his fits of temper and trash my room again.

Stumbling to my feet, I dressed for bed, too tired and drained to bother with a shower or cleaning up the kitchen if my mother hadn't after she had finished eating. She would have put any leftovers away, at least, and I just didn't have the energy to care anymore. I had reached the point where I didn't even care if my father came into my room that morning. I just wanted to rest, just for a little while, if I could only shut off my thoughts and not dream. But life once again showed me how little it gave a shit for what I wanted.

I actually did fall asleep pretty quickly, but only managed about an hour and a half before my dreams roused me almost violently with panting and a rapidly beating heart. I didn't even have one of my night terrors, just a typical nightmare. It was the same dream that I had had before, only slightly different. I was back at the train station, on the same platform where Quatre had killed himself, only I wasn't really myself but, this time, I realized that I was thirteen-years-old again. Quatre was there again, too, stalking towards me like some hideous specter, forcing me closer and closer to the edge of the platform. Just like the last time, I had the overwhelming feeling that he was angry and disgusted with me and that I had committed some horrible sin against him.

"I'm sorry," I pled with him just like before as I felt the edge with my foot and I couldn't move backwards anymore, "I'm sorry, but I had to do it! I didn't have any other choice! Please understand!"

But he didn't. He was as unmoved by my pleas as the last time and gave me that same cold, detached look, like I was a bug underneath his shoe, only this time, he answered me.

"Everyone has a choice," he said icily, only it wasn't his voice that came out of him but my father's stony contempt.

Then the dream ended exactly like it did before, with him closing the gap between us and shoving me hard in front of the same train that he had fallen in front of in reality. I woke up drenched with sweat and those words echoing in my head, my guilt strangling my heart even from a stupid nightmare. A part of me felt disgusted at myself for continuing to do this, turning the memory of my best friend into some ghoul to torture myself with, but my subconscious was clearly in line with the rest of me and thought that I deserved it. And if anyone was going to haunt me about what I've done, it would be Quatre, wouldn't it?

"Everyone has a choice." He… me, whatever was right. I might tell myself that I hadn't, that cutting ties with Heero was the only logical thing I could have done, but that was far from the truth. I had made my choice to break his heart and break that promise I had made to Quatre. If only I could grow a spine and accept the consequences of that choice with more grace than running and hiding and crying like a child every other moment. What right did I have to feel miserable about anything? What right did I have to want to reach out to the same person I had hurt just for a little comfort? In the early light of day, especially after that dream, what I had almost done that morning was even more horrific.

I sat up, my body aching from clearly tossing and turning for the last hour, and wearily rested my forehead against my knees. God, I was so tired, right down to my bones. My head felt heavy, like it was stuffed with cotton and every inch of me was screaming to fall back to sleep, even if I was sure that I wouldn't be able to. Even if there was nothing waiting for me but more nightmares. My eyes burned like they were on fire and I didn't even want to open them. My headache was still there like a drill through my skull, only it had evolved from the dentist variety to full scale mining equipment. There was a hot and sickly feeling in my guts, too, although it was impossible to tell if it was from sleep deprivation, anxiety, or I was actually getting ill. I didn't even care if I was, it would be a drop in the ocean that was everything else I was worrying about lately.

I groped blindly in the dark for my clock, squinting in pain as I hit the backlight on it, and almost groaned when I saw that it was just shy of six in the morning. I had barely gotten any sleep again, and what little I had gotten had felt like nothing at all thanks to that damned nightmare. I could try to fall back to sleep, but it seemed pointless that close to school and with my heart still racing. School. Just that thought alone turned my heart into a fucking bongo drum and made my head feel like it was being pierced open. I had gotten through the night and early morning deliberately not thinking about it, but now I had no choice. It was a brand new day, great fucking joy, and I was once again faced with my fear of going back there and facing something that was a thousand times worse than any nightmare: Heero, Zechs, my fucking reality.

Only it was worse now, wasn't it? Before I had considered skipping like the coward that I am because I had been terrified of what might happen if I saw Heero again. Now, I knew. I knew exactly how it felt seeing him. I knew how much I had hurt him. And I knew how he felt about me now, how much he wanted me to disappear from his life, to the point where he couldn't even look me in the eye. I remembered everything from the previous day with horror and had to ask myself if I really wanted to go back to that. Did I really want another day of his cold shoulder and my heart breaking over and over and over, of Zechs poking that festering wound and every second feeling like I was shattering to pieces?

What was even the point anymore? I hadn't been able to answer that question before and I was even less able to now. If all my presence did was hurt the person I loved, then why bother? For an education? I was a loser anyway. A good for nothing. And I was so tired of all of it. School. The bullying. My failures. My grief like a parasite eating away at me. It made me a spineless coward, just a child, running away from things like I always do, but that morning, any kind of conviction or strength had deserted me. I didn't want to see Heero. I didn't want to remember anything. I just wanted to fade away and forget all of it, both the bad and the good. I didn't even want to move from my mattress and the prospect of doing that felt as impossible to me as moving a thousand pound boulder.

I hoped that I was getting sick. I would actually have an excuse to stay away from school for a little while. Was that really how low I had sunk? Grasping for reasons to skip school because I couldn't deal with anything anymore? Always running and hiding. But I couldn't help it. When I remembered what I had almost done that morning, and what had happened at school the previous day, my terror paralyzed me. It was ridiculous and obscene, but just being around my ex had become this suffocating horror akin to the panic attacks I had when I thought about my father or Trowa. I had absolutely no right to feel that way about him. I had made my own fucking bed, but that didn't stop me from feeling like I couldn't breathe the second I thought about going back to school. But if I went down that path, I would have to make the decision to quit altogether, wouldn't I? I'd finally have to cop to the fact that this break up didn't just break my heart, it broke me, and I was never coming back from that. There was no just moving on, letting time dull the wound. It was three days later, if I couldn't get through another day of school now, how was I going to do it the next day or the next with any more success? It was either just give up now or suck it up and grow a pair.

My thoughts were just going around in circles, rabid dogs chasing their own tails. It was that more than my screaming headache or my burning eyes that told me how utterly tired I was, and that I was rapidly moving on from a couple restless nights territory and into insomnia territory. These were all the things that I had thought of the previous morning, almost word for word. Was I really going to be going through this every single school day for the rest of my life?

My head felt so heavy and fuzzy. It was almost impossible to think, and the thoughts that did come to me only exhausted me further. Utterly sick of myself and my wishy-washy, spineless behavior, I staggered to my feet and made my way to the light switch in the dark. The light, although far from bright, made me wince as it shot daggers through my skull. No matter what I decided to do with the day, painkillers were definitely first on the agenda. I stumbled to the steps, taking them very carefully as my body adjusted to being upright and my head tried to cope with the fact that it was awake after only an hour, feeling like I was still dreaming. I poured myself a tall glass of water and dug out one of my mother's pain pills, debating taking a second one, but I wasn't quite that reckless yet. That stuff wasn't Tylenol. However, I was so desperate for relief from my headache that, instead of just swallowing the pill whole, I chewed it into powder. I had read somewhere that doing that would make the medicine work faster since you're bypassing the need for the pill to dissolve in your stomach and while I can't say that it's necessarily true from the other attempts I've made to try it, any little bit would help at that point.

I immediately chugged the whole glass of water down the second the pill was crushed enough, but god did it taste disgustingly bitter. I almost puked, my fragile stomach rolling as I swallowed water and powder. Juice probably would have been a better method to cut that awful taste out of my mouth, but not all the pistons were firing yet. Ignoring the lingering, gross taste in my mouth, I splashed ice cold water in my face and put some eye drops in my burning eyes. I didn't need to look at the mirror to know they were probably red as hell whether they hurt or not. God, but I felt like rancid shit. Too much anxiety and too little sleep, I guess, but with one feeding the other, I didn't see how that was going to change any time soon unless I got past my hang-ups on sleeping pills, or got over this new… phase of my life.

It made me feel pathetic, but I could admit to at least myself that nothing was getting better overnight. But if I could survive a week of insomnia, I could easily survive a bit of restless sleep and some bad dreams. I had adjusted to my drastic change in sleeping habits after Quatre had died, hadn't I? Maybe not gracefully, and maybe sleeping even decently was something that I had struggled with before the breakup, but even when I knew that I should probably be concerned about it and my continuing lack of appetite, it still seemed so low on my list of shit to worry about. Compared to the prospect of facing Heero and my school day, how tired I felt was just another normal day for me.

I decided that the only way I was going to get through the day was if I put myself on autopilot. I was too keyed up over thinking about going to school and if I kept thinking about it, something was going to blow or I was going to chicken out. Which was probably the best case scenario at that point. I can't even really say why I had the drive to go. There really wasn't any reason in my head to beyond how pathetic running and hiding made me feel. Maybe there was a masochistic part of myself that wanted to see Heero again, even after the disaster of the previous day because even if the only times I got to see him anymore was when he was ignoring me or in a nightmare, it was still better than not seeing him at all. Even if that would have probably been better for my mental health. Or maybe I was just so tired and at the end of my rope emotionally that I literally couldn't get off the straight path.

Whatever the reason was, there was something oddly comforting about putting those thoughts in the back of my mind and just focusing on what I needed to do. If I was really going to school, I needed to shower and eat breakfast and comb my hair and drink a lot of caffeine and get dressed. Not at all in that order, but that was what my thought process had devolved into, random bursts of firing synapses that boarded on senseless, like one of those word association games. I just needed to focus on mindless, banal things, that was all.

It was still too early to worry about my parents waking up, so I rushed to shower before either of them would want to use the bathroom. I forsook my usual, neurotic scrubbing, not having the energy to do more than let the water pelt me and lethargically moved the soapy washcloth over my skin like my arm was made of wood. I had to literally force myself to wash my hair. I guess, given my issues on cleanliness, that was another red flag, but like with my lack of appetite, I didn't care about this, either. I cared more about the cool water dragging me back to reality, inch by inch, than I even cared about washing the sweat off my skin from working all night. As I just stood there under the stream, letting it rinse the shampoo out of my hair, I drank down some of the water, ignoring the metallic taste because my throat was too sore and I was too thirsty to care. I mentally added 'drink something' to my list of shit to do.

I finished my half-assed shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and went back to my room to change. Walking around in nothing but a towel wasn't something that I often did, not in that house where something so innocuous was so risky, but I had forgotten to bring a change of clothes down with me. Even my usual panic over my father maybe finding me like that was suspiciously absent. I couldn't even say that it was a bad thing. My lack of self-preservation was probably worrying, but it was kind of nice to not care about anything, or fly into a panic attack every second I was there. It could almost give me hope that I might be able to survive living there, if I could just learn to not care about the rapes and the beatings and the verbal abuse and how every second ripped me apart with depression and misery because I had once had something better. I had once had something to care about. Only, I didn't really believe in anything as lofty as hope anymore, if I had ever actually believed in it.

Once dressed, I forced myself to go downstairs and find something to eat. Not because I had any kind of appetite, but, just like the shower, because I knew that I should and I had nothing else to do. I actually felt a little disappointed as I surveyed the kitchen and found that someone, no doubt my mom, had put away the stew I had made and cleaned up. I didn't even have that small task to do, leaving me with only myself to take care of, the one thing I gave the least shit about. That being said, I put in a little bit more effort than I had been lately and made some toast with jam and scrambled eggs, even adding salt and pepper and chive to the eggs. But what I was really after was the two cups of coffee that I guzzled down. Maybe it wasn't the best thing to keep me hydrated, but I cared more about overloading myself with caffeine than anything else that morning.

I even considered a third cup, although I knew that was overdoing it, but cut my breakfast short when I heard my father moving around in the bedroom. I hadn't seen him since his blow up at me last night over the liquor and didn't want to find out if he was still in a foul mood. I didn't really want to see my mother, either. My loneliness from last night hadn't abated at all, but all I had to do was remember that I hadn't really seen her since I had had that stupid knee-jerk reaction the previous morning of confessing that Heero and I weren't friends anymore to be wary about running into her. It was inevitable, unless she had one of her short-term memory lapses. I almost hoped she would, just so I could avoid explaining myself a little while longer, but even if she did, I had to come clean eventually and I had this suspicion that, in this case, time was only going to make talking about it worse.

I hurriedly washed my meager dishes, grabbed my stuff, and bolted before my father even left the bedroom, stubbornly not thinking what grabbing my bookbag and textbooks meant for the day. I didn't think about trivial, inconsequential things like consequences, either. I didn't care that my disappearing in the morning might worry my mother beyond another bale of guilt to add to the pile on my back. I didn't care if my father beat the shit out of me later for vanishing before I could make him breakfast or do whatever other stupid chore he might hurl at me to punish me for last night. Or even because he might think I was going to Heero's. It was entirely possible that he flat out didn't believe me that Heero and I weren't friends anymore, that I had just lied to get him off my back and sneak around him again. Fuck that, it was damned likely given he hadn't mentioned it since and wasn't walking around like the fucking King with that smug look that always rips my guts to shreds.

Although, if he thought I had lied, he hadn't punished me for it, either. But when had I ever been able to tell what the man is thinking? It was probably just another one of his shitty head games. Let me stew about it, get paranoid about when the blow would come, let me trip over my own feet until he caught me in a worse mistake and would have no choice but to confess the lie to him. I doubted he had forgotten about it. Even though he had always been able to out-drink my mother, which is really saying something, he didn't seem to have her problems with short term memory loss, unless he was incredibly good about hiding it. I supposed that was possible, too, that he had forgotten, but not likely. I had never witnessed him forget anything unless it was something that he hadn't cared about in the first place, and especially never something that had pissed him off.

Like with my mother, I stuck it all in the 'worry about it for another day' corner of my head. I had other, more pressing things to make me nauseous with anxiety and it was all going to come out eventually, whether it was today or a week from now. Probably Saturday when my father would demand to know why I wasn't at Heero's, getting him his damned blood money. I didn't even have the energy to come up with what I would tell him, or how I was going to control my newly hair-trigger temper when he inevitably laughed and mocked me for losing my only friend.

I hesitated when I changed streets, just far enough away that I deemed myself out of the lion's lair. I didn't want to have to think about what I was going to do with the day, if I was really going to school or if that was insane. I didn't have to, the childish, scared part of me argued. I would likely get in trouble with the principal and my father, but I didn't have to. I couldn't go to the library, an obvious teenager on an obvious school day, but there was the beach. Although, after my near run-in with Heero the previous day on the beach, I found that the place had soured a little for me. That he definitely wouldn't be there during school didn't matter, it just left a bad taste in my mouth and I knew how dangerous the place was now. There were too many memories there. But there were other places around town where someone like me would either go unnoticed or no one would care. I could find some dark place and read until school ended or even, oh wondrous fantasy, sleep.

Options, sure, I had those. But it was all the same shit that I had considered earlier that morning and the day before and it left me feeling just as much of a spineless, dickless coward. I had broken up with Heero, I reminded myself, me, and if Heero had the courage to keep going to school, knowing that he had to be around me, how could I be so disgustingly self-centered and pathetic to run away from him? And it wasn't like skipping school made anything better. I might be able to sleep, maybe, but not being at school didn't make the nightmares go away. And yesterday had shown me in abundance that it didn't dull the pain, either. I had still seen Heero and I had still broken down multiple times without being near him.

All skipping would do was feed my cowardice and bring me one step closer to deciding to just drop out entirely, which was something that I was still struggling with. It seemed like such a stupid, childish thing to do just because I was hurting and having a hard time coping. It made me feel like some overly emotional teenager and if my father could have heard my thoughts right then, he would have laid me out for being so selfish and weak. I didn't see the point in any of it anymore, my grades, dealing with my bullies.

But not only had it been drilled into me at a very early age that dropouts were losers (that he was one of those dropouts never seemed to stop my dad from ragging on others for doing the same, he was always the special case in his mind, nor did he ever question why it had taken him so long to get me into public school if it was that important), it had also been hounded into me everything that my parents had given up, all for me, and how privileged I was to have opportunities they didn't have. Any guilt I could have felt had waned, grown faint with my heart break, but I still felt a spike of it thinking about how, compared to the frightening prospect of having to raise a kid at seventeen, my own issues were trivial. More than guilt, when I thought about how my mother had given up on her dreams, not even considering what had happened to her just from marrying my father, considering dropping out of school because I was losing my grip made me feel ashamed.

That was one issue firmly settled, even if I still didn't like it and felt this sense of almost foreboding that was less prophecy and more just knowing that the day was going to suck just as much as the previous one, but I still had nowhere to really go. It was too early to go to school or the library, but I couldn't think of a single other place to go or anything to do to waste some time.

I was really too tired and worn down, more emotionally than even physically, for something as lofty as 'plans', so I just started walking in the vague direction of school. Just letting fate, or rather utter randomness, decide for me because it didn't matter where I ended up. Just the act of walking was better than sitting up in my room and brooding. It was nice out for once, a little warm with a light breeze and not a single cloud in sight, not that I was in any mood to appreciate it, but at least it wasn't raining. While it would have suited me, being cold and wet would have made my headache worse.

My feet took me to the park and I found one of the longer jogging trails Heero and I used to use. I walked slowly and lethargically through it, looking up at the leaves overhead as they swayed in the wind but not really paying much attention to my surroundings. I was sure it was quite beautiful with the sun starting to get higher in the sky and a few early spring flowers blooming off the path, but my head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton and all of it was just empty scenery to me, like I was watching it go by from a speeding car. Even the few joggers that passed me on the same path didn't bother me like they usually would when I was in that kind of antisocial mood, I barely noticed them at all.

I milled around the park until it was around the time that the school would at least be unlocked. Not that I was beyond just finding an open or unlocked window like I've done many times in the past, but having to explain how I got in and why I was breaking into the school if I got caught was too much of a hassle. I was already pushing it with Stoan and my absences, and if I tried to tell him that I was breaking into school because I just wanted to be alone and had nowhere else to go, he would send me straight to the school shrink. Or worse, call my parents.

It should have been a relief as I got to the school parking lot to see that a few teachers and janitorial staff were parked, which meant it would be an easy thing to slip inside and get to the school library. I could find a book to read and a nice, dark, empty conference room to hole myself up in until it was time for homeroom. As far as plans went, it wasn't all that bad. Better than walking around town aimlessly. What I wasn't expecting was the anxiety attack that bowled me over the second I stepped out onto that parking lot. My guts clenched like they were stuck in a vice and my heart suddenly went into overdrive. I didn't even have the time to think 'what the hell' before my head exploded.

'This is stupid. Why am I here? This is a bad idea, the worst idea. What the hell am I doing?'

Panicked thoughts poured into my head like a dam had just ruptured and pure terror had me shaking where I stood as memories from yesterday hit me, wave after wave. The misery I had felt as Heero had ignored me. Fleeing to the bathroom to cry. Fighting with myself every second to just leave. Losing my shit over and over. That stupid run in with Zechs. I was going to go back to all that, really? Did I really think that anything had changed or gotten better in the last twenty-four hours? If anything, after last night, it was worse. So what was I thinking?

'It's fine,' I tried to tell myself, 'It's just school for fuck's sake! If I got through yesterday, I can get through today. Heero is just going to ignore me again and that's going to hurt, but I won't have to face him. I just need to get control over myself and deal with the fact that we aren't friends anymore and it doesn't matter how much I want to talk to him. Just keep going forward, like always.'

'But what if he doesn't?' the thought slithered in between all the others, a dark snake among muddy worms, making my insides twist even more until I felt physically ill, 'What if today isn't like yesterday at all? What if he tries to talk to me? What if he's done pretending that I don't exist and what he has to say is a thousand times worse than a cold shoulder?'

Why the hell would Heero want to talk to me? He sure hadn't wanted to the previous day, and after what I had said to him and Zechs, why would he want anything to do with me ever again?

'Then why did he call?'

I nearly reeled from that thought, feeling like I had just been slapped in the face. In my desperation to not think about it, I had intentionally forgotten all about my freak out from last night and what I had found on my phone. That thought, as unwanted as it was, made too much horrifying sense. Why had Heero called me? Why? And what would he do when he saw I hadn't looked at his message? Would he really seek me out and say whatever it is that had prompted him to call? Tell me to go fuck myself? Something worse? Yesterday, after hours of him acting like I didn't even exist, I had thought that I would do anything for him to talk to me again, but that morning, just the possibility that he would broke me. It was all I could do to stay on my feet and my breakfast in my rolling stomach.

"Oh god, I can't do this," I murmured to the early morning air.

I realized then that my entire body was trembling like I was an addict and the pain in my head had doubled to the point that even my eyes ached and my vision was a bit… off. What was wrong with me? So what if Heero tried to talk to me? It was just Heero, not some snarling monster, and even if it scared me, I didn't feel scared or worried. I felt utterly petrified, like I was having one of those stupid night terrors and was staring down that thing with the grey eyes and knife-like teeth. I felt like I was losing my damned mind, and all over a single message on my phone and a panic attack.

"Man up, you fucking pussy."

Compared to my own thoughts, hearing my father's voice in my head was almost a comfort, even if the words were harsh and the memory that they came from acidic. He certainly wasn't wrong this time.

"Stop it," I hissed at myself and my traitorous, thumping heart, "Get a damned grip."

I found a shady spot under one of the trees that bordered the parking lot where no one would see me and leaned against the trunk heavily. I focused only on my breathing and nothing else, not the voice-thoughts in my head or my headache or the shaking or how utterly pathetic I felt, just breathing. In and out. The first few were shaky like the rest of me, but then it started to smooth out into something more normal and less panicked. My heart slowed a little, enough that I didn't have that alarming blood rushing sensation in my ears anymore, but my chest still felt tight.

I felt so incredibly stupid and childish, just like I had yesterday, all over the prospect of having to talk to someone that I used to talk to every day. I know that's oversimplifying it and belittling my pain, but how low my heartache and guilt had brought me was humiliating. I had faced my father after every rape. I had gone home hundreds of times since I was a kid, terrified that he was going to hurt me. I had kept going to school after Zechs had almost drowned me, after Quatre had died, after Zechs and the rest of them had almost sexually assaulted me. I had kept my job even after I had been outed. I keep going on, it's the only thing I'm really good at besides ruining things. No matter how much I'm maimed and hurt, no matter how tired I am, no matter how much I feel like if I take just one more step, I'll go mad and break into a thousand pieces, I always keep on. No matter how much it hurts, life keeps on going and it doesn't give a shit how I feel about it, so I've kept going, too. There were chores to do, bills to pay, motions to go through. The only time I had finally bowed under that weight had been when I had slit my wrists, and that had just been a temporary stay.

If I could face all of that, day after day after day, why couldn't I face this? Why did this one thing make me cower like a child, like there was some hulking beast waiting for me beyond the doors of that school? Why was I struggling to deal with Heero and the mess I had made just as badly as when my father had raped me or when Quatre had killed himself? Compared to everything else, just… continuing on like normal should be easy, so why did every second feel like I had a mountain chained to my back?

I can't tell you how I finally got the nerve to go into school that day, only that I still felt just as sick when I did as I had entering the parking lot and still with that screaming thought in my head that I was making a huge mistake. Like that's anything new. Everything in my life has been a fucking mistake, but I never learn, do I? I just keep making them. I didn't get any spike of courage. I didn't get some great epiphany or finally grow a spine. I think it was only the lure of finding some dark, quiet hole to hide in that got me moving and that sense of how pathetic I was, that I had absolutely no right to run from the person that I had hurt. I only deserved his ire. If anything, if he did want to talk to me, I was obligated to listen and that I had even considered hiding from him disgusted me.

I managed to get inside the school without any more freak outs and found the library to be completely deserted, not even the head librarian was in yet. I went to one of the furthest conference rooms from the main door. Not that it really mattered, they don't lock the rooms or check them at all unless someone wants to use them until it's the end of the school day. I could have camped out in one until the final bell rang and it was unlikely anyone would know I was there unless a class had some project to do, but I had already been through that whole hiding possibility, hadn't I? I just went in and sat on the floor in the corner where I would be hidden if anyone walked through the front door of the library. I didn't bother with getting a book, the urge to read had passed since my little anxiety attack.

I didn't think I could manage it anyway. My head now felt like someone had had a go at it with an ax. But the conference room was nice and dark with all the lights in the library shut off. I didn't even need to close my eyes to shut off sensory input. It was nice and cool, too. I leaned my back against the wall and rested my aching eyes. It felt good, the best I had felt all day, not that that was saying much at all. But sitting there in the dark, quiet library, in familiar surroundings that didn't have many negative memories attached to it if you discounted my meltdown after that stupid prank with the school newspaper, I almost felt normal. Or at least comfortable.

It had even quieted my thoughts, although I had to put the effort into blocking out that particular memory. Or at least the part where Heero had found me and held me as I had sobbed my heart out. I could handle all the nasty text messages and voice mail and the disgusting ad in the newspaper, but I couldn't bear remembering how good it had felt to have someone who had not just chased after me, but comforted me instead of made fun of me for crying like a kid. I didn't want to remember how it had felt, someone having my back, or how it felt to be in Heero Yuy's arms, or how he had taken the situation completely in hand and given me something even more rare and precious than support: peace of mind. I didn't want to remember those things because I didn't want to know just how many pieces were left in me to shatter.

I stayed in the library until I heard people moving around in the hall. I couldn't tell if they were teachers or students, and I knew that I should probably be careful about where I went with it being too early for there to be many people around. I was all by myself again, only the threat was more dangerous than it had been months ago, before I had become friends with Heero. And now Zechs knew that I had no backup, although I think he cared less about knowing I was alone than he did knowing that I was hurting and he now, like a dog with a fresh, succulent bone, had something new to torment me with. It would be incredibly easy for him to get to me between classes or before school started or as I left and this time, not a single person was going to come to my rescue.

I felt the same apathy I did over that as I did about my dad beating me, I just didn't care. If I ran into Zechs or Mueller and they had a bat or a stick or were just planning on beating me to death, I don't think I would even run away. Beyond knowing that I deserved anything my father or those thugs could dish out, I didn't see the point in running anymore. I wasn't going to go out of my way to piss them off and look for trouble, but I was so tired and weary of all of it. Of running and hiding from them, of living my life like a scared mouse, of just dealing with Zechs in general. He was never going to stop gunning for me, not until I was broken under his hand and he couldn't play with me anymore, so what was the point of running? It only delayed the inevitable, just like with my dad and the rapes.

But then that thought sent a thrill of fear through me because a physical altercation with Zechs wasn't what I was scared of, or why I had jumped through hoops to avoid him lately. That had been Heero's concern, him going at me with that damned bat or beating me to mush. No, what utterly terrified me was him forcing me down to my knees and unzipping his pants as his pack of hyenas closed in on me like a wounded gazelle. I deserved that, too, but that didn't mean I wanted to go through it again, only this time to finally answer the question of what would have happened if Heero hadn't come looking for me. But I didn't really know what to do to prevent it beyond what I was already doing. Carry a knife on me? Kind of pointless when I was facing off against a guy that could easily just overpower me. I had only managed to stab him with that pencil because he was arrogant and hadn't been paying attention to me at the time. I doubted he would give me that kind of opening again.

Just like with my father, I knew it was inevitable. I couldn't be with people all the time and eventually my luck was going to run out. I've never had much in the first place. The way I saw it, I had four options. One, just let it happen. Let Zechs take that pound of flesh, get it over with before he got it in mind to do something even worse. But that option made my guts turn to water. A part of it was my fear of the act itself, but another large part of it was my utter humiliation at it being Zechs, of letting him out of everyone else take that piece, like he had finally won the war. He would, in the end. Guys like him always do, especially against guys like me. But I just couldn't surrender myself to it. It would feel too much like walking to my own execution, without even the comfort of my dignity.

Which left options two through four: keep avoiding him and hope for the best, kill him, or kill myself. As much as I hated Zechs, and as little as I cared about being a decent person after I had ripped the heart out of the best person in my life, I still couldn't see myself killing Zechs. Even if I could, knowing me, I would just fail at that, too, and he would get the gun from me and shoot me in the head or something. But that last option was getting more and more attractive every day. Just end all of it, all the sleepless nights, all the nightmares, all the rapes, all the bullying, all the guilt and degradation and pain. I wouldn't have to worry about what Zechs might do to me and, best of all, I would take the satisfaction away from him of being the person to do me in after all these years. I could be the one to win for once and take his precious toy away from him.

'So what am I waiting for?' I had to ask myself, 'Why haven't I just done it already? What's even left to stick around for? School? I'm never going to college or getting a decent job with a high school diploma. Mom? She would be sad but she's sad and guilty when I'm around, anyway. At least I wouldn't be a constant reminder to her anymore of the monster she's married to or the life that she had to throw away. It would upset Heero, too, but I won't be able to hurt him anymore.'

It was a good question, one that I've asked myself quite a few times. What am I holding on to? I'm not scared to die. I'm just… tired of everything. Tired of being tired. Tired of being sad. Tired of looking at my life and not seeing the point of all the struggle and pain. Tired of looking at the people I loved and only seeing all the scars I've left them with. Tired of ruining things. Tired of being a disappointment. The only thing that I could vaguely come up with was that I didn't deserve that kind of peace. I deserved to rot in the mess I've made. I deserve to hurt. But that just feels like an excuse more and more. But if that's true, I just don't know why I'm still going through the motions, why I haven't reached my limit yet.

I decided that I might as well risk leaving my little sanctuary and make a go for my homeroom. It was late enough that there had to be a few teachers walking around and I had never encountered Zechs before the first bell, let alone that early in the morning. I don't even think he knows that I make a habit of being at school before anyone else, and if he does, he's never used that opening to mess with me. Knowing him, he probably sleeps as late as possible and comes in whenever he feels like. We're in different homerooms, so I never notice when he shows up.

Homeroom was completely empty when I sat down at my desk, but I didn't feel any trepidation. Both Alex and Trant are in my homeroom and, unlike Mueller and Zechs, they actually give at least a little bit of a shit about their grades, enough to not be tardy or randomly skip classes. I don't know much about Trant's life beyond making mine hell, but I know that Alex's dad is a serious hard-ass and keeps his kid on a tight leash. I had heard him bitching about it multiple times with Trant and he seemed like the sort that had a rule about everything, from what sports Alex was involved in to how high his grades had to be, and that he was also the sort of father that enforced those rules with an iron fist.

I don't know if that iron fist is literal like it is with mine, but Alex never seems that keen to step out of line that much unless it was something Zechs had pushed him into. He acted like he was tough shit, but he was just as much Zechs's lap dog as Trant. So, there was a pretty good chance that I might run into either of them before class, but so long as Zechs wasn't around, I wasn't scared of either of them. The most they would do was rough me up or pull some stupid, juvenile prank. Now that I was in the classroom, Zechs and his pack of thugs had ceased to exist in my mind and once again, the only thing that was weighing on me was Heero. I had the same stupid, panicked thoughts that I had yesterday. When was he going to come in. What would it mean if he came in early or on time. Would he ignore me again or try to talk to me. Could I withstand it if he did. On and on and on.

I sighed heavily at my paranoia and anxiety, scrubbing a hand over my cold face, my skin feeling slightly clammy and off, probably from the sleep deprivation. I felt so ridiculous for my melodrama. I had lost Heero, ok, that had hurt. But the rest of it… how little point I could see in going on, thinking about killing myself, having to force myself just to eat and go to school like the world was ending… On the one hand, I felt childish, like I was throwing a temper tantrum over the loss of something I had loved, but on the other, I really hadn't expected anything less when I had broken up with him. It was like that one act had dominoed into every other aspect of my life, draining the color from everything.

I spent the rest of my morning before class stuck in that miserable loop of circular, repetitive thoughts, unable to stop myself from going over the same shit like a worry stone, only my rubbing at it made it rougher instead of smooth. I only snapped out of it when Heero walked into the classroom. Like the day before, he came in just minutes before class would start, the room already close to full. My heart quickened and my head throbbed, but just like before, he only walked past me to his seat, his back ramrod straight and his eyes locked straight ahead, refusing to even glance at me. It was like I was a ghost, completely invisible, or like the area around me was like the visual equivalent of rotten eggs and he had to make a wide berth around it.

He didn't acknowledge my existence in any way. Didn't whisper to me that he needed to talk to me after class or give any indication about why he had called me.

'Maybe he didn't,' I thought miserably as I watched him take his seat and look out a window, 'Maybe he never meant to call me at all. Maybe he thought he was calling someone else or the phone was in his pocket and he did it by complete accident. Maybe there's nothing on that message at all.'

The thought should have relieved me. I hadn't really wanted some kind of confrontation with him, not after yesterday, but it only made me feel very sad. So sad and so forlorn and lonely, just like I had felt last night, that I almost cried where I sat. I don't know how I managed to contain it when I hadn't the previous day, anymore than I understood my own damned feelings. And that was my only fucking accomplishment that entire morning. Not having to flee to the bathroom to sob my heart out again, although I came pretty close a few times. Other than that, the first half of my day was a mirror image to the one before. Heero continued to avoid me like a bad smell and my heart continued to bleed.

The longer the day went on, the more sure I was becoming that Heero hadn't meant to send that message to me, or even that I, in some kind of delirious depression, had hallucinated that it had been from him and not his parents, or Justin had used his phone for some reason. All those possibilities seemed about a hundred times more plausible than Heero leaving me a voicemail the previous evening, only to keep treating me like a specter. The two classes I had without him became a kind of respite. Not that either of them relieved the heartache I was feeling, but it was just enough to not constantly have him around, the dagger through my chest. After an entire block with him, looking for some clue that he wanted to talk to me like the masochist that I am and only to be met with more of his stony, cold shoulder, by Calculus, I had begun to mimic his behavior, ignoring him as much as I could out of self-preservation. My depression was suffocating me and making me wish I had never left that conference room.

When I left calculus and Heero behind, I felt like I could breathe again. At least for the few minutes before I went to the hallway that had all the computer labs and my anxiety kicked back up into hyper drive as I remembered that I was going to be stuck in a room with Zechs until the lunch period. I had been so consumed that morning trying to keep my shit together around Heero that I had forgotten about Zechs's existence, and how dangerous being around him that day was going to be. Not only did he know that Heero wasn't guarding my back anymore, he had new ammunition to torture me over. I was sure he wouldn't miss an opportunity to make a few digs at me, so I was completely on edge that block for an entirely different reason than being around my ex-boyfriend. And shocked when it ended and I got to leave without a single scratch, both physically and emotionally. Zechs hadn't done anything to me. He hadn't even given me a dirty look or rubbed what I had said to him yesterday and how I had nearly made Heero cry in my face.

I wasn't naïve or stupid enough to believe I had gotten a lucky break for once. If Zechs wasn't going to mess with me now, he was planning something worse later. I didn't even need to remember our return from spring break and how he hadn't done a single thing to me all day, only to both molest me and almost get Heero suspended just so he could get me alone. Him not fucking with me in computer science was a bad sign, not a reprieve. If it was anything like the last few times, he would wait until after school, but I wasn't going to assume anything when it came to the asshole, or risk that everything would be safe until then.

I was extremely cautious as I left the classroom, doing things by the book and more or less how I had been getting through school since Zechs tried to rape me, just minus having someone to watch my back and vice versa. I left the classroom with the teacher after Zechs had left and followed the throng of classmates as everyone, teachers and students alike, crammed into the hallway to get to the cafeteria for lunch. I mingled with the crowd because there were enough teachers around me that I was somewhat confident I wouldn't be in any danger. But beyond that, I had no idea where I was going or how I was going to spend the break. I didn't pack a lunch and didn't have a cent on me to buy anything, just to have something to do.

I felt no desire to read or write anything, although getting a head start on my homework would probably be a good idea. There was the library or the studio, but the former had limited staff during lunch periods and there were too many places where Zechs could hide out and either drag me out or get enough privacy to do whatever he wanted to me. It was also the most likely place he would go looking for me. The studio was possible but I was still nervous about him figuring out that I like to hide up there. It would be too easy for him to lay an ambush in a room that was known to be empty and no one was going to use or even look in on until after school. Which just left the cafeteria or the nurse's office.

The nurse's was tempting. The way that I probably looked after so many days of little sleep, I wouldn't need to do much to convince her that I was feeling sick and maybe, just maybe, I could actually take a short nap, or at the very least get some more medicine for my headache. But that felt like such a dangerous, slippery slope of a crutch. And there were too many hallways with plenty of empty classrooms to get past to get to that part of the school. Logically, the cafeteria was the safest place. Yes, it was pretty likely Zechs or one of the other members of the goon squad would be there even if Zechs was planning something, but it was also too crowded for Zechs to do more to me than the usual shit and plenty of teachers if things got… rough. Or I hoped there were enough to deter him. And I could stick with the mob all the way there, not giving the prick a single opening where I would be alone and vulnerable. But…

'But Heero will be there.'

Immediately, my guts turned to water and I almost froze right there in the hallway. The air and the people around me felt suffocating, or maybe that was just the fear that was making my heart race. I would have berated myself at having such a ridiculous reaction to someone that used to be my friend, but I was beyond that at that point. I was starting to accept the fact that, no matter how pathetic it was, this wasn't something that was going to fade away. Like my depression and guilt, the fear of being around Heero was there to stay, a permanent resident in my head. I tried to tell myself that I was being stupid, that I had just spent homeroom and two classes with him and if I could survive that, I could survive a single lunch period with him in the same, large room. We wouldn't even have to be near each other. If I tried, I might not even see him.

But all of that was bullshit. I knew that the very first thing I was going to do when I got into that cafeteria, if I could muster up the spine to do it, was look for him. I could try as hard as I could to stop myself, but my eyes would seek him out anyway. Like the fear and anxiety and guilt, it was becoming an automatic reaction to him. As much as I knew that it was killing me, I couldn't stop the wanting or the desperation to keep him in my life in some small way. Each glance was another stab, another cut as it ripped out a chunk of my heart, but I felt so weak in the face of it. It was like falling in love all over again. I knew it was no good for me, I knew what a bad idea it was, but I couldn't stop it anymore than I could gravity.

That we wouldn't have to be near each other was bullshit, too. The cafeteria might be big enough for us to stay away from each other, at least until it was time to sit down somewhere. There was still only one table free for both of us, unless Heero had found somewhere else to sit. It was unlikely, but still a possibility. Word of our breakup had gone through the school like wildfire since yesterday. I don't know if Zechs had personally been the one to help spread it, but we had had plenty of spectators to our little run in at gym class, so he really hadn't needed to. I had been hearing the whispered gossip and bold taunts to my face about it all day. I guess being poked and laughed at about it should have made me go seek the refuge of the bathroom again, but all it had done was slowly feed kindling to my guilt and made me more angry than depressed. Because they didn't know shit. They thought it was all a great, big joke. Haha, the faggots broke up, what will they do now? We were just a spectator sport to them, an entertaining soap opera. They didn't know what I had really done, or how much Heero and I were bleeding inside. Not that it would matter if they did, the sadistic pricks wouldn't care.

So yeah, if it fazed me at all, it pissed me off more than anything and there had come a few times when I had to stop myself from plowing my fist in someone's face. But it wasn't over my own pain, but 'Ro's. I couldn't even imagine what it was like for him to hear that shit, like someone rubbing glass shards into an open wound. And that just made me feel worse for my own anger. He hadn't lashed out at anyone and he was the one that had the right to. I had known it would happen before the breakup, but it still killed me seeing him push on valiantly as he became the butt of so many jokes, the fool who had dumped the most popular girl in school and all his friends and destroyed his reputation to be with the white trash pillow biter, only to get dumped himself. Now, not only was he still the fag to the entire school, he was also the loser and the idiot that had gotten his comeuppance for what he had done to Relena, and on top of that, he was out without anything to be out over. No boyfriend, no friends. He got to experience what life had been like for me before he had come along and saved my ass. He didn't deserve that, not by a damned mile. That's what I had done to him, the person that I loved.

But even if he was still just one of the queers to everyone, he wasn't with me anymore, wanted nothing to do with me, so I had to ask how many people had treated him as a social leper just because of me. I knew it was unlikely and just a stupid hope to make me feel a little bit better about what I had done to him, but I still hoped that someone, just one person in this entire fucking school would reach out to him. That he could make one friend, someone that had only been scared of Zechs targeting them, someone that could overlook Heero's sexuality and see everything that I had, how wonderful he was and what an amazing, loyal friend he could be. I'm not saying that it wouldn't hurt me, seeing him be friends with someone else, but I wanted it so badly. I wanted someone to be there for him because I didn't want him to live like I did. Heero deserved to be happy. But I had probably ruined that for him forever. Like the disgusting person I am, I had completely ruined his life. He was likely never going to get another friend in this town, all because I had dared to reach for something that I had known from the beginning I couldn't keep.

I jerked to a stop as I suddenly realized that I was walking right up to the doorway to the cafeteria and my heart that had been racing like a drum froze in my chest. I hadn't even registered where I was the entire walk there, so consumed with my miserable thoughts. Not thinking, just reacting to the terror that had seized me up without any warning, I practically flung myself into the little alcove that was next to the door. A few people gave me weird looks as they walked past but I was too busy just trying to breathe to care about how odd it looked.

I couldn't do this, I couldn't do this. It was utterly impossible. This anxiety and panic… it was like trying to deal with my father after he had raped me. There was a tight band around my heart, squeezing tighter and tighter and it was so hard to breathe, like my windpipe had become no wider than a string. I felt like I was going to be sick, all from almost walking into that cafeteria and seeing my ex. From confirming my fears and my guilt. From the likelihood that, if he really had left that voicemail on purpose, this was the first chance he would have to talk to me outside of a classroom. And I was such a mess at that point that I didn't even know if I wanted that or wanted to avoid it like the plague. I couldn't think anymore. All my thoughts were just animal thoughts, reacting and trying to survive.

I stood there in the dark and mostly hidden alcove, riding out the shaking and terrified beating of my heart until some of the panic cleared. Everyone was long past having gone into the cafeteria, so it was just me out in the hallway, shaking and covered in sweat like I had just run a marathon. It was incredibly dangerous being there. That one of Zechs's friends hadn't spotted me and waited to drag me out somewhere was a miracle, a spot of luck that I didn't expect to last. I should go, run to the library if I couldn't make myself go into the cafeteria, but I was still frozen to the spot. I took a couple of deep, shuddering breaths.

'Move, you have to move,' I told myself, 'You can't stay here. If you can't move for your own safety, then at least do it because, sooner or later, lunch is going to end and Heero is going to walk out that door and, with your piss-poor luck, see your stupid ass.'

Move. Alright, I could do that much, right? I just needed to find some place close by to hide out, or make a run for the library. Easy. Maybe Zechs was in the cafeteria. Maybe I wouldn't even need to worry about him. But the fucked up thing was that he had nothing to do with my rapid heartbeat and although I thought those things, I didn't feel them. Zechs could have been standing right in front of me with that aggravating smirk on his face and I wouldn't have even seen him. Logically, I knew that he was a threat, but the only thing in my frightened heart at that moment was Heero. He completely consumed me, not leaving room for even a sense of self-preservation.

I took a few more breaths, trying in vain to get my heart rate back down to something a little less psychotic, but was more successful taking a few steps forward until I was able to peek out of my little hidey hole. I just needed to make sure no one was down the hall, then I could book it, I told myself. My entire body tensed like a violin string about to snap as I took another step forward, preparing to look down the hall. What I actually did was look in the opposite direction, peeking into the cafeteria. It was that gravity again, some siren call I couldn't ignore or control. Suddenly, I had to know. Even if it hurt. Even if it killed me. I just had to.

From where I was and where people were sitting or standing in line, no one would be able to see me unless they were about to leave the cafeteria, but I think even if the entire world could have seen me right then, I still would have risked looking in there. I could easily see Relena's table from there, full with all her friends and sycophants, chatting about who knows what, and I knew that if I turned my head a little, I would be able to see Zechs's usual table, too. Even if he wasn't there, no one else would sit there, nobody dared. If I stopped to think about it, I would have laughed. Both of our tables were pretty much leper zones, just for entirely different reasons. I looked over their tables like they were nothing and, for that moment at least, that's exactly what they were. Just background details like everyone else in that room. My eyes automatically searched for Heero like a magnet homing in on another. I found him easily when I glanced over at what had once been our table and my heart sank. He was still sitting there, all by himself. Still the outcast that I had made him.

Of course he was, I berated myself. It had been all of a stinking day since I had confessed to the break up and not even a full school day since news of it had really spread. Had I really expected things to change in just a few hours? I knew that, logically, that anything changing at all for the better for Heero was just a desperate fantasy, but seeing him sitting there alone, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed as he pushed around some kind of meal in a bowl like it was the most labor-intensive task he had ever committed was heartbreaking. I stood there for a good fifteen minutes, just watching him from the safety of my alcove, feeling like a gross stalker, but unable to stop.

I probably would have spent the entire lunch break like that, feeling that suffocating pain in my chest from the realization that this was all I had anymore. Stolen glimpses while his back was turned, like some disgusting voyeur. Watching him move on and continue living a life that I had been evicted from. Never being a part of that life, never knowing what was going on with him, if he decided to go pro, what college he was going to, what he had gotten for his birthday. I would never know what he was thinking or feeling, would never uncover any more of those little secrets that made up who he is. For me, I had cut that life off at the knees.

That realization almost sent me to my own knees as I fought against tears at the horror of it all, even if it was a horror I had chosen. That horror only grew as I continued to watch him and further realized that, while I couldn't see what his lunch was, I could clearly tell that he wasn't actually eating it. He was just pushing the food around with a fork or spoon and staring at it morosely. In all the time that I had been studying him, he hadn't taken a single bite of anything in front of him and it didn't look like he was planning to. Had I done that to him? Was he not eating because of me?

'Maybe he just isn't hungry,' I thought defensively.

If I hadn't been so upset, I would have laughed at myself in disdain. Because I had such a great appetite after I had broken up with him, right? I was only barely forcing myself to eat because I knew that I needed to. Was it really such a shock that Heero didn't have an appetite, either, after everything I had done and said to him? I hadn't just broken up with him, but gotten him to believe that I had never loved him. I had shattered his heart and turned all the pleasant memories that I had the luxury of still looking at sour. Confirming my suspicions, he poked at his meal a little more, than covered it back up and put it back in the bag it had come in. It made me feel even more miserable than I already had. At least Mariela and Justin wouldn't let him get away with skipping meals entirely, I told myself. They would force the food down his throat if they had to, and it would pass eventually. When he finally got over me and realized how much better off he was without me. But unsurprisingly, those thoughts weren't any kind of comfort.

I pulled myself away from the sight of him resting his forehead on his palm, staring at nothing. I couldn't take anymore. No more revelations, no more evidence of all the pain I had put him through. I couldn't look at him and I sure as hell couldn't go in there. There weren't any tables anyway and I couldn't handle being near him anymore, even if I knew that image of him pushing his food around with complete disinterest would follow me around for quite some time. I left the alcove and trudged back down the hallway towards the classrooms, but discarded all my original plans of finding someplace to hunker down. Dazed by guilt and sadness, I forgot all about my caution and that I hadn't seen Zechs at all in the cafeteria, and walked slowly and aimlessly through the hallways.

I wished that there was some place that I could just lie down in and die. I wished I could go back and make sure that Heero and I had never become friends, that he had never become involved with my train wreck of a life. I wished my father had never found me that day, lying on the bathroom floor in a pool of my own blood, or that he hadn't shown me one of the few acts of care and giving a shit he had ever done to me in his life and had just left me there to die instead of binding my wounds and dragging me off to the hospital. Everyone's life would have been better off if I had just had the decency to die back then. It wasn't like I had done anything with my own life in the last four fucking years.

I was so immersed in my thoughts of self-loathing that I almost didn't react at all when I walked past one of the exit doors and nearly plowed into someone. I almost mumbled 'sorry' and walked on when I caught a flash of silver hair and my stomach plummeted to my knees. I froze to the spot, my brain firing off so many knee-jerk, screaming thoughts that I couldn't catch hold of just one of them, the mix of fear adrenaline and exhaustion turning what should have been an instant reaction into a paralyzing mess of senseless impulses. Zechs, however, didn't miss a beat and grinned sickeningly at me, not even having my shock at someone bumping into him.

"Hey, Maxwell," his grin grew and I saw that the twisted fuck was actually excited to have run into me, making me feel physically ill, "What's the matter? No lunch today? Don't tell me the well's run dry already? You really need to learn how to save up now that you don't have Yuy's dick to suck whenever you're strapped for cash."

I had a single moment of wondering if he had seriously waited around to see if he could catch me out before registering how much he reeked of tobacco and that he must have just stepped out for a quick smoke and my luck was just, as usual, legendarily bad. Unfortunately, that one moment was enough to make me hesitate and, when common sense finally returned and I bolted like I should have done the very second I had realized it was him, it was too late. What the hell was wrong with me? I was all alone in an empty hallway with the same person that had orally raped me with a freaking baseball bat and I was just loitering there like we were talking about the weather. Zechs didn't have any of my problems. His hand struck out and snagged my arm before I got more than a step away from him. It was like getting my arm stuck in a bear trap.

"What's your rush, Maxwell?" he sneered, "Got a gangbang to catch?"

He yanked me back and practically threw me against a row of lockers, the metallic banging clash it made almost deafening in the quiet hallway. He let go of my arm but planted his hand on my chest, keeping me there like the bug that I was to him.

"You know, if you're really so strapped for lunch money, I could help you out," he said with a feral smirk, "Unless there's something else that you're hungry for."

"Just leave me alone," I had to say, only barely able to manage a neutral tone instead of snapping at him or, infinitely worse, stammering, just to hide how scared I was.

"Now, now," he stroked a finger down my cheek, "I'm not such a bad guy. I just figured you would be lonely, now that Yuy's out of the picture," his other hand slid down my back, exactly like it had the day that Heero had gotten detention for belting him. Only this time, he didn't settle for grabbing me outside of my pants and slipped inside my jeans, "Everyone needs a bit a comforting, even a repulsive fag like you, don't you think?"

His hand suddenly squeezed my left butt cheek, even harder than he had the last time and I nearly jumped like a damn startled cat. I don't think my heart could have reacted more violently if he had tazed me in the chest. On the verge of hyperventilating and in full panic mode, half lost in a dozen awful memories of him and Trowa and my father and Pat, I freaked. Not really thinking about what I was doing, I tried to push Zechs away from me so I could slip out of his grasp, but while I may be as agile as an eel, I'm not strong, and even someone bigger and more athletic like Alex couldn't take down someone like Zechs.

It isn't that he's big, although he certainly is that compared to a twig like me. He isn't some beefy, meat-headed jock. He's tall, but has more of the body of a boxer than a football player, all solid muscle and he knows how to use it. There's a reason why Horner jumps through hoops to keep him on the football team even though he's vicious and does whatever the hell he wants. Offensively, he's a raging bull, but defensively, it's like trying to tackle a concrete wall, there's just no moving him. I had heard that was also the only reason why he stayed on the wrestling team for so long even though he often crossed the line and had gotten disqualified from a few matches for using excessive force. By the time he had finally gotten kicked off, he was still undefeated. No one could get him out of the ring or pin him down. Someone like me trying to move him even an inch was laughable.

"Uh-uh," he chided in that mocking, derisive tone of his that always makes my blood boil with fury, "Let's play nice, huh?" he shoved me back against the lockers and took his hand off my chest finally, only to grab me by the throat. The entire time, he didn't take his other hand out of my pants, "Or maybe you like it like this. Is that why you broke up with Yuy? A pansy little momma's boy like him not rough enough for you?"

He tightened his grip, both on my throat and on my ass and any thoughts of fighting back fled along with any other intelligent thought as it took all my concentration just to remember to breathe, but although he was constricting my airway in a very threatening way that would have been enough to make me panic, it was what his other hand was doing that terrified me. I couldn't spare the time to fight against the real threat when I was just fighting against the tidal wave of memories and horror that wanted to break free in my head. I had to focus on the sight and sound and smell of the hallway or it would start to morph into something else. A dark room with the smell of sex and blood, a breath that stank of booze wafting over my skin. Hands that were as big as Zechs's, but calloused, gripping my hips.

"I can be rough if you want," Zechs leaned in close, practically pressing himself to me, boxing me in against the lockers until I felt so claustrophobic, I might have screamed if I could have gotten a breath in. When he whispered in my ear, I had to make myself actually hear his voice and smell his breath and not my father's, "I can make you feel good, better than that prissy mutt ever did."

As he tightened his hand on my throat again, almost shy of choking me and my breath became a sick sounding whistle, I didn't even have the presence of mind to get pissed like I normally would have at anyone calling Heero that. Then Zechs took my mind completely off my breathing by massaging the flesh that he was gripping so tightly that he would leave dark bruises, groping and kneading my ass in a disgustingly intimate way, like I was a whore and I guess that's exactly what I was. Later, when I was able to think in the present again and my heart didn't feel like it was being strangled, I would feel scared at his boldness, doing this right in the hallway where anyone could see. Although, I doubted he had cared. If anything, someone seeing us would have been the icing on the cake for him, just another bit of humiliation to add to the pile.

"See? Doesn't that feel nice?" he crooned and then chuckled snidely, "I bet Yuy is really going to miss this ass. You might be dollar a dozen trash, but your ass is really something else. I haven't stopped thinking about it since the last time I got to touch it."

I squeezed my eyes shut, letting his superior taunts wash over me as I fought against tears, not wanting to cry in front of this rapist prick, although how much I was shaking was bad enough. Nausea rose in my guts as he kept fondling me and slid his knee between my legs. It wasn't anything sensual, but a threat, just like everything else he does and I knew that if I tried anything, he would slam that knee right into my groin. But it wasn't that solid pressure on a sensitive part of my body that kept me frozen and unable to try to get away from him. It wasn't his hand on my throat or how much bigger he was or how he would turn me into mince meat if I did anything to him. I didn't try to hit him or bite him, although his face was so close to mine that I easily could have bitten his neck and given him another scar to remember me by to match the one he had on his hand.

It had nothing to do with my panic attack, either. It was because, when I thought about trying to fight him off, I didn't see him trying to orally rape me in that damned classroom. I didn't see my father pinning me down, either. I saw Heero in the cafeteria, pushing his food around with complete disinterest. I saw him walking into homeroom with his head down, his hair tousled, and his eyes red from crying, ringed by dark circles from more than one sleepless night. I deserved to be gutted for what I had done to the sweetest, kindest person I had ever met. So, if that's what Zechs wanted to do to me, so be it. The more it hurt, the better. Let him take whatever mound of flesh he wanted. The stuff was bitter anyway and no one was going to miss it. I just kept my eyes closed and kept still, letting him touch whatever he wanted to touch and when he leaned in again, his foul breath ghosting over my ear and spoke just above a whisper, I didn't flinch.

"How about we find a room, huh? Just the two of us this time-," he started to dig that knife into the heart of my terror, not realizing that it didn't even faze me this time, that my hatred for myself was doing the job a lot better than he ever could.

"Get off of him!"

My eyes flew open as I was jerked out of my head and back into the stark realness of reality by the sound of Heero's cry. I was so certain that I had to be hallucinating him, between my guilt and my memories of him saving me the last two times Zechs had assaulted me like this, but no. He was really there, standing not all that far from us, watching in shock at the scene before him. What the hell? What was he doing here? Had he seen me when I had left the cafeteria hallway and followed me?

'Don't be so fucking stupid!' I snarled at myself in my head, squashing the hope that wanted to flare to life, 'Why should he care or want to talk to me? He just decided to leave the cafeteria since he wasn't eating and didn't want to stick around everyone with all the shit they've been saying to him all day. He wouldn't even try to stop Zechs right now if he wasn't such a decent person and you know that!'

I had a moment again where I wondered if he might even enjoy it a little, seeing Zechs hurt me and degrade me like this, but just like the previous day, I knew he didn't. He might hate me, but he wasn't cruel and he wouldn't wish this on even his worst enemy. That's all this was, I told myself, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time and was trying to stop a bully, nothing more than that. As I watched him look from Zechs to me, those beautiful blue eyes falling on me for the first time since the last time Zechs had come after me, anger and humiliation started to wash over my shock as I realized exactly what he had just seen. Bad enough that everything had gone to shit between us, but now what did he think about me? Pinned to the wall and being felt up like a slut, so pathetic that I wasn't even trying to fight back. Zechs didn't even take his hand out of the back of my pants, just turned his head to smirk at Heero.

"You sure about that?" he sneered, reveling in how scared and shaken Heero looked, "Sure you don't want to watch? After all, it's not like he's ever going to let you touch him again, so you might as well take whatever you can get, right, Yuy? How about it?"

"Shut up!" Heero suddenly snapped as anger overrode his skittishness for a moment.

I don't know what Zechs had said that had pissed him off the most, the dig about our breakup, or that he was literally propositioning me like a whore to him, like he would even want anything to do with me now.

"Guess you're not into voyeurism," Zechs mocked him, Heero's anger amusing him, "Then again, it must really burn watching other men touch what you're not allowed to anymore. You know, you could always join in," he suggested with that sick little grin of his, "I certainly wouldn't mind. I'm a pretty charitable guy and seeing you moping around so pathetic over this loser really chafes me, you know? I don't even mind sloppy seconds if you want first go."

My own anger surged in me like a torrent as he continued to mock Heero's broken heart like it was nothing. I wished that I had bitten him. Heero didn't deserve this shit and I wouldn't have blamed him if he had just walked away right then. But he didn't. Zechs's taunts sapped his fury and the look on his face, like his heart had just been flayed open, broke my own all over again. Why the hell couldn't I stop hurting him? Hadn't I done enough? Hadn't Zechs done enough?

"Shut the fuck up," I snarled at him through my clenched throat, not caring if he choked me or beat the shit out of me.

My rage was a living thing, like a firestorm through my veins and, if I had had the freedom of motion to do so, I think I would have hit him right then and not cared about the consequences, just so enraged that he had to keep dragging Heero into this, and that there wasn't a damned thing I could do to stop it, to protect him from all the shit I had brought into his life even after I had ended things with him. Zechs looked at me stonily, that superior look gone for a moment at my rebellion, and he finally took his hand out of my pants and let go of my throat, allowing me to raise my voice.

"Just leave him the hell-," I started to yell at him.

Zechs slammed his fist into the left side of my face, the powerful force of the blow driving me to my knee as my world exploded in pain.

"Duo!" I heard Heero cry.

My heart sang with joy to hear actual, real concern in his voice. And it bled, knowing it didn't mean a thing and, even if it did, I certainly didn't deserve it. It took a few moments for the ringing in my skull to stop and my vision to come back, the bastard having hit me close enough to my eye to have made me see almost literal stars. When it cleared, I saw that Heero had closed most of the gap between us. He must have run for me when he saw me go down, but had faltered. He had that look again. The same one from yesterday, caught between wanting to intervene, and not sure what to do. Probably not sure if he wanted to risk a few bruises for my sake. Zechs didn't pay any attention to him, either somehow knowing he wasn't going to do shit to protect me or not caring, and just looked coldly down at me, the maggot under his shoe.

"You better watch your cock-sucking mouth, Maxwell," he warned, "There's nothing more disgusting than a fag who doesn't know his place."

His hand curled into a tight fist and I prepared myself for the beating. Now that he wasn't grabbing me, I could easily get away from him. There was a clear path if I darted to the side. I was dizzy from the punch, but I might make it if I was quick and took him by surprise. But what would have been the fucking point?

"Stop," Heero suddenly begged and the sound of his voice, trembly and desperate and scared eviscerated me, both because he was begging for me, and because I had made him sound like that at all, like he was begging for mercy from some tyrannical god, "Just please, stop. Leave him alone."

I looked at him with shock and horror. What had I done to deserve his constant protection and care? I had broken his heart, ruined his life, he wouldn't even give me the time of day anymore, yet there he was, trying to save me again. What did I have to do to keep him away from all this shit? How much harder did I have to push him away and make him loathe me?

To my surprise, Zechs actually relaxed his fist and took a step away from me, smirking at Heero.

"You're the boss," he said derisively.

I hurriedly got to my feet as he walked towards Heero, thinking he was going to hit him, too, but he just looked him up and down, that infuriating smirk growing.

"Looks like you aren't sleeping so well, Yuy," he jeered, "That's a pity. You should really take better care of yourself."

He started to walk past him, but then stopped and patted his shoulder like they were the best of friends and he sympathized with him. Both Heero and I flinched at the motion. Heero stiffened as Zechs leaned in, looking like he was going to whisper something to him, but spoke just loud enough for me to catch the words.

"Bet you wish you had taken that bat after all," he said cruelly.

All the color that Heero had left just drained away as he looked at our mutual bully with horror.

"But that's ok," Zechs said in fake assurance, unable to hide how pleased he was at Heero's reaction, "It's never too late. I'll give you time to think about it."

Heero and I watched as he strode off, content with the damage he had done, like a lion that had just taken down an especially juicy water buffalo. My head pounded with agony, but it was more from the rage that still had me in its grip than the blow to the head. Or maybe it was the guilt. I expected Heero to flee like he had the previous day now that his good deed was done. I was clearly fine and things could go back to how they had been between us. Just two strangers, passing through. But instead of walking away to lick his wounds or even looking away from me, his eyes found mine and the look in them just about killed me. He looked so… so wounded. But not from what Zechs had said to him, but for me, and I knew that it had nothing to do with the single blow the thug had given me.

Even worse than the pain was the pity that I saw there. Poor Duo, getting felt up and needing his ex to come save him. That's all I could see in my head, Heero stumbling on Zechs grabbing my ass and having to come to my rescue just because no one else gave a shit. It fed my anger more than anything Zechs had done. Not that I was angry at Heero for helping me, but that he had had to. Again. Everything Zechs had said to him was on me. That look was on me. He had never pitied me before, I thought in misery. I had never been so pathetic in his eyes to ever pity me. Sympathize and hurt for me, yes, but never that I was so low and weak for something like pity. And I didn't even deserve that much from him. He took another step towards me, looking so uncertain and lost and so completely unlike the boy I had known all these months. I became even more horrified when he actually opened his mouth and spoke to me for the first time since I had broken up with him.

"Duo, I-," he started to say, pained and nervous, and took another step towards me.

I couldn't take it. Not that pain all over his face, how faltering he was to know what to do or say, not his attempts to comfort. It only rubbed in my face how everything was broken, that the only reason why he was trying to comfort me wasn't because he loved me, it was because he felt bad for me. It wasn't just that he had no reason to feel pity for the person who had stabbed him in the back, it was that it was a mockery of all those moments when he had honestly tried to soothe my pain, when he had held me in his arms and told me that everything would be alright because he loved me. I didn't care what he had to say, if it was a condemnation or a balm. I just couldn't fucking take anymore of it.

"Just leave me the hell alone!" I snarled at him, making him flinch even harder than he had when Zechs had touched him and when he recoiled from me, that pain on his face had deepened into something raw and awful.

Tears pricked at my burning eyes seeing that hurt. I was such a failure. A disgusting, loathsome failure. I had done it again. I had forced him into this situation, had forced myself back into his life and made him help me when all he wanted was for me to leave him alone. This was one of the reasons why I had broken up with him in the first place, but I just couldn't stop, could I? Even when I tried to distance myself, it was never enough. And at the core of all of it, although I hated myself and wished that Heero had never left the cafeteria that day, there was a very big part of me that was happy because, for a moment, he had looked at me and talked to me and cared about me. For a moment, if I could squint at it, I could almost pretend we were still together. That we were still friends. And I hated myself more than I can describe for that happiness. Before Heero could react and try to approach me again, I bolted, horrified at my own selfishness and not wanting him to see me cry, or see the rage that was quickly consuming me, not wanting him to think it was directed at him.

It was an easy thing to convince the nurse that I was too sick to go to class. She had her hands full with two students that were down with food poisoning and were spending their time taking turns running to the bathroom while they waited for their parents to take them home (they either had terrible luck or had shared something for breakfast since it seemed they had both gotten hit with it at the same time), one that was having a bad allergy attack and another with asthma that had lost her inhaler, so it was something of a miracle that she even saw me shortly after the bell rang for the next period. I was sure that she would kick me out when she took my temperature and it came back normal, but I must have really looked like shit because she didn't even bat an eye when I told her that I didn't want to be sent home, I just needed to lie down for a little while and let me have one of the few beds left. She even gave me some pain pills for my headache and an icepack for my swollen cheek.

I knew it was a cowardly thing to do, but I just couldn't handle anything anymore. Maybe if the next period had been a class where I didn't have Zechs or Heero in, I could have forced myself to go, just to distract myself from everything that was in my head. But it was history next block, which meant I would have to face Heero again. The mere thought made me want to die of shame. It was too much, and maybe that made me a loser, but I just couldn't make myself do it when I was so raw, so full of anger and hurt. I couldn't go into that classroom and watch him sit in his new seat, far away from me, and wonder what he was thinking about that disaster during lunch. I hadn't really lied to the nurse. When I thought about going through with it, I really did feel like I was going to puke. I don't know where my nerve had gone, why I couldn't just grow a spine and deal with these things. Probably wherever my sanity had fled to.

I didn't have any plans. There was no real intelligent thought when I went there and I didn't know what I was doing. I just went to ground like the spooked animal that I was, looking for any convenient, dark hole to hide in from the world. From Zechs and Heero and my new reality. I didn't care if I got into trouble for skipping another class. I just wanted to shut everything off, all my painful, buzzing thoughts and memories and feelings. I spent most of the block lying on that cot and staring at the wall in a white, nothing haze. It was like that screensaver mode I get into when my insomnia hits me hard. I don't know, maybe that was exactly what it was. I couldn't remember how much sleep I had gotten in the last week. It wasn't like I had been sleeping all that well even before the breakup, so strung up about how my relationship with Heero had been crumbling and how incapable I was of doing the right thing. I didn't think I was that bad yet, but it was impossible to separate the things I was feeling due to stress and what was from sleep deprivation. Counting the hours that I had slept didn't help either because what little I had gotten had been so full of nightmares, I don't think I had gotten much rest at all.

The smart thing would have been to take a short nap while I was there. Despite all the coughing and puking, it was fairly quiet in the little side room my section of beds was in. It was dark and cool with all the shades pulled and on a normal day, I might have let myself drift off. I was safe from Zechs there and I really needed the sleep if I was going to get through a full night of work. But I just drifted senselessly, barring anything from my consciousness like I was barricading a room from werewolves that were snarling and scratching at the door. I didn't cry. I didn't brood. I just kind of… shut down. Emotional overload, I guess. But under that nothingness, my anger stewed and spread like a cancer. I refused to let myself acknowledge it or try to temper it, but it was there, waiting for my shields to come down again.

I got up when there was just ten minutes left in the period and told the nurse that I was going back to class. I thought with how busy she was, her typical attitude, and that I was clearly not that sick, she would just wave me off, but she frowned when she got a good look at me.

"You can stay through next period if you need to," she told me, surprising me.

I wondered just what I looked like if even the normally brusque woman thought there was something wrong with me. She usually couldn't wait to get rid of me.

"I'm feeling a lot better," I lied, "I just really needed to lie down for a little bit, but I'm fine to go back to class."

I felt worse, the pills having not kicked in yet, and I wanted nothing more than to lie back down and just skip the rest of the school day, although that had nothing to do with how tired I was. But I was quickly getting to that point of exhaustion where things like veering off the straight path were both unwanted and nearly impossible. I don't know what it was, the stress of that morning and afternoon, all the things I was extending way too much energy repressing, or if my restless nights really were catching up to me, but I felt like I was crashing hard and critical thinking was beginning to become too difficult to manage. Or maybe I just didn't want to think anymore.

But in my head, I had gone to school to make a go at it, no matter how much it hurt, to try to return to as much of normal as I feasibly could. Constantly skipping classes because I was having a difficult time dealing was not doing that. Therefore, unless I wanted to quit, I needed to put in the effort. Simple right? I just had to ignore the fact that the real reason why I was even there at the nurse's office was because I didn't want to face Heero again, and the only actual reason why I was leaving wasn't that I didn't want to miss a few lessons, or even that doing so would make me get lectured by Stoan again. It was because I wouldn't have Heero or Zechs in my next two classes, making that time pretty much safe. Gym… I would deal with gym when I got to it, but I needed to keep busy. The longer I just laid there, doing nothing, the more likely something was going to slip past my barrier. If I wanted to keep myself from either punching a wall or running to the bathroom to throw up, it was best to keep moving and never look back.

The nurse's frown deepened and she walked to her desk, scribbling something on a small pad of paper, ripping a sheet off, and handing it to me. It was a pass to get out of gym. I could have cheered, suddenly having an out of the one class that was twisting my guts into knots, but also deeply confused and, for some reason, irritated. It only took me the time to read the thing and then look up at her expression to realize what was pissing me off about this so much. It was that look on Heero's face after Zechs had finally left us alone. That pity. Like I deserved any sympathy. Like I was walking wounded when there shouldn't have been a damned thing wrong with me. I knew it was irrational. Clearly, if the school nurse could tell I wasn't well at a glance, I was worse off than I thought and she was just doing her job. What did I have to be angry about? But I couldn't stop that feeling anymore than all the other times my temper had gotten the best of me.

"I don't need-," I tried to tell her.

"You're as pale as a sheet," she said in that blunt manner of hers that was somehow both aggravating and refreshing, "I don't want to see you back here today because you collapsed or threw up. Just take it easy and get a full night's sleep tonight."

The words that would have come with soft sympathy from anyone else were delivered bitingly, like she somehow knew that my current state was entirely my fault, but she was really just like that all the time. I just nodded, knowing that there was no way in hell that was going to happen, especially with the day I had just had, but it allowed me to leave the place without her getting suspicious and calling my parents. I managed to get to my home ec classroom just as the bell was ringing for the end of that block and into the new one, escaping any possibility that Zechs or the others could corner me. It was possible that he was done fucking with me for the day after that fiasco during lunch, but I wasn't going to do anything stupid after he had felt me up and had only marginally escaped him taking it to the next level. Whatever that level was with him, the bastard.

Home Ec was a welcome relief that afternoon. Advanced Home Economics isn't just part two of the basic home ec class, it's an advanced placement course on par with any of the other AP classes, you have to be in the top ten percent of both home ec 1 and 2 to even qualify to get in. Everything we learn to do is challenging and takes a lot of concentration and a fair amount of skill. Best of all, like with my AP literature class, there really wasn't anyone in there that wasn't serious about the class and taking it either because they were incredibly passionate about cooking or they needed the credit for a college application. Sure, there were a couple people like Relena in my literature class that kind of squeezed in for whatever reason, but the larger workload and fast paced lessons usually weeded them out and they dropped out or quit for another elective.

Unlike 19th Century Literature, I didn't have anyone in that class that I didn't want to deal with. They were all seniors that barely knew me or too focused on the class to care about the resident punching bag. And unlike basic Home Ec, we didn't work in pairs. There weren't enough of us for that and everyone was expected to get by on their own merit. We all had our own stations, so there wasn't even anyone in my personal space. It was as close to alone and safe as I had gotten since I had left the library that morning. It allowed me to breathe for a little while and I lost myself in the rhythm of peeling and chopping and mixing and just focusing on some physical task that required just enough brain power for me to distract myself like a cat with a light pointer.

Literature next block was a little worse with that whole needing to engage with people thing. My head was scattered, tacked on to everything but a reading assignment I only vaguely remembered. I think my sleep deprivation worked in my favor again because our teacher only called on me once and when I didn't rise to any lengthy debate with him over the subject matter, he didn't try to bait me, just nodded and went to the next person for their opinion. It saved me from having to put myself enough together to formulate more intelligent thought than enough to power a lightbulb, but also robbed me of a distraction. Dealing with Relena was another double-edged sword. I was too raw and thin skinned from my run-in with her shitty brother to want her anywhere near me, but the threat of her presence kept me alert and focused.

I guess, compared to Zechs, she really wasn't that much of a threat anymore. She had more of a reason to fuck with me, but lacked his predatory and nightmarish edge. I had had her in a bunch of my morning classes, of course, but that was the first time I paid any attention to her. I should have, really. If I hadn't been so preoccupied with my own problems, I would have been scared to be around her. I had known the consequences of telling Zechs and a third of the gym class about my break up, but for some reason, it had never occurred to me to wonder how Relena would take it that day. Would she be overjoyed that Heero was free of my clutches? Would she think she had some kind of chance with him now? Or would she loathe me for throwing away the one thing I had taken away from her? If she really did love him, did she hate me even more for hurting him? Either she was going to be like everyone else and rub it in my face, leave me alone out of some kind of twisted, gross gratitude, or come after me more viciously than ever before.

Although, I supposed that if she really was that furious with me over it, wouldn't she have already done something about it? I hadn't been paying much attention to her, but I wouldn't have missed her pulling one of her heinous pranks, unless she was planning something for after school. Maybe scheming with her brother all the ways they could get me alone again. I wouldn't put that past her, either, since it was getting together with Heero in the first place that had sparked that lovely little encounter. It should have scared me. Maybe she was incapable of instilling outright terror in me like her brother did, but she was just as crazy as him, and vindictive as hell.

Quatre telling her no had gotten his arm broken. My dating her ex-boyfriend had almost gotten me raped. Zechs wasn't the only one that I really needed to watch out for, but even knowing that and remembering all the other times she had taken out her fury on me, I couldn't muster up the same panic I had felt when I had bumped into Zechs that afternoon. Maybe because, if she was really that pissed at me, she had every right to be. Zechs had hurt me because it got him off, if Relena decided to hurt me, it was because I had broken her heart. Again.

And she wouldn't be wrong. I had thrown away something that had been precious to her like it was garbage. Me, the white trash faggot that she had always been repulsed by. I had gotten her prince, and had done to him what he had done to her, only with a lot less respect and grace. And not for any lofty reason like he had, not because he had done anything wrong, but for reasons that, even if she knew about, she still wouldn't have been able to fathom. I was sure that in her eyes, I was mocking her heartache, never knowing that I knew exactly how she felt. If I told her, or anyone else, the truth, I am sure they would have said that the key difference was that I had been in complete control over the circumstances surrounding that heartache.

But underneath the surface of all my bullshit, all my supposed reasons for doing what I did, all the planning, that stupid list, and my surety that I was doing the right thing at the right time, was the bitter and awful fact that I hadn't felt in control of a damned thing. I had chosen to act, yeah, but it hadn't been as neatly orchestrated as most people would think. It had been a knee-jerk, panicked reaction to feeling everything that I had loved and cherished slipping through my fingers. I had gotten a whiff of rot around my relationship and I had lost my grasp on it. I had seen the end through the veil and I had tried. I had tried so… so fucking hard to keep going, to keep that hold over it. But it hadn't been enough. I had failed and had known that I didn't have a chance at all, that it was all over and I could lie and pretend that it wasn't, pretend that things were fine, but that wouldn't stop the fact that it wasn't.

I could cover my ears and squeeze my eyes shut and scream, but the world would keep on falling apart around me. I hadn't even had a choice about when I had broken up with him. Every time I had actually tried, I had run away it from it. And the one time I had surrendered to the possibility that I just couldn't, it had come bursting out of me. So yeah, I understood how Relena felt perfectly, to grab hold of this perfect, shining, wonderful dream. Only to have it shatter in your hands and cut you to the bone in a thousand places. She would never know, but in a sick, bitter twist of fate, I was the only other person who truly knew how she felt and could sympathize with her. In another world, one where she wasn't the psychotic cunt that had made my early school life a living hell and pushed my best friend to kill himself, maybe we even could have sought a little bit of comfort in each other instead of hated each other's guts.

I quickly found out exactly how she felt about me when I glanced back at her, pretending that I was watching our teacher as he walked down my aisle and found her glaring hatefully at me. It wouldn't have surprised me if she had been doing it all class, even when I hadn't been looking at her. The last time she had looked at me with that level of raw, untempered fury and loathing that I could remember was when she had scratched up my face. Even when she had watched Zechs force that damn bat down my throat, she had been angry, but that anger had been tempered by something else that I hadn't been able to read, and a great deal of superiority. She might have been furious to find out that I was daring to date Heero, but at least I was about to get my comeuppance.

Now that I was really thinking about it, I wondered why she had never gone after me over getting out of that situation. I had assumed that she was ashamed that Heero had known she was a part of it, or even that she considered what Zechs had managed to do before Heero had come save me to been punishment enough to mollify her for a little while, but it was still weird for her not to take any opportunity she could get. She had become very strangely subdued after Heero had broken up with her. Or maybe that was just my perception, so concerned with how much her brother was escalating that her usual shit felt diminished. I turned back around, still feeling those piercing blue eyes burning into my back. Who knows, I thought. Maybe the only thing that had been holding her back was Heero's proximity and she would escalate now, too. If only I could dredge up the energy to care.

Despite my malaise and growing apathy, I made sure I was the first one out the door so she couldn't corner me, but loitered in the busy hallway when I got close to the gymnasium. I didn't want to go in. In a better mood, I would have laughed at myself. I had spent most of the day on red alert, trying to stay out of Zechs's clutches, and it hadn't done shit to actually keep me safe, had it? If I went in there, I would be forced to be around him, but also I would be the safest that I had been all day. I had my nurse's note and I didn't have to be anywhere near Zechs, really. I didn't even have to go into the locker room, I could just spend the entire period on the bleachers, then bolt long before everyone would finish with their showers. It was the perfect out.

Yet there I was, thinking about skipping, and it had very little to do with Zechs. Once again, the thing that stopped my heart in my chest wasn't the real fear of my bully, but of seeing Heero. It would be the first time I had seen him since that damned lunch period. I didn't know what to expect from him anymore, again. I think that was what had me so off kilter. Every time I thought I understood how he was reacting to me and I could anticipate things, he changed. From ignoring me all day yesterday and walking away from me when I had reached out to him to leaving me a voicemail. From giving me the cold shoulder all that morning to saving me and trying to talk to me. I didn't know what I would get when I walked in that gymnasium, the boy that resented me or the one that wanted to help me. I wasn't even sure which one hurt me more. And what if he tried to talk to me again? What was I going to do? Bolt again like a little kid?

How much trouble could I really get into for skipping gym? It was just gym, and if Stoan got on my case about it, I had that nurse's note. I could just tell him that I got a lot worse and just went home because it was the last class of the day and the nurse's office had been so busy earlier. I would still get into trouble, but at least that sounded like a reasonable excuse. I could just leave, go home and try to take a nap before work so I wasn't such a zombie. That was a lot more important than a stupid gym class where I was so exhausted, I could barely extend the energy for an athletic activity anyway. Although that just made me think about what was waiting for me at work, another shift with an entirely different cold shoulder. I almost winced as my chest felt tighter and tighter with anxiety, just another burden on my back.

I rubbed tiredly at my forehead, feeling the heavy, nauseating throb there. What was I even thinking? I had made it through most of the day. I only had one more class to survive through and now I was about to run out the door? Was anything that could happen in that class going to be any worse than what had happened the last time or during lunch? Not that I was stupid enough to ever think I was completely safe, either from Zechs's harassment or my heartache, but it would just be more of the same. I wouldn't have to interact with either of them for most of the class. I could just sit on the bleachers and get a head start on my homework. Otherwise, what had been the fucking point of dragging myself through this miserable day in the first place? And if I left early, Zechs would know why. It would be admitting defeat, as humiliating as him pinning me down and doing whatever he wanted to me. He would know what he had done had gotten under my skin.

It was such a stupid, petty thing and it shouldn't have even mattered to me compared to everything else. What did I care what Zechs thought? I had nothing to prove to anyone. I had already failed the one yardstick that had mattered. I was scum, so what if Zechs Darlian thought I was a coward? He would be right. But the thought of him telling all his shitty friends that I had run and hid just because he had grabbed my ass and punched me made my blood boil. Then I thought about him laughing that snide, arrogant laugh of his and saying that maybe I hadn't run to hide, maybe I had liked what he had done and gotten a stiffy and had run off to jerk off to him. How pathetic, right? That image in my head was like throwing gasoline on the anger I had spent the last two periods ignoring and barring away. The dam held, but I could feel it, consuming and consuming, spread and beating at that solid wall, letting me know that it was still in there, patiently waiting for me to give up.

I walked into the gym with a lot more stubbornness than bravery. I think it was a mix of that twisted image of Zechs and his jackals and that straight path that was so much easier for me to be on. I couldn't see them or Heero in the gym and I was one of the first kids there, so I quickly hunted down the coach to get this over with. He frowned when I handed him the nurse's note, probably displeased with how many times I had sat out his class that year and this time the note itself was pretty vague about what was actually wrong with me. But then, just like with the nurse, he took a look at my face and that that frown eased as he told me to take a seat at the bleachers, unless I wanted to go back to the nurse's office. I wondered what it was about me that had two of the most unsympathetic adults I've met take one look at me and agree that I looked… under the weather. Did I look as tired as I felt or had Zechs's blow made me look a thousand times worse? Or was it something else completely?

I decided that I really didn't care. It got me out of gym and I hadn't needed to fight with either of them about it, which was great because I was rapidly becoming incapable of dealing with that kind of strenuous, mental effort without losing my shit, which would only get me a one way trip to the principal's office. I told Horner that I didn't need to go back to the nurse's, I just wasn't feeling up to much physical activity either. He nodded and let me go to the bleachers in peace. It turned out to be a good thing because the activity for the day was tag football, a sport that I hate with every fiber of my being and one that usually spells some kind of disaster. Even if I ended up on the same team as Zechs, it was statistically unlikely one of the others wouldn't be on the other team, and he would find some way to mess with me no matter what position we were in or what team we were on.

The gym slowly filled and everyone grouped in the middle to do the warm-up stretches. I kept my eyes glued to my calculus homework, refusing to let my eyes do that humiliating magnet pull thing when it got late enough that Heero had to have joined the group. I barely understood the lesson that we had gone over in class, so it was taking all my limited brain power to comprehend what I was reading, thank god. It gave me less room to mull over my altercation with Zechs and wonder so much about how Heero was doing and what he was thinking after all the shit Zechs had said to him that I might be tempted to look for him. I could still feel it, though, like a scorching, electric heat behind my eyes. Ever try not to look at something? It's practically impossible, like telling yourself not to think about something. Your mind betrays you every time like a contrary child. And if it's something that a part of you actually wants to look at, it's like a kind of mental torture.

Horner started to usher the class outside to the field and I hoped that he would just let me and the one other classmate that was sitting the class out stay inside. It would be a small balm, to get a little bit of quiet away from everyone and not be around any of my bullies, or the thing that was making my heart bleed, whether I looked at him or not. But the coach insisted that it was a nice day out and, even if we weren't well enough to run around with the rest of the class, we could still use some fresh air. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I didn't give a shit about the fucking air or how nice it was out, and what difference did it make? We were going outside as soon as the class ended anyway. But I bit it off hastily. I had managed to get through the entire day without being sent to Stoan, no reason to tarnish my streak because I couldn't hold my temper in check.

How difficult it was to temper the things that wanted to come flying out of my mouth, especially to a teacher, worried me. It wasn't any different than almost hitting my bosses or lashing out at Solo. There was something very wrong with me. Well, not 'something', I knew what it was, but how rapidly I was losing control over myself was disturbing. Everything that had happened that day was making it worse. The walls were cracking and that rage I had felt when Zechs had said those awful things to Heero was seeping in. If I wasn't very careful, it was going to burst and I was going to do something stupid.

'I already have,' I thought bitterly as we were marched out to the field and I traded one set of bleachers for another.

I sat down heavily, suddenly feeling like I weighed five-hundred pounds and finally caved to my addiction, watching as Heero took the field with his team. He had ended up on Zechs's team, giving me a little bit of solace. Ever since I had told Zechs that we weren't friends anymore, he had more or less left Heero alone, except for when he was defending me, but I was worried that him coming to my rescue that afternoon might put him on the asshole's radar again. It turned out that worry was pointless, Zechs barely looked at him the entire class besides throwing him a superior smirk a couple times, rubbing in his face without any words needed all the things he had goaded him with earlier. Once I had started, it was like I couldn't keep my eyes off Heero, watching as he took his position with a tired and weary air. He didn't look back at me, but I couldn't tell if he was throwing up a cold shoulder again or just focused on the game. He looked exactly how I felt, like nothing around him really mattered and he was sick of everything. That the thing he was sick of was me, and I was the cause of his slumped shoulders and dejected air and not anything Zechs had done pained me deeply.

"Leave me the hell alone!"

I pulled my gaze away from him violently, like I had been slapped. Stupid? Yeah, I had done that in spades. Almost losing my shit with my bosses and snapping at Solo was nothing compared to snapping at Heero. He had been hurting so badly, and I had taken out my anger at him for no other reason than he had been there to take it. I really was a disgusting excuse for a human being, wasn't I? I had let my anger take control of me and I had hurt him again. He had only been trying to help, and I had snarled and bit like the wild animal that I am. I was the one that I was furious at, not him, but I just had to lash out at everyone just because I was upset, didn't I? All because I hated myself for involving him and because I had felt humiliated that he had seen Zechs feel me up again, I had to take it out on the one person that had been trying to help me.

That anger in the pit of my stomach grew hot and prickly the more I thought about it, and as I watched Heero out on the field, the more sick it made me feel as memories from the last few days bit and tore at me, reminding me how despicable I was, how pathetic and hurtful. I don't think I hated myself that much, that completely since the day I had broken up with him. Watching Heero play through the game lethargically only steadily fed it until it was a dull roar in my ears. He had never cared for football, had never found the appeal in succeeding at a sport due to strength over skill and had told me once that it bored the hell out of him compared to baseball both to play and to watch. But, unlike me, he also had a decent competitive streak, especially around Zechs, and at least put the effort in, usually scoring a few points. When he wasn't on Zechs's team, he usually got appointed as a wide-receiver because while he isn't as big or strong as some of the other guys in class, he's well known for his throwing arm and coordination.

Zechs didn't really care about Heero's skills, however, and mostly just ignored him, too busy hotdogging with the rest of his friends and knocking down anyone that got in his way. Heero would usually try to get some kind of play in so long as it didn't mess with anything Zechs was doing, but that day, he was just listless, not even paying attention to the game. It was like all the life had just been drained right out of him and he was stuck in his head. I wondered if he was still thinking about lunch. Was he replaying all the things Zechs had said to him, torturing himself with them? Or was he thinking about me rewarding his selflessness by snapping at him like a rabid dog?

Angry and guilty and miserable, I had to pull my gaze away from him. It hurt too much, my fury like a granite fist around my heart, squeezing and making my head throb unpleasantly. If I kept focusing on it, how utterly mad I was at the world and myself, I was going to completely lose it. I felt the same way I had the last two times Heero had seen Zechs treat me like a whore, like I was going insane, like there was all this searing energy under my skin, wanting to burst out. Wanting to hurt someone and barely able to breathe. I really didn't need to be punching anymore walls on top of everything else.

I threw myself back at my homework in pure desperation for any distraction from my feelings and the sickening temptation of spending the rest of the period just watching Heero and making myself feel worse. I didn't care about the homework or that I should use what spare time I had to get it done so I could actually go the fuck to bed when I got off work, I just didn't want to think anymore. My thoughts were starting to hedge into the nuts territory of exhaustion, along with being a little… one track. I needed to focus on something safe and banal, I was too close to truly snapping and doing something stupid, like picking a fight with Zechs.

Thankfully, and maybe just a little bit ironically, I was so utterly tired that it took all my concentration just to get through half of my homework. It didn't do a single, damn thing for my rage, but I managed to keep my eyes glued to my worksheets and books and not Heero. I didn't come back to reality until I heard Horner bellowing at everyone that class was over and it was time to hit the showers. As soon as he was done ushering people back towards the school building, too busy snapping at a few that were loitering to talk to friends and playing the sheep's dog to the throng of students to pay attention to me, I bolted. I didn't check to make sure that Zechs was following them, or Heero for that matter. It didn't matter, I was confident that I could outrun either of them even if the shape that I was in, but I didn't notice anyone following me. I had brought all my things out with me, partially to get work done and partially so no one could mess with my stuff while they were 'going to the bathroom,' so there was no reason to go back inside. The school and my classmates were starting to make me feel a little claustrophobic anyway.

The smartest thing I could have done right then was go to the library. Calm myself down in the nice, quiet, and familiar territory and do as much homework as I could before I needed to go home and get changed for work. Make myself a sandwich and take a moment to breathe. But I wasn't interested in relaxing or being intelligent. Instead of dimming like it should have, my anger since the lunch period had only grown into a raging fire. I needed to temper it, blow off some steam or it was only going to get worse. I was getting to the same point of mindless fury that had made me punch that wall, right on the verge of hyperventilating, I just needed one more shitty thing to happen. Never mind not being able to handle it and hating feeling that way, the constant reminder of that barrier between myself and my father that seems to get thinner and thinner every day, there was no way in hell I could go to work like that. I had come to close to losing it at my boss over nothing. In the state I was in, if Caleb said shit to me, I wasn't so sure I would be able to control myself.

Looking back with a clearer head, I was incredibly, stupidly lucky that afternoon. The kind of lucky reserved for drunks that somehow manage to not get into a car accident or small children brandishing forks near light sockets but never quite electrocute themselves. Zechs or literally anyone else could have been following me that day and I wouldn't have even noticed. I didn't check my routes or my back like I normally do and was completely oblivious to the world around me, too focused on my destination and trying to keep my breathing steady. The only thing I can think of is that I had gotten enough of a head start to lose him without even realizing it, or the universe was finally throwing me a damn bone after all the other shit it had thrown at me, but if that was the case, it was more a sliver of one.

I got home in one peace, somehow, and my streak of luck continuing, found the house empty. I doubted that would be the case for long. I couldn't find any evidence that my father had been there since the morning, which meant there was a good chance he hadn't taken his lunch break yet. But for the moment, I was blissfully alone. I even managed to close and lock the front door normally instead of slamming it like I wanted to. I dropped my bookbag off by the kitchen table and went downstairs to the basement. If I hadn't been so keyed up, I would have laughed at myself and how much that entire, fucked up day was like a repeat of the day that Zechs had almost gotten Heero suspended, from him molesting me to me being so angry about the whole day that I had gone down to his basement to whale on their punching bag to let off a little steam.

I used the light from upstairs to find what I wanted in the dark. Nothing from the boxes or the various pieces of furniture down there, but went to the far left corner. There, just a few feet from the far wall, was a load-bearing beam. Despite the age of the house, it was an incredibly sturdy thing, as thick as a tree trunk and made of solid oak. I put my hand on it, feeling how cool and hard it was, finding a few splinters here and there from age, but it was just as firm as it had been when I was a kid. We didn't have a punching bag, nothing quite as soft and effective as sporting equipment. We did at one point, when I was really little, but it was one of the first things that my parents had sold when our bills had started to rise.

My father had fought against it, although nowhere near as hard as he had against my mother's suggestions that we sell the car. From the things that they had screamed at each other, I had gleaned that it had been his when he had been in high school and he had used it quite frequently when he had been on the boxing team. It was a fight that he had ended up losing, eventually conceding that he really didn't need it anymore. He kept in shape just fine without it and thanks to termite damage, it really wasn't safe to install a hook to hang it from the basement ceiling, the only place in the entire house besides the attic where there was room to do so, so it was either have it collect dust down there or sell it. Of course, this had been back when my father had seemed to give a shit and had been a lot more reasonable to talk to. If it had happened now, he wouldn't have budged an inch just out of spite.

So, we didn't have a punching bag like the Yuys or anything all that soft to hit unless I wanted to put my mattress up against the wall or something, but I had this. It was going to hurt a hell of a lot more than a punching bag, but that was ok. I wanted it to hurt, as much as it could. I might have even preferred this whether I had anything better or not. I rolled up my sleeves to make my task easier and gave the post an experimental punch, mostly to see if it could take the abuse. I didn't pull the punch, hitting it with all the force that I usually use when I hit things, and immediately felt this little wave of pain travel through my hand and up my arm. I had been expecting it to hurt, but damn was that beam hard.

But… in a way… it kind of felt good, that pain. It shocked me right out of my lethargic stupor and I felt truly awake for the first time in days. The pain was… I can't really call it cathartic because it didn't solve anything and it didn't ease any of my tension or burdens, but it made me feel a little better somehow. Because it was better than the heavy depression? Because it was like I was punishing myself for all my mistakes? I didn't know why, but although the pain should have been a warning to myself that maybe this wasn't a good idea and to, at the very least, take it easy on the pole, it just made me realize that I didn't care if I broke my hand, I didn't want to stop.

I finally let go of the tight leash I had had over my rage and let it flow out into my hand, slamming it into the pole again, this time with a lot more ease. I was warming up to it. The pain was just as sharp, but I hit it again and again, starting to breathe hard, but latching onto that pain and letting it feed the bitter fire. As I hit the beam again and again and again, panting with pain and exertion and fury, I saw Heero sitting at our table in the cafeteria, staring down at his food and pushing it around listlessly. I saw him walking into homeroom, his eyes red and weary, his head bowed, looking like a man that had just lost everything and was just going through the motions, so completely unlike the exuberant boy I had known for all those months that, no matter what happened to him and what life through at him, always seemed to be able to greet it with an optimistic smile. I saw him desperately trying to stop Zechs from hurting me, and I saw the pain in his eyes when I announced to the world that we weren't friends anymore. I saw myself snap at him and him recoil from me like I had slapped him. I saw his heart break over and over as I told him that I didn't love him.

I didn't notice when my panting became sharp cries of anger or when I skinned my knuckles so badly on the beam that blood started to drip on the floor and smear across the wood, lost in that brutal rhythm of pain. Though I wasn't quite sure which pain that was, the one crawling up my wrist and making my entire hand and arm feel like the wood that I was trying to pound into oblivion, or the one in my heart. Hate began to mingle with that pain and anger, the only friends I had left, and just like the anger, there was plenty of it. I hated school. I hated work. I hated my father. I hated Zechs. I hated myself. I hated my life. I just wanted it to be over.

Tears dripped down my cheeks but I couldn't be bothered with stopping to wipe them away, just letting them fall, my vision so blurry that even if there had been a light on down there, I wouldn't have been able to see a thing. Misery, pain, anger, guilt, loathing, grief, and hate all blended together into one nauseating, violent emotion that I couldn't even begin to understand or label and with a strangled almost-scream, I slammed my fist as hard as I could into the beam, pretending that it was my face. My vision obscured and just reacting on pure, gut instinct and muscle memory, I hit it at a bad angle, getting the corner of it instead of the surface facing me. I think if I was a bit stronger and I had hit it with just a miniscule more force than I did, I would have shattered a knuckle and probably my wrist, too. Instead, it just hurt like a son of a bitch and I nearly sprained my wrist anyway as blood splattered on the post and my hand slipped across it a little, just enough to take a big chunk of skin off my first two knuckles.

I heard this awful crunch sound as the punch finished following through and the pain in my hand went from a heavy throb to something sharp and piercing. For a rather startling and freaky moment, I thought for sure I had broken the damn post, but when I touched the area I had just hit, I found that the stupid thing had only splintered at the edge that I had struck. There was a chunk missing from the edge, but it was rather small. I didn't know whether to be amazed that I had managed to hit the thick thing hard enough to even make a dent, let alone do that, or if it was a bit humiliating that it was the most I could do. The post could easily go quite a few more rounds with me and I seriously doubted I could much more to it. My right hand, however, fell to my side, screaming in agony and completely useless.

Oddly, the worst of the pain that I felt wasn't even in my hand, though my knuckles were a horror show, but in my wrist. There was a very deep, sharp pain there and the appendage felt like it was stuffed full of cotton like the rest of my hand was, although it should have been hurting me the least. It hadn't felt great ever since I had punched that wall, but it didn't feel broken, it just ached horribly. The rest of it wasn't much better. My fingers felt… fat and alien and awkward, the rest of my hand throbbing and my knuckles felt raw and gross, caked with blood and still bleeding. They felt as wrong as my fingers, but I couldn't figure out exactly why and it wasn't light enough down there to really see the damage I had done to them. I tried flexing my fingers and they didn't want to move at first. They had been clenched and battered for too long, but I eventually got the stubborn things to move and found that none of them were broken. I didn't think any of my knuckles were either, miraculously. My wrist seemed to be the most pressing issue. It felt exactly like it had before, only the post wasn't nearly as hard as that stupid wall had been.

"Close your eyes."

I did as the phantom voice told me to, even though some part of me knew that that voice was just from a memory, closing eyes pointlessly in the dark.

"I know you have issues with it, but you need to just accept it and move on or it's going to keep tearing you up inside."

'But that's what I want, Heero,' I thought like I was really responding to him and not just the memory of him, 'I want it to tear me to pieces. I want my rage to eviscerate me, rip me to shreds. After what I did to you, that's what I deserve. Even if it isn't, I don't want to be here anymore without you. As much as it hurts being this angry and ashamed, as much as my hand hurts from lashing out like a stupid animal again, it's nothing compared to how much I miss you.'

"Can you feel my hand?"

I tried as hard as I could to remember that day, how his hand how felt on my chest over my heart, how warm and calming it had been, like he had reached inside of me and cradled me and banished my fury away like a gentle wind to a thundercloud. But to my horror, I couldn't manage it. I couldn't remember and I couldn't feel it at all.

"No," I whispered.

Tears poured down my face as this inescapable emptiness consumed me. I couldn't even pretend that Heero was really there. I couldn't conjure up his calming presence or relive one of my most cherished memories of him. His hand was gone from my life, even in my head.

"Focus on it. Nothing else exists but my hand."

'You're gone, aren't you? You're really, actually gone. Oh god.'

I gasped for breath, sobbing hard as anguish overwhelmed me.

"Now breathe. Breathe deep, right from your diaphragm."

But that was impossible. I couldn't breathe at all. I opened my eyes and in the dark, distorted by my tears somehow, I saw Heero's face, smiling softly at me like he had that day, loving me and encouraging me. But right then, it brought me no comfort, only a terrible guilt and rage. He had helped me so much. Every day, he had brought me back from the brink. He had renewed my life and had never really realized it. He had given me a reason to go on. He had reached out for me when I had been snapping and snarling like a feral coyote and had brought me back, shown me that I didn't have to be like that, I didn't have to be like my father, a monster. He given me my humanity back and what had I done with it? How had I rewarded this amazing, kind person? What have I been doing to him ever since?

My fury flared back to life and I clenched my swollen hand into a tight fist. The pain was immense. I didn't care. It wasn't enough, not nearly enough by a fucking mile. It was just a hand, just a single part of me. I needed to destroy more. I needed to hurt more. Every part of me, piece by piece, until there was nothing left of the boy that had broken Heero Yuy's heart. Let my anger and my rage consume him and kill him like he had never existed at all. Become an animal, stop lying to myself that I had ever been anything else because what person would do something so vile?

With a growl of anger, I lashed back out at the pole with my left hand. It was even more awkward than the first time I had hit the thing with my right. I'm a bit ambidextrous, but I don't use my left hand to hit things. That didn't matter, though. The pain, a little less than when I had hit with my right, spurred me on and I quickly became more confident. I attacked that post with newfound vigor, beating on it until my left hand started to hurt almost as much as my right and I recognized the feel of blood splattering the wood from my busted knuckles as I tore the skin off those, too. Then, I kept going. Why not? The pain was starting to ebb into numbness and it didn't matter to me what damage I was doing to myself.

I didn't stop until my breath was hitching and my vision started to grey, all of the energy going out of me and I had to lean against the abused beam or I was going to fall over. My arms ached fiercely and I just couldn't force myself to raise them anymore. I hadn't been at it nearly as long as I had assaulted the Yuys' punching bag, but it just wasn't possible. I was too tired and drained, only having managed as much as I had through pure stubbornness and the will to hurt myself. And the pain, while nonchalant to it, had taken its toll from me as well. Shaking and gasping for air, I braced myself entirely against the beam and rode it out until I had enough energy to stand upright again. Both of my hands felt like they belonged to someone else, hot and thick and screaming with pain. I rubbed at my wet face with my mostly useless right and only succeeded in streaking blood across my cheek instead of wiping away the tears that I could still feel there, cooling.

Ill and trembling both from exertion and what I had just done to my hands, I stumbled my way back upstairs, the light keeping me from really fucking myself up on the stairs. It was in me to just go upstairs and fall on my mattress and completely ignore what my hands were telling me, but I had just enough energy left to know I needed to at least look at them. Or maybe that was perverse curiosity. I didn't so much as glance at them until I was in the bathroom, and then kind of wished that I hadn't, feeling sicker just looking at them. My left hand was bad. Red and swollen, the skin on my knuckles scraped off and bloody. I even saw some splinters imbedded in them, giving credence to that sharp, wrong sensation I had been feeling since I had taken that piece off the post with my right. I gave it the same treatment as I had my right and moved my fingers, and like before, found that they weren't broken. Somehow.

But none of that held a candle to my right. As swollen and red as my left was, my right was almost double that. My hand and fingers and wrist were thick and puffy, a red only a few shades lighter than the blood that caked my knuckles and fingers. The skin over my knuckles wasn't just rubbed off, but look like I had been flayed. I was surprised that I couldn't see damn bone, but it was a near thing. Skin hung in tatters from most of the bases of my fingers and knuckles. But the truly sickening thing were the splinters sticking out of my raw flesh. They weren't the little shards that were in my left, but a couple of them were pretty sizeable, a little thicker than toothpicks. I had basically stabbed myself and then hammered them in with each resulting blow. I could see the bleeding under the skin, too, spreading under my still intact flesh below my knuckles like red and purple tattoos.

Nausea rose in me, but it wasn't enough to make me regret what I had done to myself and I just beat it back down. At that point, I probably should have gone to the hospital. I could move my fingers, so I was pretty sure I hadn't broken anything, but the pain when I moved my right wrist was… bad. I could probably force myself to get through work if I just moved through the pain. I could physically use my hands and my wrist, but they didn't feel right and I wasn't a hundred percent positive I hadn't damaged something that would need more than time and a couple bandaids to fix. But I could barely force myself to go the hospital when I had a clear head and a broken rib. It didn't seem to matter much to me anymore. Not just the pain and damage I had just done, but anything involving my body, whether it was eating or fixing something that might kill me. If my hands were broken, so what? It would either kill me or I would learn to live with it. If nothing else, I would be saving a hell of a lot on medical bills and taxing our already overburdened insurance.

I ignored the bleeding and grabbed the tweezers from the cabinet drawer with my slightly more mobile left hand. I put the toilet lid down and sat on it, snagging the trash bin with my foot, and began to pull out the splinters in my right. It was a rush job and I wasn't even remotely careful, just ripping the fuckers out and dropping the bloody shards in the trash, not caring if I hurt myself further. My hands already looked like raw hamburger, so I didn't see how anything else I did to them was going to make them much worse. I just wanted it done with, hating that feeling of… things imbedded in my stripped and bloody meat, so I could go lie down. I held no illusion that I was going to manage any sleep before work, if I wasn't already running late, but my vision was getting a bit swimmy and I knew it was a bad idea to stay on my feet until it passed.

Once my right was cleared of all wood daggers, I gave my left the same treatment. It went a lot quicker between the fewer splinters and now that I could move my right a bit better, but it was still clumsy work with my swollen fingers. When I was sure that all the bits of wood were gone from both hands, I staggered to the sink and put my hands under the water to wash them clean of blood and skin, pulling the more stubborn pieces off that were still stuck to my unstripped skin. It hurt like hell, but I was mindless in my efforts, just wanting the dead stuff off me. The cold water didn't help, either, but I didn't care about waiting for it to warm up a little. Deeming my half-assed bit of self-care over with, I went upstairs on unsteady legs to my bedroom.

There were probably a hundred other things I should have done, like put antibacterial ointment on my wounds and bind up my hands. With my flesh open to the air and those deep gouges from the splinters, an infection was pretty likely and they weren't pretty to look at, especially if I wanted to hide this from my boss. But I couldn't find the energy to muster up the ability to care, even to ice the swelling down or clean up the blood in the basement or put something in my stomach after I had just used up all my energy. If I did get an infection, I hoped it crawled its way to my heart. That would certainly take care of things, wouldn't it? My mind was too one track at that point to deal with it, so it latched on to the one thing it seemed to need: rest.

I know what a contradiction that is, not giving a shit about my body's needs, but focusing on wanting to sleep, but it was less about answering a need and more about escaping. Or maybe I was just punishing myself more, knowing that I was only surrendering to nightmares that would torture me, especially after the day I had just had. It wasn't like I thought fuck all would get better if I had a clearer head. Maybe I would deal with things a bit better, but I wasn't stupid enough to think that any of the pain would go away. If anything, being able to think and multitask and remember would probably just make that pain worse. But I didn't want to be on my feet anymore and I didn't want to be in reality anymore, so even if I couldn't sleep, I wanted a flat surface to crash on.

When I got upstairs, I didn't bother to change into night clothes, I just lied down on my mattress. The motion didn't do anything for my screaming headache, but it helped my wooziness a lot. I fumbled for my alarm clock to set an alarm to get up for work, dreading what I was going to find, only to be shocked to see that it wasn't even close to three yet. The hell? It felt like I had been in that basement for hours, not twenty minutes. But then I remembered that I had left school a lot sooner than usual and if I had been punching that damned beam for hours, my hands would have been shattered. Still, no more than a half an hour between the time I had left school to when I had lied down made me feel like time was frozen.

It unsettled me, made me feel my already tentative grip on reality was slipping more and more, but decided to take a look on the bright side for once. At least I didn't need to rush off to work and face another different kind of heartbreak for over an hour. I closed my eyes and tried to drift off, just for a little while, but I figured out almost instantly that it wasn't going to happen. My hands ached all the way down to the bone and for all the abuse that I had put them through, it hadn't done anything to soothe my anger or self-loathing. My mind kept wandering back to the expression on Heero's face when I had yelled at him that afternoon and I knew that, no matter how exhausted I was or how little I wanted to be awake anymore, there was no way in hell I was sleeping any time soon.

I gave myself twenty minutes to rest my eyes and body before I crawled back out of bed, hating that feeling of just lying there and drifting in the dark. I warred between not wanting to do anything and having a bunch of things that needed my attention and decided that keeping myself busy was probably best. It wouldn't do much for my lightheadedness, but it would keep me from thinking. I went back downstairs to the kitchen, ignoring the fresh burst of pain as I used my left hand to snag my backpack. I put it on the chair and carefully opened it, my movements sluggish as I fought against my slight handicap.

I pulled out everything that I would need to do my homework although when I actually thought about sitting down at the table and doing it, I only felt apathetic about it. I supposed that I could put it off until my breaks. I had gotten a good chunk of it done already, but I still needed to write something for my short stories class and there were a few more reading assignments. I sat at the table and leafed through one of my notebooks, finding a fresh page. Might as well get this done while I still had some sense left to think of the words. Just write some stupid shit that sounds good, I told myself, and get it done with. Easy enough. I picked up the pen gingerly, my right hand already protesting, and that protest became a scream of agony as I tried to curl swollen fingers around the thin instrument, speckles of blood oozing up from the raw, peeled skin when I managed it. Hell, maybe the pain would make the words come easier. But when I put my pen to the crisp, blank paper, I found that my head was just as blank.

It kind of hit me then in a very underwhelming way as I stared at the neat little blue lines on the paper that I hadn't actually written anything since I had broken up with Heero. I suppose that's no grand epiphany, I hadn't felt like writing anything or doing much of anything at all. If I had done any writing, it had just been busy work for school. But I had always used reading and writing as a way to pass the time, and lately the only things that I had used to fill that void had been chores. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn't because I was too tired to think, or that I just didn't feel like it lately. There was just… nothing there. Nothing in my head or my heart. When I thought about writing anything, whether it was for school or for myself, I only felt weary and apathetic. It was the same with cooking. I could force myself to make something to eat, or cook for my mother, but it was all based on necessity. Someone needed to cook dinner or breakfast and it might as well be me because my father wouldn't and my mother was too tired. It was no different than doing laundry.

That's what the things that I had once loved had become in the span of just a few days. Chores. Meaningless actions that just needed to be done. But any drive or passion or enjoyment I had once had for any of it was gone. I didn't care. I didn't even care that I didn't care. I didn't want to write. I didn't want to cook. I didn't want to run. There was a deep, pervasive nothingness that had stolen over my life. I didn't even care about writing in my journal anymore. Yes, I had vowed not to do it anymore, but it was more than that. I couldn't see the point of any of it. What was the point of writing about the shit that happened in my life? What was the point of making food, making stories, creating anything when all I did was destroy the things that actually mattered? No one gave a shit about how well I wrote or cooked or how fast I could run. It wasn't like I had been exceptional in anything I did anyway.

I had my true epiphany as I sat there, staring at that blank page, this one hitting me a hell of a lot harder than 'I don't care about anything anymore.' Breaking up with 'Ro had been a huge mistake. I physically recoiled from the realization like it had actually slapped me in the face. Some part of me decried that. After everything I had suffered, every pain, every heart break, after how hard I had tried to do the right thing and had finally succeeded, how could I possibly believe that? My pain, Heero's pain, it had to have a purpose! But then I remembered how he had looked, how miserable and tired and unhappy he had been the last two days at school and I felt that nothingness in me and I knew it was right. It had been a mistake.

What exactly was better after I had broken up with him? What had I saved him from? Everything was shit. There was no one to watch his back, no one for him to talk to. He wasn't eating, didn't look like he was sleeping, either. I hadn't distanced him from my problems at all. Zechs was still messing with him. Maybe not in the same way as before, but any time he was around me, the bastard kept at him, making him feel worse. I was still hurting him. I hadn't accomplished a single thing. Maybe it would get better with time, when Heero finally got over me and moved on, but right then, all I could see was how much worse I had made everything. And me… how much worse I had made myself. I couldn't feel anything anymore but sadness and anger. My life was grey again and what little I had had to hold on to was slipping away. God, what had I been thinking? Had I really believed that I could make things better, help and save 'Ro from myself when all I had ever done my entire life was fail at everything? I had failed at being a decent boyfriend, but it turned out I was just as much a failure at being a decent friend and protecting him. I couldn't even commit to it, always wanting to reach out to him.

It had been a mistake. I kept returning to that thought. I had fucked up, I could admit that. Only a couple days later and I could admit what a stupid fucking idea this had been. It was so sick, I almost laughed at myself. I had known I couldn't handle it, that it might drive me insane, but I hadn't realized just how low it had brought me. Beating my hands into mincemeat, crying off and on, unable to catch my breath… this pain in my heart… All I wanted was to find him and beg for him to forgive me. To just look at me and talk to me like he used to. I wouldn't even care if we never got back together, I just wanted my best friend back. I wanted to see him smile and feel his arms around me. I wanted to feel something that didn't rip me apart. I wanted my humanity back.

But it really didn't matter what I wanted, did it? As if it had ever. I couldn't go back and erase what I had done. I still wasn't even sure if that was the right thing to do if I could. But it didn't matter how sorry I was. It didn't matter how much I regretted everything and that I would have done just about anything to go back to being Heero's friend. To seeing Justin and Mariela again and not have them be disgusted with me. Nothing was ever going to go back to how it had been. Heero hated me now. If I told him that I had lied about not loving him, he would completely loath me, even more than he did now, and he would have every right to. He was never going to forgive me. I had ruined everything between us.

Utterly miserable and on the verge of tears, I gathered up my stuff and shoved it back in my bookbag. I felt prickly about being there in the kitchen, so I stormed back to the quiet darkness of my room. I flipped on the light and pissily flipped my bookbag upside down over my desk, books falling heavily onto my desk as papers floated on top of them or to the floor with the pens and my calculator. I picked the papers back up and smacked them down onto the desk with a lot more ire than the task really warranted. I spread the papers out like a deck of cards, looking over work sheets, notes, bits and pieces of stories that I had been working on between classes the last few weeks, a few poems here and there. All of it useless shit, the homework and the rest of it. It was all pointless, wasn't it? Just a bunch of busy work and chicken scratches and useless bullshit. I could sum up my entire public school career into just that: bullshit. All those years forcing myself to go when all I wanted to do was run and hide from every sneer, every prank, every cruel remark. Telling myself that I had to. I needed an education, I needed good grades, I needed to finish because my parents hadn't. I needed to make something of myself, even if I was never going to college, at least I could finish high school. What a joke.

I picked up one of the short stories I had been working on, one of the many assignments I had had that had become more than that and I had needed to come up with something else to hand in. It could have served as that day's homework assignment easily, it fit the theme and the word count we had to hit, but as I reread it, I only loathed every word. Advanced placement creative writing courses. Notebooks full of poems and stories. All of it the meaningless ramblings of a loser that thought he had something to say about anything. Who the fuck was I kidding? I mercilessly crumpled the five written pages into a mangled ball and let it fall from my much abused hands like the trash it was.

"Shit is what it is," I muttered to myself, "It's all shit."

That was as good a word as any for the excrement that came out of my head, scrawled all over the pages in front of me. I abandoned the contents of my bookbag and went to the secret compartment in the floor by my mattress that really wasn't much of a secret anymore. I got on my knees and pried it open, my hands protesting the motion vehemently, but I was long past caring about hurting myself further. I dug out all my notebooks, dumping them in haphazard piles around me in a kind of bitter trance. There were dozens of the fucking things, each filled to the brim with my writing, my useless words. My pointless life. I picked one of them up at random and flipped through it, not really reading any of it, my eyes just glancing at the lines of ink, the ramblings of a pathetic idiot that thought that anything he could say about anything mattered. That didn't even realize that they, like the entirety of his life, were nothing more than going through the motions.

It was garbage. Every single one of them. Every day, every memory. My dreams. My thoughts. My feelings. My childhood. Quatre. Trowa. My failures. Zechs. The abuse. The rapes. Heero. Falling in love. Losing everything. It was all utter garbage. I have never had anything of value to say in the seventeen years of my life. It was stupid of me to ever think that I did. Just as stupid as Ms. Khushrenada had been in believing that those notebooks would make me feel better. I hadn't purged anything. I had just copied it down, all the things that no one would ever give a shit about. Spreading my poison around. And for what? To what end? Look where I was, where all of it had brought me. To more of the same nothing. I've been writing furiously for so long. Four years of my life. Although, I guess you can say it's been for much longer if you count all the stories and poetry I wrote.

But for four years, I've been pouring my heart out in these journals, like there was some desperate need in me to get all these things out before… before I can't anymore, I guess. But why? My life was a nightmare. Who the hell would ever want to read this shit? Why did I ever think that any of these memories mattered enough to record? If Zechs knew about this, he would laugh his ass off at me. He would ask me why anyone would care about the thoughts of a white trash faggot like me, who could possibly think I was anything more than a hack trying to lie to himself that he had anything more than trash inside of him. And he would be right.

"You're kind, talented, smart, incredibly hard working, responsible, independent, and you work your ass off to help your parents," I heard Justin's voice in my head, just as sharp and real as Heero's had been when I had been hitting the post, and just as heart wrenching as I knew that, if I put in the frighteningly small amount of effort in, I could believe he was really there trying to comfort me like he so often did, "No one that writes this much… no one writes this is just doing it to 'pass the time.' What I just read is the work of someone who is very serious about a craft, not just a hobby. You're very talented, you know that, don't you?"

"Liar," I murmured bitterly under my breath and the word felt good on my tongue in the same way that the pain in my hands did, "Liar. Liar."

Kind? Responsible? Talented? What the hell did he know about it? Not a goddamned thing. Every one of those words was a lie, and he knew it. Just like Heero, he only saw what he wanted to see, or he had only said those things to placate me. He had probably been trying not to laugh at that stupid poem.

"Sorry," Heero's voice joined his father's suddenly and I almost flinched as I felt the phantom touch of soft lips on the bridge of my nose, right between my eyes, a touch that almost ripped my heart apart, "But you're just so beautiful."

"Liar," I continued to chant, ignoring the fresh tears filling my eyes and the tightness in my chest, "Liar. Liar. Fucking liar."

I got up and marched downstairs before Mariela or any other voices could join theirs. I snagged an empty trash bag from under the kitchen sink and went back to my room and got to work. I gathered up every scrap of writing I could find, every poem, every short story, every outline, every note, every journal and stuffed it in the bag. I didn't hesitate, not even when I got to the journal that detailed Quatre's final moments, the one that was stained darkly with my own blood. When I was sure that I had gotten all of it, I tied off the bag and stormed outside to where our trash bin was, dumping the whole thing in with the rest of that week's garbage and securing the lid. Trash pick up wouldn't be until Friday morning, but so what? It was just for a couple days and it wasn't like anyone was going to see it. As far as I was concerned, it was gone and done with.

I walked back into the house feeling strange and empty. Somehow both hollow and empty with something that I couldn't quite discern, so I put it out of my head entirely. I suppose, given what I had just done, I should have been freaking out, but I just felt kind of… numb. Funny, I wasn't even angry anymore. I sat down at the kitchen table and just stared at the scarred wall by the basement door, my mind and heart blank. There wasn't even the constant white noise of the swarm of thoughts trying to get my attention. It was like some vital part of myself had bled out of me. I was just one, big, empty blank slate. Like a stranger in my own skin.

I stayed there until I heard my father's car coming up the street, then went back up to my room. I didn't bother hiding my sneakers or making any effort to pretend that I wasn't home. If he wanted me, he knew where to find me, and if not we would just stay out of each other's hair. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. By the time I had gotten to my room, he was already striding through the front door, taking the time to slam it closed behind him. He sounded like he was in a mood. Then again, I couldn't remember the last time he hadn't been in one coming right off work, not since before he had been fired.

I ignored whatever he was doing down there and picked up the mess I had made around my desk , putting all the books and worksheets that I didn't need back in my bag. I paused when I got to the list I had made of all the work I needed to do and saw that my short stories assignment wasn't crossed off. I idly wondered if I should just drop out of it. It had been a stupid decision to take the class anyway, just an elective to fill an empty slot, it wasn't any kind of requirement. It seemed kind of silly to take a class doing something that I didn't even enjoy anymore, but it was a bit late in the semester to be changing classes. I supposed it was good anything else I could take that block. There were only three months left until summer break anyway and if I flunked, it wasn't anything that I needed to take over and nothing I would get held back over.

I glanced over at the clock to figure out how much time I had left to do my assignments and almost groaned. It was only a little after three. Maybe time really had grounded to a halt. I opened my history book, deciding to bang that out next since it was just a reading assignment. I got a good ten pages in when my father finished eating or whatever he had been doing and I heard him coming up the stairs. I sighed wearily and closed the book, but I was far from surprised. Bad mood meant he was either stressed or pissed about something, or most likely both. So why not work off a little steam now that his favorite whipping boy was around? It certainly seemed like a day for it. I almost laughed out loud at the now bitter memory of Heero soothing my own anger and how he had told me that it was important for everyone to find an outlet instead of letting anger and all the bad things build up inside. I supposed that was one thing my father could agree with Heero on, and I knew exactly what his preferred outlet was.

I stood up and stepped away from my desk as my father entered the room, surrendering to it instead of just not trying to fight it for the first time. I accepted it as just a part of my life, as clockwork as brushing my teeth and as inevitable as the sun rising in the morning. Any time Heero had tried to call my home life unfair or wanted me to get away from my dad or insisted I didn't deserve to be treated like that, I had told him that 'it is what it is,' nothing that I could change. That's all this was. Just the hand I had been dealt, and after all these months, it was time to just accept that. I was tired of caring. I was tired of being scared. I just wanted to shut it all off, let it happen, and forget. If he could do it, why shouldn't I?

My father caught the movement instantly and I think he assumed that I had gotten up to try to bolt because he growled ferally and grabbed the back of my shirt, getting a tight fistful and pinned me to the wall effortlessly like I was just a kitten. I had to bite back a laugh that probably would have come out sounding a tiny bit crazy. Didn't this feel familiar? If I squinted at it, I could feel the cold metal of lockers instead of worn plaster, would smell cigarettes instead of sweat and steel dust. At least I was pinned by my chest this time so I was saved from having to look into unsympathetic, predatory eyes. Then, my father was jerking down my jeans and I went away, into my head like I so often do during these moments. Only my head wasn't such a welcoming place to be anymore. I couldn't retreat into my fantasy world of being at Heero's, my safe little haven, so it was just this thick, numbing fog full of nothing. No terrors, but no comfort. Only I guess it was comforting, in a way, not having to feel anything.

He was quick this time, finishing himself off in a matter of minutes and not going back for round two. I was unsure if it was because he was running late or if he had really been that needy. He pulled out of me roughly, then he left in his usual brusque manner, not even giving me the illusion of this being anything else but a convenient fuck for him by giving me a shred of affection. He was gone like a ghost to the bathroom to clean himself off, like it had never happened. I wished I could pretend the same, but the sharp throb in my ass and the wetness tracking down my legs wouldn't give me that fantasy. I hadn't even realized that he had hurt me, but as I slowly came back to reality and looked down at myself, I saw a little bit of blood. Just another few drops to add to the ocean. I patiently waited, listening as he finished up in the bathroom and left, peeling out of there like it was his ass on fire.

I didn't feel my usual relief when he was gone. I didn't feel much of anything at all. I kicked my jeans and underwear the rest of the way off and walked downstairs in just my shirt and socks to the bathroom to take my turn cleaning myself off. I had enough time to shower, the one, tiny boon of my afternoon and quickly washed the mess off my thighs. It didn't make me feel much better, but at least I wouldn't smell. My hands hurt too much to wash my hair well, just the act of trying to dig my abused fingers into the soapy mess almost took me to my knees. It burned like fucking hell, too. In retrospect, putting my raw wounds into our less than pristine tap water completely uncovered and then covering them with shampoo had been a… less than stellar idea, regardless of the pain. They had only just started to scab over, too, so a few of the worse ones immediately started bleeding again. It should have worried me, but I was beyond the ability to care, my apathy rather complete. I didn't even care about what Leneski might say if he saw them or how I was going to explain them.

I settled for just rinsing the shampoo out of my hair by standing under the spray. I couldn't hold the soap long, either, so the shower ended up being one of the quickest ones I've ever taken, including that one winter when our water heater had been busted. I just as quickly dressed in my work uniform. My hands hurt too much to change again, even if I still had some time to kill before work. I struggled through combing and putting my hair back up, gritting my teeth in agony trying to hold the brush long enough to manage it, and I won't even try to describe how it felt braiding my hair through my swollen fingers. I was on my way out of the bathroom when I accidentally glanced at my reflection in the mirror above the sink.

I had been trying this entire time to not look at myself in any mirror, sure that I wouldn't like what I was going to find. Sure enough, it was far from a pretty sight, and I should have turned away and just kept going, but was paralyzed to the spot as I met my tired violet eyes. There wasn't a speck of color on my face except for the deep, darkening creases of tiredness under my eyes. I looked haggard, like I was terribly ill and worn down which, in a way, I supposed wasn't far from the truth. Those eyes in the mirror weren't just horribly bloodshot, but flat and empty, looking as dead as I felt. I stared him down for several minutes, not really sure what I was doing, if I was looking for something, taking some perverse pleasure at the physical proof that the person that had destroyed what had remained of my life was suffering for it, or shocked that I had gotten so bad so quickly.

I finally managed to pull myself away from the sight, making a mental note not to look at any mirrors from now on. If I looked like that now, I didn't want to know what I was going to look like in a week. I trudged back upstairs, feeling about ten times as weary and exhausted as I had before my father had come home, not certain if it was because of the rape or what I had just seen. I thought again about taking that nap, that maybe, in the state I was in, I should just skip work, but I couldn't find the energy to commit to that plan. I looked at my clock and almost sighed. There was just too much time. Didn't that sum up my life lately? Just too much fucking time. I suddenly didn't care how fucked up my hands were. I just wanted to go to work so I could try to focus on something other than myself. I still felt so numb, which should have been a blessing, but there was something about that lack of sensation and emotion that needled at me. It was kind of like the feeling of those splinters in my wounded hands. I could feel that there was something very wrong, something painful, but it was so distant and diluted. I knew that when I came back to myself, if I came back to myself, it was going to hit me like a mac truck, so I really should enjoy the nothingness for as long as I could.

I picked up my pants and underwear from the floor, inspecting them to see if I could wear them again in vain, already knowing that they hadn't had a chance. Both articles of clothing were thickly stained with a messy, rank mixture of blood and semen, the blood especially having soaked through both sides of each material. I hadn't realized that I had bled that much. I was dimly aware that things hurt down there, but no more than someone would be aware of a paper cut. I chalked that up as another thing to be worried about much later. Not the anal injury, I had had enough of those, and ones much worse than this newest one, to be apathetic about them on a good day, but that I was becoming desensitized to very real, physical pain and injury. That seemed like something worrisome. I wondered if it was because of the sleep deprivation but again, like with my overall tiredness and how difficult it was to use critical thinking, it seemed a bit pronounced for the amount of sleep I had missed. Which led me to wondering if depression could do that to you and if this was something permanent.

I tossed the soiled clothes into my hamper. I should do a load of laundry, I thought to myself, but knew it was just one of those things that I didn't have the energy to bother with. I was about to return to my homework when I noticed that there was something off about the floor that I had just picked my clothes off from. I went back to it and saw that the mess hadn't been contained to my clothes, some of it had dripped onto the floor. Not much, just a few drops, but enough to be noticeable. I needed to clean that up before it set in. With the way my hands were, I wouldn't be able to scrub any floors for a while. But strangely, I couldn't move from the spot, like something was anchoring me to the floor. It was several more minutes before I managed to move again, walking towards the stain. I had every intention of walking past it and back downstairs for some water and a sponge to clean it up with, only to fall to my knees jarringly right in front of the mess.

My rear protested the movement strongly but I barely noticed it. I hadn't been able to take my eyes off the floor since I had first seen it. I stared at it for what felt like hours but was only a few more minutes, feeling this… I don't even know how to describe it. It was like this gaping chasm in my chest, but lower, in my guts, I felt heavily ill for a reason I couldn't fathom. I felt dizzy and for this bizarre and utterly terrifying moment, I forgot where I was. No, I forgot when I was. The past swallowed me up like the ravenous beast that it is and for a moment, I thought I was back then. The night that my father had first raped me. Looking at the stains on my mattress. Smelling that awful smell. Feeling the ghost of his hands on me and his cock inside me. Feeling like I was going to vomit. Feeling like I was going insane. I had to bring my throbbing hands to my face and search for a cut across my nose and a black bruise in the shape of a belt that didn't exist anymore just to keep myself in reality.

It came to me then as I sat there on the floor on my knees, fighting against nausea, my head screaming like a drill, on the verge of suffocating, just how very alone I was. I think that's what really gave that hallucination of the past power. Not the pain in my ass or the smell in the room or what my father had just done to me, but how alone I was. It came too close, too bloody fucking close to how things had been back then. Struggling to accept what my father had done to me and realizing that there wasn't a single person on the planet left for me to talk to. Quatre was gone. Trowa was gone. Heero was gone. All I had left was my mother, who I could never talk to about these things, and my father, who wouldn't have given a shit even if someone else had been the one to do this to me.

I remembered how I had screamed back then, how much I had begged in my head for someone, anyone to save me. But no one did. No one would. I wondered if my mother would have even come see what the fuss was about if she had been home at the time. I know that isn't fair. She had quit drinking once she had found out what was really happening. But there was still a part of me that wondered if she would have heard my screaming back then, if she would have just ignored me, not really caring that I had been terrified and needed help until she had actually stumbled onto that fucked up scene. I wondered if anyone would come save me now. If I went outside and screamed at the top of my lungs for help, for someone to come and just help me through this, if anyone would even notice. But I already knew the answer to that question. Why would anyone? Why would anyone even care?

'Heero would,' I thought and for the first time since my anger had left me, I felt something. A sharp spear of pain right through my heart.

Heero would care. Not because we had been friends once but just because he's the sort of person that would always care when someone needed help. But it hurt too much thinking about how that used to make me feel. How he used to come running, both physically and emotionally, whenever I needed him. Whenever I was hurting and he would just know, even if I was trying my hardest to hide it. He always knew, somehow. And he would look at me with concern and love and try to find that hurt, try to find a way to bandage it and soothe it and take a bit of the pain from me. Even when we had barely known each other when we had first become friends… no, even before that, I thought as I remembered that day in chemistry, how he had asked me if I was alright when he had seen me struggling just to get on the stool. The only person that had asked me that question in almost four years.

I blinked and suddenly found that I was standing in front of my desk. I have no recollection of getting up off my knees and going there, I was just there, like I had teleported. I should have worried about that, too, losing any kind of chunk of time because I was definitely not sleep deprived enough for that, but it was a single blip on my radar full of colossally bigger things to be concerned about. I sat down in my desk chair, my ass screaming at me and ignored it. I wondered, if I called Heero right then told him that my father had just raped me, would he come running again? Even if he loathed me and wanted me out of his life for good, would he still try to make this better? Because of the person he is or because of what we had once been to each other… would he still care? Or had I damaged things too much? Had I lost his empathy as well as his love?

Without any real, conscious thought on the subject, having that same out of body experience that I had had early that morning, I was pulling the desk drawer open and digging deep inside of it, not stopping even if the motion turned the pain in my hand and fingers into something hot and searing until I closed it around a familiar, solid object. Although I had sworn to myself to never touch the damned thing again, no more than twelve hours later, I pulled my phone out and held it in my red and swollen hand. I didn't feel any of the horror that I had before, only that numbness and only that sense of being somewhere else, looking in like I was watching a scene in a movie.

I could do it, I thought as I looked down at my phone, the little husky charm dangling from it. I could just call him and tell him the truth. Tell him that I had lied to him, but why I had lied. I could tell him that I was fucked up, that I couldn't even get it up, couldn't even want what every other normal guy wanted and nothing was ever going to fix me. I could tell him that I was letting my father fuck me and nothing was going to stop that. I could tell him that I was so tired of my life and I didn't know how to go on anymore, that it was so hard just to breathe, and how much I wanted to rip myself apart, to end things so I didn't have to think or feel anymore, so I would never live through another rape, another day of stress and heartbreak, feeling like I was getting dirtier and dirtier and more insane with every second. I could tell him that I needed help. I could beg him, tell him anything he wanted to hear, do anything he wanted if he would just talk to me, just help me through this. Give me a reason to go on, make me feel human again.

I flipped open the phone and turned it back on. I didn't even try to stop myself this time. There were no little protests in my head as I opened up my messages, no demands to know what the hell I thought I was doing. Deep down, I already knew what I was going to do and couldn't find the ability to dredge up all the notions I had had that morning about what a horrible idea just looking at my phone was. I also knew that it didn't really matter what damage it could do to me, how awful the temptation was. I was already dead, my body just hadn't caught on to the fact yet, so what could a few messages possibly do to me now? Heero was the only thing that mattered anymore. I wouldn't hurt him. I felt some comfort in that. I didn't care what happened to me, but I wouldn't hurt him, even if that meant staying in this hell and throwing that damned phone in the trash, but if he had reached out to me again... if he was still trying, even if it was just through the phone, then... then that was ok, wasn't it?

'I'm sorry, this was a mistake.'

My twisted epiphany from earlier that afternoon struck me again and I felt my mangled hand tremble a little as I thought about calling Heero and saying those words to him. A mistake. I had fucked up. God, I had really fucked up. And I couldn't bear the possibility that maybe I had fucked things up forever. I knew that I had, but I couldn't accept that anyway. If he still wanted to talk to me, I feared that I really would confess everything to him, just for the chance that I could take this back. I was so messed up and I understood, even at that point, when things were still fresh and I hadn't really known the cost of my actions, just how screwed up things really were, that I needed him. I was falling and I needed him so badly to help me, to catch me before I crashed. I had no right to want that from him, to reach out my hand for his, but I couldn't stop myself from reaching anyway because the descent was becoming more terrifying than the possibility that I would reach, only to find that nothing was there at all.

I opened my list of unread messages and almost laughed. There really were a few new messages from that day. Three of them. Two from Justin and one from Mariela. But none from Heero. He hadn't even tried to call me since he had left that voicemail. That wasn't like him at all, not the boy that had left me ten damned texts just because I hadn't responded to him in a single day. Not the person that would call a dozen times to make sure I was ok. If he wanted to talk to me, he wouldn't stop trying. He was damned relentless, stubborn in ways that I could never hope to match. Unless... unless he had finally given up on me. That spear in my heart twisted.

I went through the message options until I pulled up everything that Heero had ever sent me, finding the unread voicemail and a few others I had never opened from before our breakup, back when I had been too depressed to even look at his texts. I highlighted the voicemail and almost opened it. Almost. I desperately needed to know what he had said, to know why he had called me. What he had needed to say. But what did it matter? If he really wanted to talk to me, he would have tried again, right? And after that afternoon at lunch... the fact that there weren't any more messages was only proof that, whatever reason he had had the previous day for calling me, he didn't feel that way anymore. Had it been the last straw for him, me biting the hand that was trying to help me? Pushing him away one more time? Did he regret leaving that message, or had it been a mistake all along? Whatever it was, it wasn't relevant anymore, that much was obvious. None of it was.

Depression smothered me, that kind of deep feeling that feels a bit like drowning, a darkness that's too suffocating and pervasive even for tears or hysterics. I hit back, going back to the main list of messages, a strangely long row of the same three phone numbers. My fingers moved automatically, highlighting every message on the list, even the ones that I had already read, all the way back to when I had first gotten the phone and my finger hovered over the 'delete' key. I should do it, I realized. Just delete all of it. There was no point to hanging on to the messages. I wasn't even using the phone anymore, and none of it was relevant to my life anymore, either. Just delete them, erase the temptation, toss away the phone. Or put it back to factory settings and give it to someone that actually would use it. Maybe I could sell it to someone in class and make a bit of money. That would be the sensible thing to do.

I took in a jarring, almost shocky, shaking breath, closing the phone and curled my hand around it tightly, bringing it to my chest protectively like I was trying to save it, even from my own thoughts. I couldn't do it. I couldn't. I couldn't. It was all I had left of Heero. The only words of his I had beyond the ones that lived in my head and I couldn't do it. It would be too much like erasing him from my life completely. He was already fading from me, piece by piece, and one day, would I wake up to find that I couldn't remember the sound of his voice? What he had looked like when he would tell me that he loved me like I forget what Quatre's smile had looked like sometimes? I couldn't do that. Those shards are all I had left that brought me any measure of comfort. It was a comfort that was killing me, but I didn't care. I had to cling to them no matter how much it hurt because they were precious, the only beautiful things I had left and if they cut me, that was ok. Better than trying to live without them.

At the same time, deep down where I was afraid to look for long, I knew that I couldn't handle this temptation any more than I could handle the thought of erasing my history with Heero through those texts and call logs and voicemails. I couldn't handle wanting to read the texts from his parents and coming so close to opening them every time the urge hit me. They wouldn't be a comfort, not even the bittersweet one of reading the old messages. Maybe I deserved that. Maybe I deserved whatever angry thing they probably had to say, but I was too weak to do it. Just like I was too weak to follow through and call Heero and try to explain myself. It was too much to take. I risked opening my phone one last time, only so I could turn it off for the final time, then opened the back of the phone and took out the battery. I put it in my pocket and opened my desk drawer. I shuffled things around in there until I had a nice, little rat's nest of stuff and shoved the phone under it until it would take a good deal of rearranging things to find it again. Out of sight and out of mind, as close as I could come to chucking the fucking thing in the garbage like I had all my journals. I started to close the drawer when I saw that I hadn't push it in the pile far enough. The husky charm was still poking out, its little blue eyes staring up at me accusingly.

I froze, unable to breathe as I stared at it. The memory of the day that Heero had given it to me burst in my head like a drill tearing its way to the surface. I remembered how he had gifted me with the black cat, saying that it looked so much like Pepper, he had to get it for me. I remembered how confused he had looked when I had taken the dog instead, only to smile warmly when I had said, unable to stop blushing, that I wanted it to remind myself of him. And how I had felt a warmth of my own when he had done the same with the cat. I almost took the phone back out at that point, that temptation and pain taking over me for a moment. My finger touched the head of the charm, lightly caressing it. But then I thought of the very likely possibility that he had cut that cat charm off and thrown it in the trash by now and that thought nearly undid me. I snatched my hand back like I had touched some searing heat and slammed the door closed so hard with this sense of finality that the desk rattled.

Not thinking, just moving around and going through the motions of something that was just tucked neatly behind my conscious thoughts where I couldn't see it or feel it or think about it, I got up from the desk and grabbed my bag, striding to the door and almost running down the steps, only vaguely aware of the pain in my ass keeping me from doing just that. I fled the house, barely remembering to shove my feet into my work boots instead of my sneakers and making an unthinking beeline northeast instead of west where Leneski's was. I still had a bit of time to kill and I was on a mission.

I ended up at the library, partially because I needed a little comfort, even if it would only be the comfort of the familiar, and partially because there was something there that I needed to finish my self-imposed task. But more than anything else, I needed a sanctuary, a place that was just mine, someplace quiet, safe from all the things that were torturing me, and the library was the last sanctuary I had that hadn't been taken away from me yet. I didn't have much time at all before work, but I just needed a moment out of my head, away from my father, away from school, away from my life. A slice of normal, I guess. I wanted to just snag a book, find a dark corner, and read like it was any other day and lie to myself that I wasn't a wreck. If I could just do that for a little bit, then maybe I could put enough of myself back together to get through the rest of the night, shore myself up so dealing with Solo through two shifts wasn't going to make me spiral into an even worse depression and I wouldn't blow up at anyone.

I wasn't angry anymore. I didn't really feel anything except for how miserable and lonely I was, but I had no clue anymore what might set me off. I didn't even know if this… numbness was a good thing or not. I hadn't broken down in hysterics yet, but being this way made me feel… inhuman. Like a zombie. I didn't want to feel anything anymore, I was tired of it when all I felt was pain, but walking around in this apathetic fog made me feel broken. Which I guess was exactly the case. I delegated it as another thing that wouldn't do me any good to think about and shoved it into the back of my mind as I walked up to the reception desk. I didn't need to talk to any of the librarians, I had known the layout of that place and where every book, every computer, every genre was since I had turned seven-years-old, but they did have one thing that I needed that I couldn't really get anywhere else in town.

One of the prides of Nausten's public library is its public services. Namely, the many, many donation drives the head librarian runs. Right next to reception she has all these massive boxes set up with cheery little signs on the front of them. There was the canned food drive, which saw the most use in the fall around thanksgiving, a box for clothing, toys, books of course, and one for basic necessities like toothbrushes, combs, deodorant, stuff like that. All of it went to the local churches, charities, and shelters around town. But what I was interested in was the box at the very end of the row clearly marked 'Electronics.'

For as long as I had known, that box had served as a kind of dumping ground for all the shit that people didn't want anymore and were too lazy to deal with. Got a new cell phone and the old one is just collecting dust? Into the box. Laptop with a cracked screen and too cheap to fix it? The box. Sure, there were real donations, mostly cheap pay as you go phones, CD players, a dirty cheap tablet or two, but most of the stuff in there were things that you can't throw in the garbage like batteries that oozed all sorts of nasty stuff and you had to pay extra to get someone to remove it or buy a sticker to drop it off at the dump.

I think a lot of people frown upon donating to the electronics box because in their judgmental minds, electronics were nice, shiny things that people that were too poor to afford didn't need over stuff like clothes and food and don't realize that phones and computers aren't luxury toys anymore, but useful resources for things that people are struggling financially need. You know, like jobs. I count myself lucky to have the jobs that I do because nowadays it seems like every business just wants you to go on their website to fill out an application, and if you don't have a phone number, you're pretty much fucked. I remember when my father was looking for a job and all his time that he hadn't spent gathering applications had been tied to staying home so he could be near the landline.

I guess I can't really take pot shots at the Darlians over that one. They're one of the few people that donate new stuff to the box instead of old shit that barely works. I know that Quatre's stepmother had been a staunch supporter of all the charity programs the library hosted, too, and had donated quite a lot. Yet another hole that been created after Quatre and Mrs. Winner's deaths, but I tried very hard not to think of that, and the role that I had played in it. Just another guilt on my ever-growing stack. The librarians would empty the box at the end of the night and sort through what could be donated and what needed to be safely disposed of without a fuss, that's all that mattered to me. If I had any second thoughts, I wouldn't be able to act on them.

I dropped my battery into the mostly empty box and went on my way to the adult reading section. I aimlessly walked the stacks of the adult section, moving from autobiographies to crime to horror without really looking for anything specific. I didn't even care if I read anything anymore, it was comforting just being there among the high rows of books, smelling that ancient smell of paper and ink that's as nostalgic for me as the smell of the ocean. It took me back to the happier parts of my childhood, roaming in a similar fashion, the stacks more like mountains than the tall trees that they were now. Those precious moments when I got to be alone without feeling lonely, got to be myself instead of trying to be the perfect son. I could read without any derisive comments about spending my life with my nose pressed in a book. I could live in some fantasy world and for a little while, I wasn't the lonely kid that was too small, too strange with the black eye and clothes that were either too big or too small on me. It had always felt like the only time I could really breathe. I felt a similar calm and freedom settle over me then. Not quite enough to erase my headache or the depression, but enough to feel like I was inching my way towards some kind of normality and wasn't going to throw up any time soon.

That feeling of peace completely shattered as I entered another stack at random and almost collided with Heero. I thought my heart was going to leap out of my chest and my head might burst from the sudden explosion of raw stress and, I'm ashamed to admit it, actual fear as I turned the corner of the row and he was just there. He didn't seem to notice me, thank god, because I was so shocked that I just froze to the spot, staring at him as the color drained from my face like I had just seen a werewolf instead of someone that I went to school with every day like a freaking lunatic. He was just... standing there, a few feet in front of me, his side turned to me as he perused a shelf of hardcovers. For a rather terrifying moment, I was positive that the part of me that was still lonely and desperate to talk to him had conjured him up, that I was having some kind of stress induced hallucination right there in the library. But it felt too real and if I accepted that it was, I would have to accept that I had moved on from just 'fucked up' to 'full on mental breakdown.' I watched as he ran his fingers over a row of books like he was feeling for just the right one, only to sigh heavily and drop his hand dejectedly for some reason, then lift it again to run his fingers through his hair in that familiar gesture that stabbed at my heart with longing. I had another moment of paranoia when I wondered if he was stalking me, but that was even more nuts than having a hallucination. If he really wanted to corner me, he could have done it at lunch or before gym. After what I had done to him at lunch, why would he want to talk to me anyway?

It was that thought, the bitter memory of how I had reacted to him over the lunch period, that broke me out of my paralysis. I jerked back and out of the row, almost slamming my back to the end of book stack, letting it hide me if Heero decided to look in that direction. I was panting and my heart was racing, my injured hands shaking from the rush of adrenaline, and my head pounded so hard that I was almost seeing double. I only just realized that I had been chanting 'oh my god' and 'what the hell' over and over and over again in my head for who even knew how long I had been staring at him for and tried to get that stopped. But seriously, what the hell? Why was Heero there? Heero doesn't read! Ok, that wasn't actually true. He isn't illiterate and I've caught him reading now and then, but he prefers his comic books and games and movies. Besides, he had plenty of books at home to read if he got the urge. I couldn't remember a time that I had ever caught him at the library unless he was looking for me. And even if he was there for a book, that was the damn poetry section. Heero hates poetry, or at least the poetry we're forced to read at school.

'Then that's why he's here. He probably has some kind of assignment in his English class revolving around poetry. Why the hell would he be here for you? If he wanted to talk, he would call, or he would have tried to catch up after I left school. He has no clue I'm here and he doesn't exactly look like he's searching for anything but a book. Stop being so fucking self-centered,' I snapped at myself.

That made a lot more sense than believing he was stalking me. It was pretty late in the day to be gathering materials to finish his homework, but he had always been a procrastinator. I should have been relieved about it. I had so much shit weighing me down, I didn't need to deal with the fear and stress of Heero trying to hunt me down on top of everything else I was trying not to think about. But I didn't. I felt... a little hurt by it. But that was incredibly stupid and needy and juvenile, so I ignored it with disgust. Not that it was that easy. There was something inside of me screaming to just walk over there and talk to him. I doubted he would have it out with me at the public library, so maybe I could get out what I wanted to say before he might storm off.

It was tempting. Too damn tempting, like that stupid phone. This was the closest I had been with him alone since the break up and it was doing fucked up things to my head realizing just how close he was to me, just a few feet down that aisle. I knew how wrong those feelings were. I knew seeing me would just hurt him again. But if the last few weeks had taught me anything about myself it was how little knowing what I should do mattered to my heart. My head kept taunting me with it, this image of him looking up when he sensed I was close to him and smiling that soft smile of his, his deep blue eyes warm and bright. But that was just as stupid as the hurt because there was no way in hell that was ever going to happen.

I had to get out there. That's what I needed to do. Not pine for him. Not feel how close I was to tears wanting to just look at him and touch him and kiss him and beg for his forgiveness. Not think about how much it hurt, like there was some invisible barrier between us. I needed to get the hell out of there before he saw me and took the decision away from me. I was already incredibly lucky that he hadn't spotted me by now or walked in my direction to leave the aisle. That luck would inevitably run out sooner than later, it always does. But I still couldn't move. What little strength I had had left when I had walked into the library that afternoon had bled out of me and there hadn't been that much to begin with. I was frozen still with horror, my heart still racing a mile a freaking second, as it dawned on me that, whether Heero ever saw me there or not, just how utterly fucked I was.

I had gone to that place for a sliver of comfort, to try to escape from all my mistakes and all my pain, just for a little while. Just a moment to breathe, that's all I had wanted. Only I had run, almost literally, smack back into it all. Only I hadn't just returned to it, it was worse, because it wasn't just in my head, but right there, in the flesh. I realized in some grand twisted epiphany just how foolish I had been to ever come there. I couldn't escape from my guilt or my heartache. I never would. And I especially didn't deserve any comfort, in any form it might take, whether it was the familiar smell of books, the scratch of pen on paper, a hug, or a shard of forgiveness.

And just to hammer that nail of misery deeper into me, I also finally realized the truth that I should have seen yesterday when I had seen Heero on the beach in our favorite spot. All those places that used to just be my mine, my little sanctuaries, the beach, the library, the studio, none of those places were truly mine anymore and they sure as hell weren't sanctuaries. Heero was in all of them. Not just the memories of them, bittersweet things that had become jackals, looking to tear me apart. No, that would be too kind. He was there, too, the real Heero. He had invaded what little measures of comfort I had left. I know that isn't a fair thing to think. I was the one that had taken everything that mattered from the both of us, I didn't get to look at him as some kind of virus, infecting the tattered remains. But that also didn't make it any less true. Everywhere I went, he was there, in every inch and corner of my life.

I had nothing left. My depression rose and swallowed me whole like a wave. I had nothing left, not inside me and not outside, either. In the course of one, bad decision, everything had been taken from me. I couldn't get away from what I had done and I couldn't get away from Heero. Not in that town. Not in my head. Not even in my dreams. On some level, that should have been a comfort, to hold on to him even while he was slipping away, but it wasn't because as much as I missed him and yearned to be with him, this wasn't being with him. This was being haunted. I needed to stay away from him or I was going to go crazy, but everywhere I turned, there he was. I couldn't go to the beach. I could barely get through a single day of school by the skin of my fucking teeth. And now, I was being evicted from the library, too. Sure, I could try to go there another day and he probably wouldn't be there. It was a large building and he wasn't interested in reading even half as much as I was, but what if he was? That thought would poison me, each and every time and I wouldn't be able to get past it. He might be there and it would break my heart all over again and I knew that, even if I forced myself to go anyway, it would only make me feel sick. It would only pollute what little comfort I might find in it. I couldn't bear that, feeling it die like my love for writing had. It would be better just to stay away from the place as much as I could.

As I snuck out of the library like a thief, my depression overriding my shock and fear and oddly allowing me to move again, my numbness stole over me again. Although it was obnoxiously bright and sunny outside, I didn't feel it. I felt cold and kind of outside of myself. It was almost like being in shock. I felt like I was being erased from my own life, removed from everything that had once defined me like some sick and sadistic god was going at my life with an eraser. Everything was so gray and pointless. I had no sanctuary, nowhere to go that was mine anymore except for home, which hadn't felt like a home to me for a very long time, and had never felt like a sanctuary. But it was all I had left. Outside of that… I had nothing. Just school and classes and work. But everything in between was gone.

No more walks on the beach, the smell of salt and the call of birds. No more spending hours at the library, tucked into some cozy corner with a good story so I could shut out the cruelties around me. No more sitting out behind the library in the spring, feeling the warmth of the sun and just listening to the birds chirp overhead. No more losing myself in the flow of my own words and thoughts and feelings, whether for some semblance of peace or to vent some of the dark things in my head. I felt… hollow. Empty of everything that had ever been a part of me since I was old enough to understand such lofty things as identity and have things I was passionate about. There was nothing there, just the stretch of every day, going through the motions. I was so tired, and it had nothing to do with my sleep deprivation. I was tired of life.

Why continue on? Why cling to things that would just fade away in the end? What was I waiting for? Another chance to see Heero? Seeing him only hurt and made me want things I could never have anymore. Everything that helped me get through the days was in the past. I was moving on, alright, but not in the way that I had hoped. I felt exactly how I had after Quatre died, like every little action, every breath, even just the prospect of shoveling food in my mouth to keep going was exhausting and taxing. It felt like all each new day brought were new horrors and trials and I just didn't care anymore about any of it.

As I walked through central Nausten towards the south, I thought about all those journals that I had unceremoniously dumped in the trash like the garbage that they were. Dozens upon dozens of notebooks, filled with all my days and months and years. All the secret little things that I clutched to my heart and hid away like something dirty. And in a couple days, it would all be gone like it all really hadn't happened. What a fucking waste. Not throwing them out, but the journals. What they meant. The account of my fucking pointless life. And what a waste that life has been.

A childhood full of beatings and failures. Always letting down everyone around me. Couldn't even get through one day of school as a normal kid. I wouldn't even had made a single friend if Relena hadn't happened to have a history with Quatre. So much time spent at work, all the quizzes and assignments that I had turned in empty because I was just too tired and too busy to deal with them. All late nights and multiple jobs and tedious work and for what? For my family to only grow even more in debt and to not do a single thing to make their lives any easier or better. The bullying. Letting Quatre down even more than I had my parents and watching him splatter himself all over the train tracks. Trying to kill myself and not even coming close to accomplishing it. Letting down Trowa, and letting down myself by staying with Trowa. Having sex for the first time in some filthy garage and not gaining a single damned thing back from it except another cartload of shame to drag around with me. Refusing to protect myself against my father. Being raped. Almost getting Pepper killed because of my spinelessness, just like Quatre's stepmother. And Heero… everything with Heero, more than I could ever wrap my head around. What a goddamn waste of a life. So much failure, so many shortcomings and so much guilt. More guilt than I could ever pay for in my entire lifetime, even if I lived to eighty.

My entire walk to work, I thought about all of it, all the shit and pain, both that had been brought upon me and I had delivered myself and I realized that I didn't want to. I didn't want to live that long, even if I deserved countless years of this nothingness and broken dreams, not that I had any left to break. Heero had been my very last one. I thought about killing myself for a very long time, all the way up to Leneski's parking lot. I was even thinking about how I might do it as I opened the front door and heard the merry jingle of the bell overhead. I knew enough about what I was doing now that I could pull it off this time. I could make sure that it was so quick and in such a secluded place that no one would be able to stop me this time. I didn't even have to do it the same way. Rope was out of the question. We didn't have any that was sturdy enough or any ceiling fixtures strong enough to support even my slim weight. Pills were a possibility. My mom had enough pain killers and my dad had enough alcohol to get the job done, but that certainly wasn't quick and I had heard all kinds of stories about people botching that up, ending up in a coma or just puking it all up.

There was the tried and true method of choking myself with a belt or putting a bag over my head, but the thought of suffocating was a bit… unnerving. My best bet was cutting myself again, only this time doing it the right way or, even better, just using my father's gun. All I had to do was put it to my head and pull the trigger. Two steps, even a kid couldn't fuck that one up too badly. Just one little pull of the finger and I wouldn't have to do this anymore. I wouldn't have to feel like I was choking. I wouldn't have to feel anything ever again. No more rapes. No more beatings. No more humiliation. No more failures. I could finally rest and just fade away, like I always should have.

Something nagged at me as I thought these probably horrible things with a cold detachment. Just this little thing in the back of my head, like a grain of sand in a mouthful of rice, something grating and out of place and jarring. But I couldn't put my finger on it. I rolled those thoughts over and over, examining them for the thing that was bothering me and only came up with the same conclusion that I've had every time I've thought about killing myself since I had left Heero: I couldn't think of a single reason not to do it. It almost felt like the natural thing to do, like I was just coming to accept what I had known for days, but had been too chickenshit to cop to. When your heart has already died, didn't it make sense for the body to follow it? And when I stopped to think about the people around me, it only seemed like a surer thing. I made everyone miserable. I hurt so many people. Maybe I deserved to suffer through the rest of my life, but the more I thought about it and every other life mine has touched and infected, the more I thought that not being around anymore might be doing the world, or at least the tiny, isolated world of Nausten, a favor.

I shelved those thoughts quickly as I went behind the front desk and down the hallway to the lockers. There were too many of my coworkers around and thinking that shit made me feel awkward, like they might be able to tell if they looked me in the eye. It wasn't like I didn't have plenty of time to think things over later and decide what I really wanted to do and how to do it. I had all the fucking time in the world. I went to my locker but grabbed the lock a bit too hard, forgetting the damage to my hands and had to grit my teeth from crying out at the very solid and heavy throb of pain that shot through my right hand. Fuck. If I couldn't hold a damned lock, I was kind of screwed for work. It should have worried me, but I was finding it difficult to even care if I hurt myself worse or lost my job.

I let my hand rest against my chest and waited for the sharper edges of the pain to wear off before trying again, this time with a much lighter grip. It still hurt like ever-loving hell, but I managed to get my fingers around it this time. I lifted my left hand and grasped the dial like I was handling fine china, trying to turn it to the correct combination, but my fingers were shaking so badly that I couldn't quite manage to have it land on the numbers I wanted it to. I don't know what it was, the pain, how little I had eaten that day, my tiredness, what I had been thinking of, what I refused to think of, or just the remnants of my little adrenaline attack in the library. I was ready to start swearing at the damn thing when I sensed a familiar presence coming towards me down the hall and I went completely stiff, my heartbeat kicking up into that frantic rhythm again.

My one success through the day was that I hadn't given this whole messed up situation with Solo and that I would have to face him again for another day much thought. I had had much bigger and worse problems taking up my attention, and after my fucked up lunch at school, a little bit of denial had seemed like a very good idea. But seeing him there, it all came back to kick me in the face, only I was so raw and emotionally vulnerable after almost running into Heero and all the shit that had been bouncing around in my head on the walk there that I didn't know how to react to him. I could almost imagine this little meter in my head marked 'stress' starting to crack under the strain. I couldn't deal with it. I couldn't deal with another friendship destroyed by my hand and big, fucking mouth. I couldn't handle another precious thing ripped away from me. If I had had the time, I think I might have bolted and dealt with the embarrassment later. But then he was striding past me to his adjacent locker and it was too late if I wanted to save face.

I didn't look at him as he stood next to me. I had gotten all the answers I had needed on my last shift with him and didn't feel all that keen in poking the bear. I was starting to really wish I had just called in so I could go back home and, if not sleep, then at least not have to deal with the rest of the world anymore that day. I was hanging by a thread and watching it start to unravel. Or maybe that was just my sanity. I went back to my struggling with the lock, but it was a lost cause. If I hadn't been able to open it before, there was no way in hell with me on the verge of a panic attack. I caught Solo glancing over at me and felt like I was going to throw up. Which was stupid because this was nothing compared to seeing Heero at the library when I had been trying to get away from the mere thought of him. I didn't understand why every little thing was getting to me like this lately, like I was constantly on the verge of an anxiety attack and all it took was a single thing going wrong.

Solo looked back to his locker without saying a word and my heart sank. I don't know why, it wasn't like I had been expecting him to talk to me. He opened his locker in five seconds flat and I felt irritated, only to feel a bit unhinged for being that childish.

"So," his voice suddenly caught through my thoughts and I almost jumped like some stupid cartoon cat, "you still mad at me?"

I whipped my head around, staring at him with eyes as wide as an owl's, but his expression didn't give me any kind of clarification on what he had just said. What? I couldn't even wrap my exhausted brain around the fact that he was suddenly talking to me again, let alone the words that had just come out of his mouth. He thought I was mad at him? What?

"W-what?" I voiced the thought, stammering a little, but he just opened his locker and started to shrug off his jacket.

"I gotta say," he said dryly as he hung it up, "I'm really not good at taking the whole silent treatment thing, never have been. You're the only damn person I enjoy talking to in this place, so I'd really appreciate it if we could just cut to the chase here. Hell, you can hit me if it'll make you feel better."

What the hell was he talking about? Why would I be mad at him? He was the one that was mad at me!

"I don't understand," I managed to get the words out without stuttering like an idiot that time, "I have no reason to be mad-,"

He looked at me and raised one eyebrow, like he thought I was being ridiculous.

"Oh, so the cold shoulder lately has been for fun?" he asked, but his tone was more teasing than accusing.

"I-I haven't-," but I paused.

Had I? It was difficult to remember with everything else clogging up my head. It took me a solid minute to even remember what the hell had started this... rift between us. Him getting Leneski to send me home early and my snapping at him for it. But then what? Which one of us had stopped talking to the other first? It was all tangled up in anxiety and so many other things that I couldn't untangle that knot. Had it really been me? That couldn't be right. I was so sure that he had been the one ignoring me because he had been pissed at my attitude. Had I really read him and the situation wrong?

"I'm sorry," I said softly in a pain whisper, still not sure what was happening or if he was right that the cold shoulder had been coming from me all along, but even if he was wrong, apologizing seemed to be the right thing to do.

And although I couldn't admit it to myself or I was going to break down, his words had kindled a warm hope in my heart. I had completely forgotten what the emotion felt like and couldn't bear to give it any attention. Hope sucks. Every time I let it in, it only disappoints me and rips out my heart. But I couldn't stop feeling it.

"I was never really mad at you," I admitted in a small voice, looking down at the lock that was still in my hand, fumbling with it some more in vain and feeling as ashamed as myself as I had shortly after I had blown up at him, "I was so upset that day about other things and I took it out on you because I was frustrated. I never should have acted like that. And I never should have stopped talking to you, I just... I just thought you were pissed at me for snapping at you."

My voice wavered and my words came out uncertain, more a question than a statement, like I was asking for validation and I guess I was. Had I really misread him so badly? And was he really not angry at me? I couldn't believe that because if I did, it would start making me wanting to believe other things that were probably just fantasies. It seemed too good, a reprieve that I desperately needed, and I knew exactly what always happens when I start hoping that things are ok. I glanced over at him and saw that he was looking at me with a mix of frustration and exasperation and quickly looked back down at my hand. He sighed heavily and took the lock out of my hand. His own felt warm and I almost flinched as his fingers brushed against mine. I couldn't remember the last time anyone except for Zechs had touched me. It couldn't have been long enough for deprivation to have settled in, but that's exactly what it felt like, like I couldn't even remember what being touched gently instead of grabbed and fondled felt like. Solo took pity on me and opened my lock easily. It reminded me so much of all the times I had opened his for him because he was too hung over that it gave me mental whiplash. He dropped the lock back into my hand carefully, understanding not to bump his hand against one of my swollen fingers.

"For someone so smart," he said in that dry, amused tone of his, "you have shit communication skills, you know that?"

I flushed at his gentle reprimand. I didn't feel smart at all at that moment. I felt like the biggest moron on the planet. I've never been great about reading people, but it was difficult to believe that I was so out of touch with reality lately that I had read Solo's annoyance at my silence as him being pissed at me. Now that I could take a step back from my pain and feelings of loss and look at the last couple days, I saw his reaction for what it was: confusion and irritation. He hadn't been ignoring me, he had been responding to what he thought was me ignoring him by giving me some space. The more I thought about it, the stupider I felt. How could I have believed that Solo would drop our friendship of a couple years because we had had a single argument that hadn't even been that serious? This was Solo, for fuck's sake. The guy is the bluntest person I've ever met. If you do something he doesn't like, he doesn't ignore you and stop speaking to you, he tells you to your face that you're being a dick. If he had really been angry at me for copping an attitude at him, he would have said something.

I had done the same thing that I had done when we had first met and started to have lunches together. I had automatically assumed the worst out of him, even when I should have known better or given him the benefit of the doubt. Sure, he had made his own assumption about me, but I had actually gotten angry at him and me not talking to him would have logically looked like I was still mad. And he had been the one to breach that rift when he had gotten fed up of the silence, I didn't have any excuse. The question was why. Why had I thought something so ridiculous and made a grand assumption that our friendship was over because I had gotten a bit grumpy at him for doing something nice for me? Even as messed up I was, I knew that wasn't like me. Was it? I know I'm a dyed in the wool pessimist, but this had been a little… extreme.

I supposed, with my head pulled firmly out of my ass and able to see things how they were, it wasn't terribly mystifying. I had tried so hard to keep hold of 'Ro, and he had slipped away anyway. I had lost the love of my life, my boyfriend, my sanctuary, my cat, my only pillars of support, and my best friend in one fell swoop. So how could I ever hold on to anything else? Why not lose another friend because of my shitty actions? I was only going to lose everything eventually anyway. I guess that's the rub of it. I've just come to accept that everything I have that's worth keeping is going to leave me one day. Either I'll push it away or it'll break or realize what a monster I am. Everything and everyone leaves. So it was too easy to believe that I had ruined everything between Solo and I just like I had ruined my relationship with Heero, so much so that I hadn't examined what had really happened very closely, had just latched on to the knowledge that I had acted like an asshole and Solo must hate me. Just like I was sure that Heero hated me.

"I'm sorry," I whispered again, "I shouldn't have made those assumptions about you, I know how much you hate that. And I shouldn't have snapped at you. It was rude and really immature of me, I shouldn't have taken my frustrations out on you. I'm sorry."

"No shit," he said, but he grinned and rapped his knuckles lightly on the top of my head, "I made some stupid assumptions, too, though, so I guess I'll forgive you. Just don't pull that shit again. If you need to let off some steam or I do something to piss you off, that's fine, I piss everyone off, but don't shut people out just because you think they're mad at you."

I nodded absently, unable to form any words as his own cut through me like a knife. It took all my concentration not to let it show, to not let him realize how much he had just hurt me. Not with any insults or cruelty, but making me hope again, in a way that was infinitely worse and more damaging than making me realize I had gone that last whole shift with him thinking I had shattered something precious. I kind of regretted going into work that day. I might have had a major misconception cleared up and having Solo's friendship back was a massive relief, the feeling of that weight off my shoulders almost blissful. But those words of his were terrible for me to bear. If he had been anyone else, I would have hated him for them.

Solo returned to his task of stashing his things in his locker, closing and locking it, shaking his head at my stupidity the entire time. I copied him, struggling out of my jacket, trying to use my hands as little as possible and just tossing it in, not caring to try to hang it up and risk jarring my fingers. Of course, the movement just brought Solo's attention back to exactly where I didn't want it. Then again, I was sure he was just biding his time to poke at it after watching me fumble with the lock so uncharacteristically.

"What the hell did you do to your hands?" he blurted out with all his usual bluntness.

I reflexively shoved my hands in my pockets pointlessly as he had gotten an eyeful of them already. They didn't look as bad as they had when the wounds had been fresh, but they were still swollen and heavily scabbed and it was glaringly obvious to anyone that they were messed up. I couldn't even hide the wince when my movement made both of them throb heavily.

"Nothing," I murmured under my breath, hoping he would just drop it, although it was difficult to tell with him.

A lot of times he would surprise me by letting things go that I didn't want to talk about pretty easily, but others he would go at like a dog with a bone. This time was apparently the latter because he gave me that look again like he thought I was being stupid.

"Funny, that sure as hell doesn't look like nothing," he pressed.

I sighed heavily and closed my locker door gently.

"It really isn't anything," I insisted and quickly dug deep into my sleep deprived brain for any kind of lie that would explain my hands and appease him, "I just slipped and fell on them."

"Uh huh," he said almost sarcastically, not falling for the rather lame lie.

"It's not a line," it was an easy thing to feed quite a bit of pissyness and frustration into my voice, hopefully giving this stupid little tale some credence, "Our driveway is mostly dirt and gravel. I was in a hurry this morning for school and slipped and fell running on some gravel. I tried to brace myself and just managed to cut my hands up to hell. It looks a lot worse than it is."

He gave me another look, clearly telling me that he didn't buy it, but miraculously dropped it. I wouldn't have been able to explain it to him anyway. Saying 'I was mad so I went a few rounds with a wooden post until I couldn't feel my hands' sounded nuts. Well, it was nuts, and I really didn't want Solo realizing that I wasn't altogether there, especially after we had just patched things up. I risked taking my hands out of my pockets to put the lock back on, but Solo just snatched it from me and put it on himself.

"You are going to tell the boss about those, right?" he said, still in that just shy of sarcastic tone like he somehow knew the answer before I said it.

"I don't see the point," I grumbled, "He'll just put me on desk duty and it'll hurt just as much holding a pen or typing as holding a paint brush."

"Maybe that's a sign that you shouldn't be working at all," he pointed out.

"My hands are fine-," I protested and felt this strange panic tighten around my heart.

It took me a moment to realize that it was because I realized we had blundered into the same situation that had made me think I had lost his friendship, that he was going to try to get me to go home, even if that meant telling Leneski on me. I wasn't sure what scared me more, that we would get into another fight over it or that he would succeed and I would get thrown out of work again. The money notwithstanding, I didn't think I could survive the rest of the day if I didn't have something to focus on.

"Yeah, that why you can't even open a simple lock that you open every day?" he shot back.

I felt my face warm with embarrassment.

"It's not that big of a deal-," I tried to argue and hated that I couldn't come up with anything better to combat him. I was just too tired and my head hurt too much to do more than blurt out the first thing that popped into my head.

"Kid, your hands look like shit and you look like even worse shit," he said bluntly, "I don't know what you really did to them, but even if your hands were perfectly fine, I'd still tell you to go the hell home. You look like about fifty miles of bad road. You somehow look even worse than you did when I told Leneski you weren't fit to work, so why exactly did you think coming in today was a good idea?"

"Please, don't tell Leneski," I begged and hated how whiny my voice sounded, but I couldn't let him have his way this time for more reasons than just it seemed like tempting fate, "I'm not sick, I just haven't been sleeping well the last few days because of this stupid migraine I have. I swear, I'll be more careful about hurting myself, but I don't want to go home. I need something to distract myself from this headache or I'm going to go nuts."

Solo seemed to buy that half-lie a lot easier than the other. Well, more like a 3/4ths lie. I hadn't been sleeping, but what was really wrong with me was so much worse than that and I knew some rest was only going to fix how I looked, not how I felt. And while I did have a headache, I knew the difference between a migraine and a stress headache. And lastly, the pain in my skull had absolutely nothing to do with my inability to sleep. But it made Solo back down, so I really didn't feel that guilty about lying to him.

"Fine," he conceded, "but at least take some Aleve and try to get some damn sleep tonight, ok?"

"Yes, mother," I teased him, knowing that he hates coddling and it would serve to shut down anything he else might want to say about taking care of myself.

He scowled and made to smack me on the back of my head before remembering my headache and just gave me a warning look. I smirked at him because I knew he would expect it and hoped that it would give some credence to the whole 'I'm fine' thing. I managed to sneak away from him when he went to get some coffee from the break room with most of the other guys that were filtering in for their shift or taking a lunch break. I made a beeline for the bathroom, making sure that there would be no one else wanting to use it after me before going in and firmly locking the door. I put the toilet seat down, sat on it, and, as quietly as I could, began to sob. I almost put my face in my hands to muffle the sound and the comfort of hiding my tears even if there was no one around to see them before remembering that would probably be a bad idea.

Thick tears dripped down my face as I struggled not to make too much noise or do that stupid hitching breath thing, but it was impossible to stop or control them. For the first time in a very long time, my crying wasn't from grief or guilt or horror, but relief. Utter, blissful, agonizing relief. Ever be in pain for a long time, weeks or even months? I mean awful, gut-wrenching pain? And ever have that pain suddenly go away completely? Like a cramp or muscle spasm letting go, there's a moment where it hurts like hell right before this feeling of complete relief takes over, so strong that you want to cry. This was like that.

I had been in pain for so long that this little shard of relief and hope was more like a dagger tearing into me. It hurt partially because I had forgotten what it felt like, any kind of positive emotion that wasn't tinged with bitterness, but also because that hope terrified me. It opened so many doors, each leading to something that could easily be horrific. Giving me back one more thing that I could lose again, and a thought that was slowly rising from the back of my head that was laced with poison. Suddenly realizing that I had never lost Solo, that he was still my friend and I still had someone that I could rely on, someone that I could talk to was a deceptively difficult thing to accept. It had barely been two days since my little hissy fit, but somehow, the fact, or rather what I had perceived to be fact, of 'Solo hates me, we aren't friends anymore' had become as real and as permanent 'snow is cold' and 'water is wet'.

Despite our banter and how easily he had just forgiven me for acting like an asshole, it was a difficult thing for me to wrap my head around. I don't get second chances. Ever. Every time I fuck up, it's for keeps. It seemed impossible to accept that the universe had thrown me this bone after all the other things it had thrown in my path. It would take time for it sink in, I guessed. But… if I could accept that I had misunderstood things with Solo… that I hadn't lost him even if I had messed up and acted rationally… then… then did that mean that everything wasn't lost with Heero, either? I had made two very big false assumptions about Solo in the past. I had certainly done the same with Heero, always assuming that he would hate me for finding out something about me, something I had done or something that I thought or felt, but he never had. He was always so accepting of all my flaws. Always so forgiving.

I had automatically assumed that breaking up to him and lying to him was a sin too grave to be forgiven for, that he had to hate me for breaking his heart and his own cold shoulder the last two days had seemed to verify that to me. If he didn't hate me, why wouldn't he even look at me most of the time? Why was it the only time he could seem to be around me was when I was in trouble? But… what if I had gotten it wrong? What if there was hope that I could fix things, even just a little? What if I could take it back and was just assuming the worst?

You would think that these thoughts would have been a comfort. I should have been relieved to think that I could take things back and, if not be Heero's boyfriend again, at least I could apologize to him and try to soothe the hurt of thinking I had never loved him. Maybe we could even be friends again. I was at the point where I would give anything, and I mean anything, whether it was my soul, my health, or significant parts of my body to have my best friend back. But that was the problem, and one of two reasons why just that hope scared me and felt so horrible to me. I had pushed Heero away for a reason.

I had known that it was the right thing to do, no matter the consequences, and no matter how much I was hurting now, those reasons were still there. Only now I was so weak to that hope, and so tired I wasn't thinking clearly. I was scared of following that thread, of grasping for that hope, only to find that I had once again done something rash and only hurt Heero worse. The second fear was that I had been right all along and that hope was only a delusion. I was letting this one bit of luck get to my head and the only thing I could really hope to accomplish was, at best, making an absolute fool of myself. I couldn't take it, the stress of just considering all the mountains of my mistakes, trying to unwrap the knot of what was really going on with Heero and what I should do and not do only succeeding to make my head throb angrily, so I flushed the toilet in case someone was waiting for the bathroom, cleaned my face off as best I could, and left to start my shift.

That shift was… odd. I still don't know if I would call it better or worse than my Monday one. I managed to keep my temper in check and I didn't have any incidents with Leneski or Solo or any of my other coworkers. For the first half of my shift, I did pretty well. I managed to focus on my work instead of the shit in my head and didn't have to go hide to cry over anything. I even managed to keep my hand injuries from my boss.

My strange and very rare streak of luck continued and I was placed on a painting job for the day. It was a fairly extensive one, but all ground level, so I didn't have to worry about falling off a ladder. Like I had told Solo, just holding a paint brush hurt like hell, but if I had needed to use a hammer at all, I would have been in a ball of miserable agony on the ground by lunch time. I wished for the pain when I had punched that damn wall back, it would have been a serious improvement to feeling like my hands had become blocks of cement made of pain affixed to my wrists by cords sewn into my bones. I was almost at the point of happily admitting to myself that maybe beating up that pole with my bare hands hadn't been the most stellar of ideas, no matter how much I had wanted to hurt myself.

I was careful as I worked, still not really caring how much pain I was in, only how aggravating dealing with that pain was, but conscious of how it might look to Solo if I was wincing every five seconds, and I still had another shift to get through. It was actually the action of moving the brush back and forth and not gripping it that was causing the most pain. While my fingers and knuckles throbbed in warning, it was my wrist that was screaming at me. I was starting to think about lovely things like tendonitis and carpal tunnel. Can you get stuff like that from just punching hard, solid objects? I was nearing my limit by the time it started to rain and we had to call it in thirty minutes before we would normally leave for the lunch break. I was starting to think I should go buy a lottery ticket with how much random luck had been thrown at me since I had arrived at work.

Traffic was surprisingly light as we drove back to the shop and we managed to shave off another ten minutes. All the guys in the van (Caleb and his lot had of course scored the other van out of their typical pettiness, but since Jack and Bruno had started to be less antagonistic with me and treated me like I was a normal person instead of a space alien, a few of the rest of the guys seemed a bit more ok with me and there hadn't been any more incidences with who was going to take which van) chatted excitedly about how they were going to use the extra time to get to an actual sit down restaurant or get an errand done. I just wanted to hunt down an ice pack and some painkillers, personally. The second we got back, I did just that, finding a bottle of tylenol in one of the cupboards in the breakroom and popping three of them. They weren't going to do much for either my hands or my headache, but they would take the edge off. I poured myself a cup of coffee to add some caffeine to speed up the process and by the time I finished drinking it, most of the guys had gotten permission from Leneski to go on break early and had vacated the shop. I guess the pouring rain wasn't much of a deterrent against such a rare boon as a longer lunch break.

Solo and I were one of the very few that stayed behind, and by few, I mean there was four of us in the shop when I stepped out of the breakroom to go to my locker. All this time later, when I remember that afternoon, I can find a certain bitter humor in the fact that, if it just hadn't rained that day, I would have missed everything that happened just minutes after I had finished my coffee and pills meal and probably would have gone on without ever knowing about it. Ignorance really is bliss.

Jack was the last of the lunch crowd to leave the shop and tried to convince the two of us to come with them with the lure of some burgers instead of cheap sandwiches, but Solo just grumbled about the rain and it being too damned cold to bother. I knew him well enough to suspect that the real reason was he was looking forward to eating his lunch in quiet without a dozen guys coming and going from the break room for once. He can be almost as antisocial as me sometimes. I just told Jack that I was feeling tired and wanted to get some homework done, which was partially the truth, on top of having zero appetite and also wanting the quiet try to ease my headache a little. I guess the way I looked made that very believable because he just shrugged and left, leaving the two of us mostly alone. Even Leneski's daughter had taken an early lunch with a couple of the other guys, so it was just us, the boss, and Mitch who had been abandoned by Caleb for not having the money to eat out.

For as much as that lot liked to act like they were tight knit when it came to ganging up against me, they were pretty mercenary, especially Caleb, and no one had offered to pay for Mitch's lunch, so he got stuck behind. That would have made me leery. The guy has a quiet, sour demeanor on a good day, the sort that takes everything personally and always has something to complain about, he just won't do it to your face. Even when my sexuality had been unveiled, he had stayed mostly quiet about it, just glaring at me with disgust, and had only said anything when he had been around the other guys, either feeling comfortable joining in or getting sucked up into that mob mentality. I could only imagine the kind of mood he must be in having his best friend ditch him like so much dead weight, but the guy genuinely hates me and I think I scare him for some bizarre reason and I knew that, without any of his friends around, he wouldn't be able to stand being in the breakroom with both myself and the man that was both a 'queer lover' and had assaulted his friend, so he would take his own meal in his car. Good riddance.

I waited for the bastard to disappear out the door to the back lot and a calming, almost peaceful silence fell over the shop, only broken by the sound of Leneski talking on the phone in his office, too softly for any of the words to be made out unless you went right up to the door. Solo followed me to my locker and was nice enough to open it for me, although I was sure I could manage it this time if I was just a bit more careful with my fingers, and I fished out my second jacket. It was cold in the shop and it was finally starting to bother me, although Solo seemed fine in just his work shirt. He isn't usually the macho type, unless he had flat-out lied to Jack about hating the cold. I managed to get the jacket on without needing help and Solo excused himself to use the restroom while there was still no one around to hog it. I was just about to go back to the breakroom with my bookbag and start on the rest of my homework when I heard the bell over the front door jingle and someone came into the shop.

At first I thought it was one of the guys having forgotten something, but whoever it was stayed in the front area by the cash register and didn't come out back. I sighed wearily. A customer. It really wasn't part of my job to man the cash register, especially when I was on break, but I had been trained for it as one of the only employees there besides Solo, Leneski, and his kids that had experience with customer service and cashiering. It really wasn't professional to leave a customer out there just because I really didn't want to deal with anyone and there was no one else around. Grabbing my boss seemed a bit pathetic, even if he would understand about me being on break, although I was one of his under the table employees so time punches and labor laws were irrelevant to me, but he was on the phone and it felt a bit whiny and childish to foist a customer off on him when it was probably something that wouldn't take up much of my time. I sighed again but started to walk to the front of the shop, only making it down the locker row a few feet when I heard Solo intercept whoever it was, obviously having heard the bell, too, on the way to the bathroom.

"Good afternoon," I heard him greet in his best, professional tone, which always sounds a bit funny to me when I know what he's usually like, "can I help you?"

Relieved that he had this, I breathed with relief and was about to go back to snag my bag when the person spoke and the world around me shattered into a million, fear coated shards.

"Good afternoon."

Hearing Justin's voice coming from just a few feet away from me when I was in one of the few remaining places in town where I had thought myself relatively safe from running into him or Heero or Mariela was like getting cold-cocked in the face after just waking up from a peaceful nap. All the strength immediately went out of me, especially my legs and I took a few jerking steps back. After dodging Heero twice now out of random coincidence, it hadn't occurred to me to be overly worried about the possibility of one of them coming to look for me. A thousand fear-thoughts fired off in my head all at once, although most of them were just baffled expletives. But seriously, what the hell was going on? What was Justin doing there at my damned work? For a brief moment, I considered the insane possibility that he was actually just there as a customer. He had some work he needed done at the house or his office, that was all. Or maybe there was a part or piece of equipment he needed that the houseware store didn't have. Sure. Except for the part where that was nuts and didn't make a lick of sense. There were a bunch of other construction businesses around town. If he really needed work done, or more likely a piece of equipment since I know enough about the man to know that he likes to take things on himself with his own hands, why would he go to the one place where the good for nothing that had broken his son's heart worked? Unless he was specifically looking for me. Showing a bit of that initiative I had just thought of and seeking me out since he probably hadn't gotten many answers from Heero.

I thought of all those phone calls and, as much as I tried to protect myself from it, I knew that made the most sense. He was tired of trying to track me down at home, so why not try at my work where I wouldn't be able to run and hide from him? His timing was also a bit too perfect to ignore. It was only a little bit before the time my actual break would start, meaning it was almost a sure thing I would still be at the shop, and giving us some time to pull me away if he wanted to talk in private. Or scream at me. Pure terror wrapped itself around me tightly at that realization, that I was about to have a face to face with the man that I couldn't bear to even think about, that he was right there and there would be no escaping it this time. I was too tired and too hurting to deal with whatever he might have to say and if he ripped my heart open, this man that had once been a pillar of comfort and support and stability for me, who had shown me nothing but kindness in all the months that I had known him, it would finish the job of killing me. But what was I going to do? Go hide in a locker? Sneak out the back door? I didn't have that much time and I couldn't fucking think, only feel all those panicked thoughts screaming at me like an army of monkeys, making it impossible to do anything at all.

"Could you tell me if Duo Maxwell is in today?" he asked my coworker, confirming all my fears and suspicions and I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest. It was racing so psychotically fast that I thought I was having a heart attack.

I blinked and suddenly found myself sitting on the floor, my back pressed against the cool metal of the lockers. I have no recollection of sitting down. I felt numb again, but also distant from myself, like everything was coming through this thick fog or I was watching it on television. I think I was in shock. Can you even go into shock from something so trivial and pathetic or is that just a trauma thing?

"Depends on who's asking for him," Solo said candidly, dropping his customer service voice when it became apparent that this was not one of our customers and it was a personal matter, "because I've met his dad and you ain't him."

A bit of confusion filtered through the haze of fear. Solo had met Justin before and had to know who he was. Then again, a grown man asking about a kid that wasn't his would make anyone verify what they wanted, I guessed. I wished that it would make Justin leery of going through with this or Solo would tell him unless it was a business matter, it really wasn't appropriate, but Justin chuckled, alleviating some of the tension between them.

"Just his friend's father, actually," he assured him, "I just wanted to check up on him. I know I shouldn't be bothering him while he's at work, but I've been trying to reach him for the last few days and there seems to be something wrong with his cell phone. I'm worried that something is going on."

Damn, he was really good at that whole half-truth shit, his tone as smooth as cream. Anyone would have believed him in an instant and he reminded me so much of my father whenever he had to deal with someone in authority or someone that might make trouble for him. So cool that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth and he would make the person wonder how they could have ever thought that this man was anything but an upstanding father and husband. I knew Solo was going to buy it before he even responded. I wrapped my arms around my knees and felt myself shake a little. I could only imagine the crazy image I would present if Leneski stepped out of his office just then, but I couldn't make myself get up. It was like I was paralyzed.

"He was fine the last time I saw him," Solo chuckled back and said something that made my blood turn to ice, "Just a bit tired, but that kid works himself to death most of the time. Hold on, let me get him. It'll only be a sec."

"Thanks."

No. No. Fuck! I had to move. I had to get the hell out of there before Solo saw me and dragged me out there. I needed to do something, but I was completely frozen, my heart throbbing in my throat and I felt like I was going to puke. This couldn't be happening. It had to be a nightmare. One of my night terrors, that was why it felt so real.

'Maybe this is a good thing,' an alien thought popped in my head, sounding so completely not like one of mine, 'Maybe he can help. Maybe if I go out there and explain to him, he can tell me what to do. Even if he can't, even if he's angry at me, I just want to see him. Just for a moment. I should do it, just get up and go out there.'

But why, I nearly screamed at myself, why should I do that?! Did I really think he could ever forgive me for what I done, that he had anything left for me but… but disappointment?

"Well we should be!" Mariela's voice, so fierce but full of tears shot through my head, making me flinch. But it wasn't the suddenness of it that hurt. It was remembering the rest of it. Remembering her crying and telling Justin that they needed to get me away from my dad, because she cared about me and wanted to protect me. It was remembering how hurt she had been on my behalf that was pure agony.

"Duo, we love-,"

I clapped my hands over my ears like I thought I could drown out what I was only hearing in my own head from my own memories. Those words, delivered in such a kind and sincere tone, brought to the surface a typhoon of thoughts and feelings I had buried deep and almost left me screaming in that quiet hallway.

'Shut it down!' all I could do was scream at myself as I tried to block out those memories and keep all the parts of me together, 'Just stop it! Stop it now!'

Those memories didn't matter. They didn't mean anything! Those things were gone and Justin didn't feel them anymore, if he had really had before. I had ruined everything and now, I might as well be a stranger to him. If I ran out there and poured out my soul to him, he would only be disgusted. Who the hell was I kidding by remembering these things? Love me? How could they ever? Not even my own father was capable of loving me, so why should they? Why should anyone? Heero didn't, either. Not anymore.

In pure desperation, I thought hard, trying to send some kind of psychic thought to Solo, begging him not to come back there, to lie to Justin and tell him I was sick or talking to the boss or that I had died, anything to get him out of there, but it didn't seem to work. He walked into my hallway, looking around for me so innocently, having no idea that he was on a kill mission. I quickly dropped my hands from my ears, the only thing that I seemed capable of doing. He glanced around, looking confused and I realized that he must have heard the noise the lockers had made when I had sat against them even if I hadn't. Then, his eyes found mine and he went from confused and bored to baffled and a bit worried. I realized just how insane I had to look to him, sitting on the floor holding myself, my eyes wide and freaked out. I was certain that I didn't have so much as a speck of color on my face. Whatever I looked like, I clearly was bothering him because he didn't even try to tease me, just looked at me, calculating something in his head. I was too scared to even feel embarrassed to have this person that I looked up to see me like that. I tried to say something to him to explain it, or tell him to make Justin go away, but couldn't even get my mouth open and I had a suspicion that if I did manage to get that far, anything that could possibly come out of me would just be gibberish.

I watched with horror as, before I could even formulate something to say, the opportunity was taken from me and Solo turned and marched back out to the front. There was a part of me that just wanted to clap my hands over my ears and go full denial mode on everything that was about to occur, but I couldn't manage that, either. I wasn't sure if it was my masochistic side or my survival side that insisted that I listen to everything, very carefully. The only other impulse I had was to give in and puke on the floor, but that wasn't a very attractive option either, so I just stayed frozen, waiting for Solo to rat me out.

"Hey, sorry, man," he said sympathetically like Justin was just another coworker, "I don't think his group came back from their job yet. The work board says they're clear across town, so I doubt they will be until their shift is almost up. None of us want to waste our lunch hours dealing with traffic that far down, we usually go wherever there is to eat over there, you know?"

"Oh," Justin said simply but dejectedly, so lowly that I barely heard him.

He sounded so… disappointed for some reason, almost depressed. I couldn't figure out why he would sound like that, but it tore at my heart and I felt tears pricking my eyes. Suddenly, I felt like I had done something very wrong and I think if I had just been able to move, I might have done something exceptionally stupid like gone out there to see why he was so upset, why he was so desperate to talk to me just to rip me a new one. None of it made any sense to me, not that anything was making much sense anymore.

"I'm sorry," Solo said, which was bizarre enough, but his tone was enough to give me whiplash.

He actually did sound sorry and sympathetic. Towards a man he had only barely met, about something he couldn't hope to understand, it was a bit out of character for him. Not that he's usually cold and aloof, he just seldom connects with people on that level. The last time I had seen him do that with someone he barely knew, it had been… well, with me. Then again, that was another trait that of Justin's that my father did not possess. They might both be charming, but there's something very mellow and down to earth about Justin that gets under your skin, past all those barriers and makes you feel completely open with him. That calm stare of his and collected demeanor makes any defenses crumble and seem pointless. Or maybe I'm just projecting, because he's always made me feel that way. A way that my father has never made me feel, and I suspect he is completely incapable of. Like he just understands, only that door swings both ways, and whenever he's upset, on the very rare occasions that he is, you want to bend over backwards to make him smile again. His hurt is always a very mature, but also very deep thing. I've only seen that side of him a few times, but each time was like a knife in my gut.

"Is there a message you'd like me to give him?" Solo asked kindly and I wasn't sure if it was for Justin's benefit or mine since he knew that I could hear everything they were saying.

"Yes, please," Justin's begging tone twisted that knife deeper. I had never heard him sound like that, not ever, "Tell him…" he faltered and I thought my guilt would finish the job of eviscerating me, hearing the usually so confident man struggle to find his words and his footing. The last time I had heard him do that had been when he had told me about that patient he had failed, "Tell him that I just want to talk to him. Tell him to please just call me. I don't care what time of day it is, just call me and I'll answer. I'm not mad at him, I just want to know that he's ok."

The tears that had only been pricking my eyes dripped down my face.

'Go out there,' a part of me insisted, 'Hurry, go out there before he leaves!'

I shook my head at myself. No, I couldn't do that. I couldn't face him, no matter what he said.

'He said he wasn't mad. Justin called me his friend-,'

'Shut up!' I snarled at myself, 'Just shut the fuck up! He was lying, can't you get that?! Why would someone like him ever want someone like me for a friend?! Why would he ever forgive me? If he isn't mad, it's only because Heero didn't tell him what really happened, and once he finds out, he's going to hate me. He's probably just lying anyway to flush me out!'

The thoughts were almost as painful as listening to Justin's heartfelt plea to my coworker and I hated myself for them, that hatred burning in my chest and I wished that I could just die from it. Die so I could stop hurting these people. I think I knew, deep down, that I didn't really believe anything I had just told myself. I was scared that it was true, but I still couldn't really see it, this man that had come all this way just to beg a man he didn't know to reach out to me in his stead just because he was angry with me. It hurt so much, the possibility that he did, but I clung to it anyway, because I couldn't bear going out there and seeing that those pessimistic thoughts were right. I was too much of a coward. I might not believe that he was trying to trick me, below all the bullshit and walls I had erected, but I didn't really believe that we were friends anymore, either and whether he was angry with me or not, I couldn't face that. It was selfish and awful, but I couldn't even face the consequences of my actions anymore.

"Sure, I'll tell him," I heard Solo say somberly.

"Thank you," the pure, desperate gratitude almost had me crying again, but I scrubbed my face clean and tried to ignore the suffocating feeling in my chest.

That feeling exploded into panic as I heard Justin walk to the door and leave, the bell disgustingly cheery as it rang his departure. I came close, even closer than I had calling Heero, to running after him. All my muscles tensed to do it and I think if I hadn't still been frozen in a strange kind of shock, I would have. My heart cried out in need and loss. I wanted, more than anything else that I could possibly want, to go to him and hug him, beg his forgiveness, tell him everything. Tell him that I needed help and to please not hate me, but I needed him. I didn't know what to do and I just wanted to talk to him, to feel his hand on my shoulder or ruffling my hair. I felt those things so powerfully, I could barely breathe. But only sat there like a lump, unable to do a single thing. Unable to be strong for even a second. I heard Solo walk back into the hallway and felt him standing there more than I saw him. We were both quiet for a minute, me staring blankly at the wall and him staring at me. I couldn't tell if he was studying me to try to figure out what the hell was going on or if he expected me to say something. I was still too intrenched in my misery and self-loathing and guilt to give him much attention at all.

"You get all that?" he finally said.

I nodded numbly, unable to look at him.

He sighed heavily in exasperation, probably annoyed with me acting like a wallflower. He probably thought I was pathetic, hiding out back there from a man that had been nothing but nice and polite. He was right, of course, I was nothing but a damned child, cowering after breaking a window. I expected him to just leave me there and go eat alone, but to my shock, he sat down next to me right in the hallway, pressing his back against the lockers like I was. I was too tired to analyze it, if he thought I was more likely to talk if he wasn't towering over me, showing some solidarity, or just trying to make this whole thing look a little less bizarre if someone else saw us.

It was another couple minutes before he said anything, though I think he was just waiting for me to crack instead of struggling with what he was going to say.

"So…" he ventured, going for a more candid approach, almost joking, "you fighting with your boy toy's dad or sumthin'?"

It made me angry. I'm not sure why. I knew he was just lightly teasing me to ease the tension and try to get me out of my shell, but I've always hated it when he's called Heero my 'boy toy.' Knowing that he was just using it to be a shit and get me to talk to him didn't help. I knew it wasn't the case, but I felt like he was mocking my pain, still too raw and freaked by Justin showing up there. It felt like a dream. What were even the odds of nearly having a run in with both Heero and his father on the same day? What was next? Bumping into Mariela on my way to the factory? Would I never get any semblance of peace from them? Were they always going to be there, mercilessly pecking at my open wounds, never letting anything heal?

Not that wounds like these ever could, and it wasn't anything more than I deserved, but I felt like they were intentionally torturing me. I wanted to beg all of them, 'please, you loved me once, please don't do this to me. Just leave me alone.' I couldn't take this constant pull and push of wanting to distance myself from my memories of them, to get a moment to breathe and take stock of what remained of my life, and wanting to see them every waking second. It was driving me crazy, literally crazy. I felt like what tiny bit of grip I had on my sanity was slipping and Justin and Heero were right there, pushing my hand away. If I didn't know them so well, I would think they were doing it on purpose out of a sense of cruel vindictiveness. So hearing Solo tease me about Heero and his father was... it was just too much.

"He's not my boyfriend anymore and I don't want to talk to him or his dad," I snapped at Solo angrily.

It was his turn to stare at me owlishly and I was so sure that he was going to get annoyed at me for snapping at him again or just not want to deal with me. Anyone would be uncomfortable around someone who had just confessed to be going through a breakup, and obviously a bad one. But he surprised me again by giving me that same sympathetic look that I was sure he had given Justin moments before.

"Shit, kid, I'm sorry," he apologized honestly, "I know how sweet you were on him. He was a real asshole to just break up with you-,"

I felt like screaming at him, partially because I didn't deserve any sympathy, but mostly because I hated his assumptions. Why did everyone assume that Heero was the one that had broken up with me? Was it that inconceivable that I would break up with him? Was I really that obviously love sick, or was it that obvious that he could do so much better than me?

"I broke up with him," I cut him off, my tone icy and sharp, somehow managing to not raise my voice at him.

Solo's eyes widened in shock.

"Seriously?" he asked in disbelief, "But why? I thought you were nuts about him."

"That isn't anyone's business," I snapped, sounding mad and pissy, but inside I was quaking at his question, at the thought of confessing anything to him. I had just gotten his friendship back, I didn't want to lose it again so quickly.

"No, of course it isn't," he said but, in typical Solo fashion, didn't back down on the one thing that I really thought and hoped he would, "And I'm certainly no Casanova, but I know enough that a guy that smiles the way you do when they talk about the person they like doesn't cut ties with them out of the blue like this unless there's a good reason. If his dad's looking for you, he must have been shocked by it, too. Whatever it was, it must have been something serious. I've seen you face off against Lorathe and a bunch of pissed off coworkers twice as big as you calling you all manner of awful shit with complete nonchalance. Hell, you stared Caleb down when he was about to hit you and didn't even blink. But I ain't never seen you react to anyone like this, let alone some soft-spoken Norther," his eyes suddenly narrowed at me, putting a few things together in his head and coming up with a conclusion that should have been obvious to me, even if it was unwanted, "Did he do something to you, your ex?"

My blood ran cold and the air felt very thin as I read into his own thoughts. He thought that Heero had… had hurt me in some way. That he had cheated on me or hit me. Both of those things were awful enough, but I knew that wasn't the only possibility he was considering. He thought that Heero might have… might have done what Trowa had, tried to force me or even raped me. I wanted to cuss him out for even thinking something so ugly about the person I loved. It was something one of the assholes at school would assume. But at the same time, the pragmatic side of myself could see his logic. It wasn't just that Heero and I had had a fight or had grown apart or whatever other reason normal couples would have for breaking up. I was acting nuts, snapping at everyone, tense and anxious. I clearly wasn't sleeping, had shown up to work with my hands looking like mashed meat, and now I was cowering and terrified just from the appearance of my ex's father. Anyone would think that something had happened to me, something violent.

"It isn't like that!" I shot back at him, "Heero never did anything like that to me! I'm the one that fucked up!"

I snapped my mouth shut, coming far too close to admitting things that I hadn't intended to and realizing with fear what little control I had over myself. I tore my gaze away from him and clammed up again, tightening my arms around my legs. Solo waited patiently for me to talk again and after about five minutes, when it became apparent that I was stubbornly not going to say a thing, he gently put his hand on my shoulder. I flinched, but he didn't let that deter him.

"Hey," he said kindly, almost affectionately, "you can talk to me, can't you?"

The words were meant as a warm reminder of our history, of the same things he had said when we had first become tentative friends, years ago, but they startled me and made my heart jolt.

"We can always talk to each other, can't we?"

The memory of Heero's voice, so uncharacteristically nervous and unsure of himself, making what had been a statement for our entire friendship a very painful question in his floundering, had me fighting against tears again. Had that ever been true? For every cup of raw honesty and truth I had given him, every little piece of myself that I had brought out of the locked box, there had been another overflowing bucket of deceptions and lies. Another secret. Another shame I had to hold close to me so he could never see it. I thought about my little hissy fit over my writings that afternoon, how I had called Heero and Justin and Mariela liars and felt utter disgust at myself. What right did I have to call anyone a liar? What right did I have to feel hurt if they ever had lied to me about anything? I had been lying to all of them every single day since we met, about things a hell of a lot worse than talent or skill or why Justin had really come looking for me. I lied to everyone so much, it was practically a compulsion. It was no wonder everything had fallen apart. You can't build a relationship in the dark.

Solo sighed again, heavier, when I didn't respond to him. I tensed, sensing he had a lot more to say and not wanting to hear any of it. I almost wished the other guys would come back from break, but barely any time had passed into our official break time and I knew that them showing up wasn't going to stop him from poking at me. At the most, it would just delay it until our walk to other job.

"Let's get something to eat," he said instead of anything that I had thought he was about to and he finally got me to break my staring match with the wall to give him my best owl impression again.

"What?" I asked, oh so intelligently, like he had just spoken in an alien language.

"You know, food," he grinned cheekily, "That thing that you barely partake in? Let's get the hell out of here for a little while."

I realized that he was completely serious and not just joking around and nearly blanched. I didn't want to go out and be around people. I didn't even want to move. I had absolutely no appetite, or money for that matter, and what if Justin was still out there? What if he was just waiting around for... for what? To jump me? What was I even thinking anymore?

"I thought you didn't want to go in the rain," I grasped at straws, although I knew that he had just told Jack that to make him go away.

"I have an umbrella," he smirked, "and I don't know about you, but I could really use the fresh air and something to eat that isn't out of a greasy bag."

"I don't have any money," I murmured, wondering why I felt so ashamed of that when I didn't want to go in the first place and he knew that I never have money on me.

"I do," he shot back and when I opened my mouth to protest, he easily countered, "I'm talking about some sandwiches, kid, not a five course meal. It's not breaking the bank."

"I'm not hungry," my face warmed a little at the slight reprimand, using my very last argument that wasn't 'I'm too sensitive and anti-social to deal with anyone but you right now'.

"Ok, then come watch me eat and grab a soda," he teased, "You can bring your homework with you, but you're not letting me eat alone. C'mon."

I almost sighed myself as it became apparent he wasn't going to let me slink off to some dark corner to spend the rest of my break in quiet solitude. I couldn't figure him out, if he really wanted company that much or was pitying me and thought that getting me out of the shop would be good for me or some shit. It annoyed me, but I figured I would get just as much work done sitting in a deli as I would in the break room with all the other shit swirling around in my head that Justin's visit had stirred up. And I supposed being alone didn't seem all that appealing. Maybe being around Solo and other people would muffle the memories and thoughts just enough to be tolerable. And I sure could use the caffeine and sugar from a cold soda.

He stood and helped me get to my feet, clasping my arm just below the elbow, being careful of not just my hands but my wrist, too. I wondered if I had been favoring it so much that he had realized or had just randomly aimed for anywhere that wasn't a hand. It was a good thing that he helped me because the second I moved, this horrible wave of dizziness came over me and if he hadn't had a hand on me, I would have fallen right on my face. I only barely managed to mask it to keep Solo from seeing it. Or I think I did. It was kind of difficult to tell with my head swimming so much, but Solo didn't say a word about it and left me to grab his jacket, giving me a moment to remember which way was up and understand that the ground at my feet was not tilting at a 75 degree angle.

Solo did indeed have an umbrella, a rather large one that easily fit the two of us. We took off on foot, him not having a car, and had to slog through some rain puddles on our way to our destination. Despite my instantly wet socks and pant cuffs, it was kind of nice. There wasn't anyone else stupid enough to go walking in the downpour when there were buses available and the rain was rhythmic and soothing, giving my headache just a tiny bit of relief from any jarring sounds. I know Solo has a driver's license, but he's never had a car for as long as I've known him. He's always said that they're too expensive and a constant waste of money with how much you have to up-keep them and with insurance on top of that, especially when he lives exclusively in a fairly small town and anywhere he usually needs to go is a walk away and anywhere else, he can bus to. It's a concept my father has never seemed to understand.

Solo looked vaguely grumpy as we trucked along, not happy to be out in the rain or how the deep puddles were getting his own jeans a little wet, giving more credence to the 'pity' theory. He didn't complain, although he made sure we went into the very first place we could find, the little bistro just a couple blocks from Leneski's where the guys usually have lunch. I didn't see any of them as we walked through the door, so it seemed like the whole group had gone to greener pastures, probably to Charlie's since it wasn't too far and the food was a lot more filling. The bistro had nice sandwiches and great bread, but nothing as fancy as a burger. There actually weren't much people at all in the place that afternoon, probably not wanting to go anywhere. There was an elderly man sitting with what looked to be his granddaughter, but no one else, and they were already to the dessert portion of their meal: a piece of coffee cake for the man and a cookie for the little girl.

I saw Solo glance over at them, but he led me to a booth that was on the opposite side of the bistro. I took it as just him catering to his anti-social side, or maybe to mine, or maybe just because it was closest to the window and the rain was kind of nice to look at when you weren't tromping through it. But then he sat down on the opposite end, facing me to the window, so that scrapped that idea. Then I realized that I was overanalyzing a fucking seating choice because it was a much safer thing to be obsessing about than anything else my head could come up with and told myself to get a grip before my overtaxed and exhausted brain melted from the strain. I took the opportunity of Solo's seating arrangement and looked out at the rain for a few minutes before pulling out my calculus textbook to take another crack at it. Might as well before the whole thing became completely illegible to me.

A waitress came over to take Solo's order, smiling brilliantly at him. That's all I can remember about her, that every time she came over to do anything, she was smiling at him a bit more exuberantly than one would at a typical customer. I think she was hitting on him because he would respond to whatever she was saying with a charming grin and I caught her blushing a couple times. I can't actually remember a word they said to each other, lost in my little world of trying my damnedest to not think of Justin or Heero or have another other insidious little memories creep up on me. I had just enough mental capacity left to be sure to open my textbook and pretend to read it so I wouldn't do that creepy staring off into space thing. A solid poke to my arm shot me back to reality. Solo had that annoying, amused look he always gets when I zone out on him.

"What?" I asked brilliantly, understanding that he had said something to me.

"I said 'what do you want to drink'," he repeated himself patiently.

"You really don't need to buy anything for me," I insisted, even though I was pretty thirsty and anything with some sugar in it would have been welcome, not liking him spending money on me after what a shit I'd been to him, "I'm fine."

"That isn't what I asked," he smirked at me, as relentless as a dog with a bone.

I flushed and thought what the hell. If he wasn't going to back down, I was going to use it to my advantage.

"Could I get a moccacino," I asked the waitress, hoping that they had it without even thinking to look at the menu that was right on the blackboard above the register at the back of the bistro, "five shot of espresso, extra chocolate?"

She looked at me strangely for a moment, almost like she thought I was pulling her chain.

"Sure you can, sweetie, but that's an awful lot of caffeine," she warned me, no doubt taking in my age and probably wondering if I even knew what I had just ordered.

"I'm having a really long and really rough day," I said, hoping that I had made it sound dry instead of honest like it sounded in my head. It was probably the most honest I had been with anyone all day.

She laughed at that and I relaxed.

"I'll tell the barista to add some extra cream, too, then, Hon," she gave a brief wink and smile that was a lot more professional than the one she had been giving my coworker, then bustled off.

I turned my attention back to Solo and found that he was giving me the same strange look that the waitress had, like I had just ordered cyanide and no one had informed me yet.

"Ok, I know almost nothing about coffee, especially espresso, but that seems a bit much," he said a bit suspiciously.

"It's just a little more caffeine than a cup of black coffee," I lied, "and the chocolate will help with my headache."

I neglected to inform him that five shots of espresso was about the maximum amount most coffee shops would let you get because more than that was more than the daily recommended dose of caffeine. More than that and you were likely to get a few nasty side-effects of caffeine overdose and this was far from my first cup of coffee for the day. But I really didn't give a shit about ODing on caffeine, I just needed something to kick me in the ass and I hadn't been lying about my need for chocolate for my head. With the waitress gone, I returned to my homework and I'll give Solo this much, he actually gave me a couple minutes of peace before starting in on me again.

"So," he said in a strange mix of candid and careful, like he was performing surgery, "you want to talk about it?"

I had to pause and take a breath to keep from doing something rash as my irritation rose, suspecting some... unflattering things about him and why we were at that bistro when we easily could have had this damned conversation at the shop.

"Talk about what?" I asked, not looking up from my work, trying to match his laid back tone and playing dumb, hoping he would read between the lines and give him a chance to drop it like I clearly wanted him to. Like I could be that lucky.

"Don't make me reach over this table and smack you, kid," he said, exasperated, "You know damn well what I'm talking about."

I looked up from my textbook to glare at him incredulously. I couldn't believe he was bringing this up in public. Bad enough that it wasn't something anyone would want to talk about in a freaking restaurant, given my sexuality, why would he think that I would talk about it there? I couldn't tell if he was just clueless, which wasn't like him, or if it was like I suspected and he had taken me out to a public place so our conversation couldn't devolve into a fight. To be fair, the place was pretty empty and the booth did allow us some privacy, so long as we kept our voices down, but I didn't like the feeling of being manipulated into a corner when I had made it abundantly clear I did not want to talk about the break up. It was in me to get up and march right out of there. I don't know why I didn't. My tiredness making such things difficult, not wanting to make a scene, or that as annoyed at him as I was, I still wanted my drink and I didn't like the thought of him paying all that money for it if I didn't even drink it. I nervously glanced at where the old man had been seated, only to find that he and his granddaughter had left at some point and I hadn't noticed. At least we wouldn't have an audience if I did decide to lay into him for this, besides the wait staff. I don't know if it was my suspicious glare or my glance to the rest of the bistro, but Solo caught it easily and smirked.

"No, we aren't here so I could corner you or censor you or whatever else you're thinking," he assured me, "We're here because you looked like you were going to keel over and I didn't want to have this talk where the boss would hear."

I blinked at him in astonishment. Oh. That made sense actually. I hadn't really thought about how anything we would have said might get overheard if Leneski left his office. My annoyance bled out of me and I felt stupid for suspecting what I had. Solo isn't one to manipulate people to get out of an argument, or to really manipulate people for any reason. Then what he had just said really filtered down into the parts of my brain that were still capable and working and I felt myself flush again.

"How-," I began to demand, and Justin's image came to me, the memories unwanted and almost like a mind rape, all those times when it seemed like he could peer into my head and know exactly what I was thinking and feeling.

Solo laughed at my impression of a ripe tomato.

"You're damn easy to read when you're exhausted," he teased me, then immediately sobered, "Look, Duo, I really didn't have any ulterior motives. I just wanted to take you out to lunch and try to get that miserable look off your face."

I looked away from him again, feeling incredibly embarrassed that he had realized how depressed I was, but it wasn't like I had been making any effort to hide it lately and he wasn't making fun of me about it. I guess, after what I had told him, it was kind of understandable why I had been in the dumps the last few days. Ok, maybe longer than just a few days. But it bothered me to know that even if I put the effort in to try to be alright around everyone else, I don't think I could manage it. The mask of 'fine', usually so sturdy and capable of shoring up my real feelings, seemed to be rather slippery these days.

"Whatever happened between you and him," despite having dredged this up in a public place, he was keeping things discreet, his voice low enough that only someone right by our booth would hear us and didn't name Heero or call him my boyfriend or ex, he had at least that much common sense, "it's eating you alive. If it's bad enough to scare you just to have to see his dad again and make you so strung out and on edge that you're snapping like a rabid dog at anyone that gets too close and make you act so completely out of character, it was obviously something very bad and you need to get it out before it devours you."

I blinked back over at him, unable to remember the last time he had said something so serious and so succinctly. He jokes around so much and is so laid back most of the time and talks down about his intelligence that it's easy to forget that he's really pretty damn smart. I don't know if he just doesn't realize it or likes to make people think he's… not really dumb, but uneducated, I guess. To keep them on their toes and second guessing him or because it's something he doesn't feel anyone needs to understand about him, I have no idea. I've learned not to underestimate him, but sometimes he still surprises me by seeing things about myself that most others can't. He smiled dryly at my surprised look.

"I know, ok? I've been through more than a few bad breakups myself. You helped me through a bunch of them, remember? I'm trying to return that favor," he told me.

I shyly looked away from him again. I couldn't refute what he was saying, although I didn't really feel like I had helped him much, just listened when he had needed to rant and tried to be reassuring when I could. Hell, one of our first interactions had been because his girlfriend had dumped him. But that was the thing he didn't get. I hadn't been dumped and I didn't get the right to feel as miserable as I was over something I had done.

"So come on," he continued, "I'm impartial and a pretty good listener. Just get off your chest whatever you need to-,"

"I don't want to talk about it," I snapped at him, "It's not the same thing."

Far from put out by my attitude, he rested his cheek on his fist and studied me.

"A breakup is a breakup, kid," he said breezily, "And this isn't about what you want, it's about what you need."

'And how would you know what I need?' I wanted to snap, 'How does anyone? And why do you think I deserve an ounce of relief from this?!'

"Why the fuck is there to talk about?" his attitude and refusal to drop the subject like I had been trying to get him to do since Justin had left the shop infuriated me and I finally lost control over myself, only able to keep my voice to a reasonable level instead of screaming at him like I wanted to, "I broke up with him, case closed! We were two stubborn, completely different people and it wasn't working anymore, so I ended it before we butted heads too hard. What difference does it make how I felt about him or how I feel now?!"

There was a little voice in the back of my head screaming at me to shut up, to not admit these things out loud to anyone, but I couldn't stop myself.

"Because even if it's something that you chose to do," Solo said with a sad expression that I had never seen on him before, "it doesn't make it hurt any less. You have every right to feel heartbroken, Duo, because something that you loved didn't work out and you miss it. You're allowed to hurt and feel sad, too, not just him. Who initiated it really doesn't make much of a difference in how you feel about it."

His words made my heart bleed, but the pain was bittersweet. Bitter because I knew that he was wrong and what I had done to Heero had made my heartbreak over it a disgusting thing, certainly not something I had any right to feel, which only made that pain deeper for some reason. But sweet because I wanted to believe him. I wanted to cry and scream and drown in my grief without feeling guilty at the same time, like I was disrespecting Heero's pain with my own.

"And I don't think this is anything either of you wanted," Solo insisted, "I don't know all the details, obviously, but if it made you this upset, I think you jumped the gun a little. If you still love him-,"

Him saying that I had jumped the gun only echoed the thoughts that I had been having since last night, that this whole thing had been a terrible mistake, but I desperately clung to my reasons, reminding myself I hadn't just panicked and acted rashly. I had thought things out and this had seemed the most logical thing to do for Heero's sake. I still believed in that, but seeing Heero so sad and depressed that week had cracked my resolve and I could feel that belief getting weaker and weaker. The problem was that I wasn't sure if that was really because of Heero, because what I was seeing was real and his pain hadn't been worth it after all, or if what I was seeing was just my own pain and I was making excuses again.

"How I feel about him has nothing to do with it," I murmured, more to myself than to Solo, "It's like you said, it's not about want, it's about need. Maybe I didn't want to breakup, but I needed to."

"Why?" Solo pressed and I forgot the plot for a moment, forgot that I was supposed to be telling him that I didn't want to talk about this and clamming up, not responding to his questions.

"I already said," I said pissily, "We're too different, we can never mesh. It was stupid of the both of us to think we could make it work."

"So what if you are?" he argued stubbornly, "Being with someone that's different from you isn't a death sentence. You seemed pretty damned happy the few times you would talk about him, so clearly something was going right."

"Come on, Solo," I said in exasperation, unable to censor myself, "what the hell can someone like me offer someone like him? He not only comes from a pretty well-off family, but a respected one. His parents are a damned awarded therapist and a school teacher. He's a VIP baseball player with talent that anyone at my school would kill to have. He could probably get drafted wherever he fucking wants as soon as he graduates! Hell, in a year he's going to college, probably out of state, and he won't even have to worry about scholarships or student loans to get in."

"Long distance relationships can work, Duo," he said, but the sad, subdued way he said it told me that he understood completely. It clearly bothered him for some reason, making me wonder if he was pitying me, but he knew just as well as I did how mismatched Heero and I were, "They take a lot of effort, but if you love the person and it's worth it, you can make it work."

"And then what?" I demanded, "It would take me a decade just to afford a single year at a trade school, doing who the hell knows what. I can't get scholarships, and financial aid is just a massive loan trap that I would be paying off for the rest of my life. I'll be too busy working full time just to afford some crappy apartment to go to school anyway. And if I get through those four years while he's off at college and we somehow don't drift apart or he finds someone at school he likes that's actually his equal, then what's next? I ask him to come back to Nausten to live with me? He hates this town now, what about when he graduates college and realizes how many opportunities he has and how small and dead this town really is? You really think he's going to stick around? He already had to pay for everything when we together. Our meals, going to the movies, my damn bus fare, and I can never pay him back! What kind of relationship is that when one person has to completely lean on the other? There's absolutely nothing I can give him, Solo. He might not mind that now, but we've only been together for a little over a month. It's just a matter of time before what little we do have isn't enough for him. He doesn't deserve me stringing him along. He… he's a good guy, Solo," my voice cracked and I struggled to not cry, resenting my friend a little for not dropping it, for pecking at me like some relentless bird at a carcass, and resenting myself even more for not being able to keep my big mouth shut, "He's smart and he's kind and he deserves more than I could ever give him. You're right, I do love him, so how can I do that to him just because I'm selfish?"

I rested my forehead in my hand as I felt my headache build up to a strong and steady throb. I couldn't believe that I had said all of that, that I had come as close as I ever had to confessing what I had been struggling with for so long, what had really happened between Heero and me. I was horrified that Solo had managed to get all that out of me, feeling like I was losing all control over myself and what scared me was the idea that my tiredness had nothing to do at all with my loose tongue. Oddly, being able to rant at my coworker for a little bit did make me feel a tiny bit… I wouldn't say better, but lighter? Less bogged down by everything? Kind of like loosening a pressure valve. The pressure was still high, but I felt like I could breathe a little better, enough that the panic that had been slowly rising in my chest since I had heard Justin's voice had ebbed to a less insane level.

I guess Solo had been kind of right. Maybe I had needed to get at least a little off my chest. Or maybe it was just being able to talk to someone about Heero, someone that understood what he had really meant to me and to admit to one, single person that I hadn't wanted to do it, but I had still needed to. I could never tell him everything, but this was the closest I had gotten to the truth in this whole mess. But at the same time, admitting to it out loud brought all sorts of nasty things to the surface that I couldn't bear to think about, so I wasn't really sure it had helped much in the end.

"Please, Solo," I pleaded without looking at him still and fearing that I was just wasting my breath like all the other times I had told him to drop it, "please, I don't want to talk about it anymore."

I almost added 'if you really consider me to be your friend, please don't ask me about him anymore. Even if you don't, if you give any kind of shit about me at all, just leave it alone,' but that would have sounded grossly pathetic.

"Sure, kiddo," he said kindly to my surprise, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pester you about it."

I felt a pang of guilt as I realized from his tone that I had done something or said something that had worried him, which pulled the rug out from under me for what felt like the billionth time since I had heard him talking to Justin. Solo isn't a worrier, and even when something does worry him, he doesn't leave it out for the world to see it. He'll tell you if you're being stupid or done something to piss him off, but he won't come out and say 'you're worrying me' or 'I'm concerned about you.' But how quickly he had become contrite about just pushing me to answer his questions and the softness of his tone, while subtle to most people, were like glaring red flags to me. I shouldn't have said a word to him, I realized, and not just because I felt bad about being so messed up that I was worrying him. But I also didn't like people, even someone that I was close to like Solo, knowing what was really going on with me, both the depression I was feeling and the mistakes I had made.

Actually, it felt even worse that it was someone that I looked up to and was friends with knowing about it. It was easier keeping everyone at arm's length. Blabbing all that shit to him made me feel vulnerable. Oddly, even more vulnerable than when I had told Zechs about the breakup. Because as much as Zechs had hurt me that afternoon, watching Heero these last few days, running into him seemingly everywhere, and now almost being confronted by his father had taught me that it was the people that I cared about and claimed to care about me that could hurt me the most. The two of us fell into a silence that was very awkward, but not painful at least. I was embarrassed as hell and hurting and trying not to think about it, staring at my textbook without reading a single thing in it, and I think he felt a bit embarrassed and guilty, having done the social equivalent of stubbing his toe on a corner he should have seen a mile away, having blundered into something that he obviously had thought would have helped me, only to realize just how deep and dark that hole was.

I think he had been thinking that I had had some kind of misunderstanding with Heero or we had had some big fight and I just needed to vent or it was something he could help me fix, not that it was something that no one could and I was just going to have to live with that chasm in my chest. I think that was what had prompted his immediate surrender, the frustration of knowing there really wasn't a single thing he could do to help me through this and might have even made me feel worse by constantly poking at the wound. I didn't like knowing that I had made him feel that way when he was just trying to be nice and pay me back for the times I had helped him, but at the same time, I hoped this meant he wouldn't shake the beehive anymore.

After a few minutes of quiet, our waitress finally returned with Solo's food and my drink. I had to wonder about that, why it had taken her so long to put together a sandwich and worried that she had overheard us, but she had her usual beaming smile as she gave Solo his sandwich. I saw that there were fries loaded on the plate, which gave the wait time some credence and I relaxed. She put a steaming, large cup of coffee by me and I saw that she really had requested they put a lot cream on it, it was heaped with the stuff. But then she put a second plate down in front of me, also loaded with fries and a sandwich, and I just stared at it perplexed, not even getting the chance to tell her she had made a mistake before Solo thanked her and she bustled off again.

"What is this?" I asked rather stupidly, even though all I had to do was notice Solo's complete non-reaction to the extra sandwich to know that it wasn't an error. I felt embarrassed again as I realized that I had been in such a daze, I hadn't paid any attention to what Solo had ordered.

"I believe that would be a sandwich," he said flatly, taking a bite of his own.

"Ok, and why is it here?" I demanded in a slightly irritated tone instead of my usual teasing.

"To be eaten," he said simply, popping a fry into his mouth and taking a sip of the soda he had ordered.

His nonchalant attitude made me bristle, but I recognized my irritation as mostly a product of my tiredness and bit down on the dozen bitchy things that I wanted to say.

"I said I wasn't hungry," I insisted.

"Then don't eat it," he said cheekily.

"Solo-," I started to argue.

I hate when he pulls shit like that, just does whatever he wants and doesn't bloody listen to the person he's doing it to, even as a part of me, buried so deep down that the feeling completely blindsided me, thought that it was kind of nice, just having someone that cared enough about me to not listen or care about my more… let's say self-neglectful side and force me to eat or sleep, no matter what I said about it. It was the sort of thing that Heero or his parents would do, had done, dozens of times. Packing me lunches, getting me to take a nap, slipping me bus fare while I protested all of it, while secretly kind of liking the fussing because I had never experienced what it was like to have someone do that for you.

But that only reminded me that I would never hear Heero gently urge me to lie down, would never have Justin demand that I take the bus because it was too cold and dark for me to be walking around or remind to eat even if I didn't feel like it, would never have Mariela ask me if I was alright whenever my father had hit me, would never accept another handmade lunch from her or feel one of her hugs when she somehow knew I was upset. Solo and my mom were all I had now. And Justin's voice in my head, which was quickly becoming less and less comforting and more of a poisoned splinter. Just like his presence that afternoon. Comforting until I remembered that he was mad at me, disappointed at me, and the happiness I had always felt being around him and saying hi to him after a long day at school or home was never going to be something I would ever experience again, even from my memories. My depression hit me like a damned truck then between my words, this constant weight on me that was just getting heavier and heavier.

"You look peaked as hell," he interrupted me without missing a beat, "and I didn't see you put anything in the fridge today, so I'm betting you didn't bring anything to eat for either shift or have any money on you to buy something to eat. It's going to be a long ass night and you look shaky enough as it is, so just eat the damned thing."

I frowned down at my unwanted meal, not refuting or confirming that I hadn't brought anything with me to work to eat or that I felt shaky or that I knew he was right, I needed something in me if I was going to get through the rest of the night. I took a bite of the sandwich, telling myself that it wasn't because of that hidden, warm feeling or because I couldn't really remember the last time I had eaten at that particular moment, but because Solo had paid for it and I hated food going to waste. For the life of me, I still can't tell you what the sandwich had been. I vaguely remember sweet onions, toasted bread, lettuce, bacon, some kind of meat and condiments, but even when eating it, I barely tasted it or paid much attention to it, just going through the mechanical motions of eating while I tried to focus on my homework and not anything Solo had riled up.

My coffee was another story. I had never had a moccacino in my life and despite my sleeping issues and frequent need for caffeine, I very rarely drink espresso. I've had mocha before, though, and figured that it was pretty much the same thing, just stronger, which turned out to be the case, from both the coffee and the chocolate. It was rich and creamy and, while it was probably just a psychosomatic response, the taste of the chocolate already took a bit of the bite off my headache. It also felt good, down where all notions of comfort food are, to be drinking something almost searing hot on that cold, wet, miserable evening. It felt like the first time I had really appreciated and noticed something that I was eating or drinking in days. It would end up being the last time, so as awkward as that lunch had been, I'm glad that I had gone with him, if not for having someone fuss over me again, then certainly for having a sliver of a moment where I had felt like myself again, even if it was to drink a damned coffee.

And no, I'm not a complete moron. I knew that the amount of caffeine I was ingesting was going to come back to haunt me in some manner and I also knew the very first thing I was going to do when I got home was pop one of my mom's pain pills and lie down with a hot washcloth for my head. I just hoped that the buzz wouldn't keep me up all night, but I was in a state of tiredness where thinking too far ahead just wasn't possible. All that mattered was I was dragging and only halfway through my first shift. Getting through my second, in whatever way I could, was the only consideration in my aching head.

Solo paid when we were done, leaving as decent of a tip as he could afford, then we went back out into the pouring rain. All in all, it had been a very strange and not very pleasant lunch break. As we got closer to the shop, my chest tightened in trepidation, but it took me until we got to the parking lot to pin down that what was scaring me was the fear that Justin would be waiting for us, having come back for round two. I didn't see his car, but I couldn't shake that anxiety until I was in the shop and saw that it was empty of anyone that didn't work there.

The rest of my first shift was painfully, agonizingly slow and I had this dread that it was only a prelude for the long night I was going to have. The rain, instead of easing off, only came down harder once everyone was back from their break, and we could all hear a few cracks of thunder here and there, so Leneski declared that he wasn't going to send us back out for the rest of the night and stuck everyone on clerical and clean up duties. I got put on paperwork, which should have been nice, giving my hands a much needed rest from wielding a paint brush, but the monotony only made that stretch of time seem to triple and by the time I got to leave, I felt completely exhausted and drained.

I wonder why that is, why busywork and just sitting still, staring at the same thing over and over again can make you feel more tired than running a gauntlet for the same amount of time. Apparently it's a thing that people with office jobs face all the time, that slog of frozen time and tiredness at the end of the day. Sure, construction work can be taxing, but the physical labor always makes the day go lightning quick for me, even if it's just a painting job, which I have been told is the most boring job there is and even Solo is amazed that it isn't something that gets to me like it does most of the other guys.

The second shift wasn't any better, just missing that weird, painful heart to heart halfway through and people that made my heart break showing up asking for me. Otherwise, it was as exhausting and felt about five times as long as the first one had been. The rain continued until about one in the morning, so the end of my shift at Leneski's saw me under Solo's umbrella again. At least he had the money to pay for a bus trip for the both of us, so we didn't have to trudged through puddles again. The gutters were starting to overflow and those puddles had turned into mini-lakes since lunch. At least the thunder had subsided.

I didn't tell Lorathe about the whole hands thing as I clocked in. In retrospect, I probably should have. Holding a paintbrush is one thing, but lugging around heavy boxes with my screwed up hands and wrist was a disaster waiting to happen, both for me and the cargo. I actually kept my mouth shut not because of the whole sleep deprivation thing, although the difficulty I was having straying off the path of routine was certainly becoming a thing, I just didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want to have to go through that whole song and dance with him of calmly explaining to him that I was in too much pain and too hindered for it to be a good idea to move cargo. He would throw a temper tantrum, I would show him my hands as proof that I wasn't just trying to get out of physical labor, he would swear and scream and call me all manner of abusive names only to fold and agree to give me paperwork, bitching about it the whole time. And I didn't want to be trapped in an office with the prick for the rest of the night.

Solo caught the fact that I was going to be working the line with him and obviously thought I was being a massive moron, but miraculously didn't say anything about it to me or our boss. I think he might have if it were Leneski, but he had the same policy that we all did with Lorathe: do not speak to or interact with in any way unless absolutely necessary. And Lorathe wouldn't agree to send me home anyway unless I broke something. It turned out not to be too awful for me, though. Two of the big shipments that would have taken up most of the night just to get through half of them were delayed thanks to the heavy rain and the one that had come in earlier that day was fairly light, at least weight wise if not in volume. Solo could easily lift the boxes on his own, so he negotiated with me to do the lifting and I could do the inventory, something that he hates because he finds it tedious, and he isn't wrong.

I gave one feeble protest. I don't like being coddled and moving the shipment was going take longer with only one person unloading and moving the stuff, but he pointed out that it would take just as long as if I did help because my hands were still so stiff and swollen and he would have to babysit me to make sure I wasn't overdoing things and hurting myself worse. And if my guilt about that wasn't enough, the look on his face told me that there was just no arguing with him about it. I acquiesced and didn't tell him that a large part of my easy surrender wasn't because he was right, I was just too tired to care.

It was clearly a good decision because after hours of filling out inventory forms and moving the carts of boxes to their destination bays, my hands were absolutely killing me. I didn't want to think about the kind of pain I would have been in if I had tried to lift anything, no matter how light it was. My dinner break was a lot more laid back than my lunch one had been. Solo didn't nag me to eat anything or ask me any uncomfortable, probing questions. He just let me be to do my homework in peace while he read a magazine and ate some canned soup. I didn't even feel the need to grab some coffee from the machine in the break room, whether he had been there or not. Usually I could trust him not to nag me about something like that, but after his weird behavior that afternoon, I was sure he would say something about adding more caffeine to the ridiculous amount I had ingested just a few hours ago.

I had to admit that I was feeling… kind of jittery. I can't say full of energy because, even with all that caffeine in me, I still felt tired as hell, I just wasn't dragging quite as much as I had been. But I knew the warning signs of caffeine OD in the twitchy way I was feeling and how fast my heartbeat was and I also knew that drinking more of the stuff wasn't going to make me feel any better. The only thing that would was some sleep and, nightmares or not, I couldn't afford to go another sleepless night. I didn't even care about that feeling of exhaustion or becoming hyper emotional (any more than I already was) or losing time like before. Honestly, losing a day or two would be a blessing. What scared the hell out of me was losing control over myself and saying something or doing something stupid. There were so many things locked away in my heart that I couldn't let out, so many things I had to keep that iron control over and the thought that I could blurt any of them out to anyone was terrifying. Like telling Heero that I still loved him. Or any of the real reasons why I had broken up with him. The last time I had been this tired and hadn't had my best friend looking out for me, I had confessed to being gay and attracted to Heero to Dorothy of all people. It's a downright miracle that I didn't tell Heero that my father was raping me that last time when I hadn't slept in over a week.

I wasn't at that state yet, thankfully, but things were getting a bit… dicey. A couple hours every other night was really not cutting it. I could either learn to live with the nightmares and restlessness or take a pretty a massive risk.

'Or there's option C,' I thought.

It's funny, I hadn't really thought much about that since I had gotten to work that day. The whole suicide thing. I certainly had more than enough reasons to by the time I had left Leneski's, and more reasons to do it added to the rather tall stack. I'm honestly not sure why it hadn't consumed my thoughts all through my second shift, it had been weighing on them pretty heavily on the walk to Leneski's. Emotional shock? Exhaustion? Stress? I'm not sure. It would take the whole sleeping issue out of my hands, that was certain. And I wouldn't have to face something that I had been trying very hard not to think about at all: if Justin was going to come around my work again. He knew which factory I worked at, too, so there wasn't any place I was safe for him if he decided to try his luck again. It was one of those pesky 'I can't do shit about this' problems that have seemed to overwhelm my life lately.

Only there was one thing I could do, wasn't there? My thoughts drifted back to what I had been considering before work, all those options. I saw myself go home after work and creeping into my father's room like I had that one time. Opening the drawer of the bedside table on the side of the bed he slept on, since I couldn't call it his side of the bed anymore with my mother refusing to sleep next to him. I don't know much about guns, but I knew where the safety was, if he even bothered to have it on, and I knew how to pull the trigger. I was even pretty sure it was loaded and if not, I would figure out that hurdle when I came to it. If it was, it was just a matter of the when and where, wasn't it? Actually, I supposed it didn't matter where or when I did it. That was the whole point of going for the gun instead of something sharp again, so there wouldn't be any pesky 'afters' this time. No need to worry about anyone finding me and bringing me to the hospital with my brains all over the wall.

It was a lot easier than cutting myself or any other way I had thought of so far. In a way, it was kind of disturbing, how easy it was to erase your entire life and existence with the right tool. I thought maybe something like that, something that made it so easy really shouldn't exist. I remembered last time so sharply for a moment, lying there on the icy bathroom floor, my blood and what I had thought was my life draining out of me. I remembered sitting there, numb and empty and feeling completely detached from myself as I raked that blade over my left wrist first. I had just meant to test it, just do it lightly to see how much it would hurt, but-

Across the table from me, Solo put his magazine down and stretched his arms over his head, giving a little wince as his spine cracked and I nearly recoiled from him. I had forgotten that he had even been there for a moment as I had been considering… well, something that, if he could read my thoughts, he probably would have slapped me for. I went back to my homework feeling guilty. Which was probably stupid, no one knew my thoughts but me, but thinking about blowing my brains out just a couple feet away from my friend and coworker felt a little bit gross. And when I tried to grasp the trails of those thoughts again, I found them illusive.

I tried to think about my father's gun, about the solace that thought had been giving me since that afternoon, about the peace it could hold if I did it right, about all the fears and pain I could finally escape for the first time in my long seventeen years of life, but I couldn't. When I got remotely close to it, another emerged: what would Solo think? Not just that I was thinking about killing myself, but what if I went through with it? What would he think when he heard about it? Would he think it was his fault? That might sound ridiculous, but come on. He had poked at some deep wounds that evening and he knew it. If I went home and offed myself, would he wonder if it was partially because he hadn't left me alone, just let me have a moment of denial or would he just realize I had been in more pain than he had seen and wonder if he should have done more to stop it, if my blood was on his hands for not recognizing some invisible sign?

That thought made me feel violently ill. I know what it's like for someone you care about to kill themselves and constantly wonder 'was it my fault? Was I not attentive enough? Was I not supportive enough? Could I have stopped him?' I didn't know if Solo would think those things or if he would just accept that I had clearly had more going on in my life than he had seen in the few hours a day we spend together. What I did know was the prospect of taking a bullet to the head after this man had tried to help me, had tried to reach out to me and bought me lunch and forgiven me for my pissy attitude felt… felt crass. I'm not saying that I suddenly didn't want to kill myself because I had a friend back, or that I felt indebted to him to stick around just because he had fed me and listened to me rant.

The desire was still there, that need to let go of everything and run from all the horror that my life has become. But it felt too gross to do it that night, to let him wonder. It got too close to what I had felt after Quatre had died. I didn't want anyone to go through what I had. Solo and I weren't that close, and it wasn't like I was contemplating killing myself right in front of him, but it was still too close. I could wait. A few days while he forgot about the breakup and forgot about his worry if I could just slap on the mask again, act normal and like I was getting over things. A few days was nothing. I had all the time in the world to set his mind at ease.

The rest of the night passed like grains of sand through a pinhole. My caffeine high finally eased off about an hour after our dinner break and I entered into that nebulous in between of buzzed and crashing where you somehow feel both drained and restless, complete with a light buzzing my head, an aching tiredness, and a withdrawal headache on top of my stress one. I had to hunt down some pain medication as it got so bad that I was seriously wishing I could just screw off my head so I could get some relief. I didn't know which thing to attribute the nasty swimmy sensation to. By the time we were done to cutting up the empty shipment boxes to toss have them bound for recycling, I was swaying on my feet. Breaking up the boxes was a lot less taxing than moving them when they had been full, but it still busted up my hands, making the scabs break and ooze a little, but I was so muzzy-headed that I barely noticed the pain, or when I cut a couple of fingers a few times, my hands clumsy with the box cutter. The cuts weren't any big deal, no worse than the damage I had already done to myself. All the cutters we use are safety blades, it's impossible to extend the blades far enough to cut deeply and you can't even get the blades out of the cutter unless you have a screwdriver, so they weren't anything more to me than an extra annoyance. Solo didn't even notice my little accidents this time.

He offered to pay for my bus fare home. At first I thought it was because he still felt guilty about lunch, but he told me that I looked like complete shit and didn't want to find out the next day that I had keeled over in a gutter or something in his typical blunt manner. I waved him off, mumbling something about wanting the fresh air. The rainstorm had since stopped and, besides the remaining puddles, the night was fairly nice out, so he shrugged and let me go. He looked like there was something else he wanted to say to me as he parted at the front of the factory gate, but I quickly turned, pretending that I hadn't seen it, and walked in the direction of home while he walked to his apartment. I hoped that, whatever it had been, he would forget about it by the next time we saw each other because I was a hundred percent certain it wasn't anything that I wanted to hear.

I trudged back home in an exhausted fog, not really paying attention to my surroundings, even when I waded through pools of water deeper than my ankle, completely soaking my socks through and the bottoms of my jeans. It's a good thing I had finished my homework back when I had had the energy, because I really don't think I would have been able to when I got home. Well, finished as well as I could. I didn't have anything to hand in for short stories and I was sure my calculus assignment was less than stellar, but I just didn't care. It was as done as it was ever going to be and I was going to go home and go to bed. Whether I was going to manage to sleep was still unclear, but god, I hoped so.

'Just one night,' I thought through the fog, 'Just one night without the nightmares. Just one night.'

It's a wonder I made it home at all in the condition I was in, crashing, my head in utter agony, my body just going through the motions more than I was actually thinking about where I was going. Solo's joke that I might lie down in a gutter wasn't that far off.

I didn't feel anything close to relief when I finally saw my house, or the suspicious fact that my father's car was missing at two in the morning. I hoped for sleep, but all it would give me was some relief from my physical tiredness. The tiredness I felt in my heart wasn't going anywhere, and even if I slept from the second my head hit the pillow to right before school, it wasn't going to still my chittering thoughts or quell the depression or soothe the guilt. It wasn't going to bring Heero back or me any clarity. It wasn't going to stop Justin and Mariela from hating me. I could sleep as much as I wanted, but as soon as I woke up, everything would be shit again. Seeing my house and knowing that my long day was at an end was just another part of the routine. Soon enough, it would start all over again. Another day filled with everything that I had just gone through, maybe even some new surprises for me, and I didn't want to live through any of it. I was thoroughly done and no amount of peaceful sleep was going to cure that.

As usual, my neighbor's spotlight flashed on as I passed his house and his dogs immediately started in, barking and snapping at me like I was their mortal enemy, even though I went out of my way to not look at them or give them any kind of attention. I wondered if they would ever get sick of it or if behind all that angry snarling, they sadistically liked scaring and lashing out at anyone that dared to pass into their domain. The barking made my head explode and I felt a bit of that anger myself, considering if they would finally shut the fuck up if I kicked the fence or threw a rock at them. But those were my father's thoughts and they sickened me. Besides, annoying or not, they were just animals doing what came naturally to them. All it took to banish the urge was imagining doing the same thing to Kanuck, of those big, sweet eyes looking up at me with complete trust and adoration, only to rewarded with a swift kick or punch. But that just reminded me that it was nothing more than I had done to his owner and that sickness grew heavy in my stomach. It was pretty safe to say that I wasn't going to be eating anything before bed that night.

I made it across my side of the street away from the mongrels up to our driveway, the pain escalating from the racket across the street making my vision go a little wonky, kind of like that swimmy feeling in my skull, and it was that pain that made the trash can sitting oh so innocently by our mailbox completely blindside me. Like my suicidal urges, it was something that I, strangely, hadn't put much thought to through my day. My little mental breakdown and what I had put in that trashcan. What was still sitting in there, waiting to be disposed of like the bits of food my father scraped into the trash bin at the end of dinner, grease and newspapers because he was too lazy to recycle, coffee grounds and all the other leavings you accumulate every day. I suppose that's as good a word as any for the vomit of words I had etched out on paper from my head and my heart. My leavings. I hadn't thought of it, that I was throwing out over a decade's worth of... hell, let's just say it huh? Myself. That was what I was throwing away. Bits and pieces of my heart, my creativity, my memory, my emotions. Garbage though it was, it was still mine. A product of a whole lot of years of hard work and waking dreams. Things I had loved once. Stories I had been building my entire life, neatly laid out as well as I could craft. All pointless and gone with now. I'm still not sure why I hadn't agonized over it that day, simply out of some survival instinct, or because I hadn't wanted to waver on this decision. Or maybe I had just hit my limit in there somewhere on pain.

I actually flinched from that stupid trash bin when it came into view, so unprepared for it. A stupid, childish reaction, like suddenly seeing a monster looming in your peripheral view. Ironically, if I had been in my right mind, I might have frozen and spent hours out there, dithering over what I had done. Tortured and berated myself both for throwing the dumb writings out and ever having written them in the first place. But I was so tired and not in any kind of state to be going over my bleeding wounds with a microscope like I always do. I lurched away from it towards my house, my mind throwing up all these thoughts and images in psychotic bursts to keep me occupied like a bored child. My father wasn't home, which, at that hour, meant he was out drinking with Pat. But at two in the morning on a work night, really? Was he nuts? Not like that was anything new or surprising, but his continuing lack of common sense was still worrying. At least I wouldn't have to deal with him for a while longer. Was Mom home? Should I make dinner for her or had she already eaten? The house looked dark so maybe she had gone to bed. I wondered if I could have the couch or if I should save it for her when my dad came home-

I jerked myself out of my gibbering, blabbering thoughts long enough to pull my key ring out of my jacket pocket, but my hands were trembling too much and my fingers were too swollen and I dropped them on the ground. So fucking stupid. I swore at myself under my breath, feeling crazed and incompetent for having a very obvious panic attack over a freaking trash bin of all things. I bent down to pick it up, my head enraged that I was moving so much but I ignored the wave of dizziness that, in my not altogether sane and there state, felt like some petty tantrum or revenge, and finally did that freezing thing. As the rather small collection of keys dangled from my fingers, something gleamed a brilliant silver among the other brass and tarnished house keys and locker keys and work keys in my neighbor's spotlight. It took me a disturbing minute or two to figure out what it was, the thing appearing alien even though I had been using it for months. It was the house key Justin had given me a lifetime ago, still looking freshly cut and pretty compared to the others, the veritable swan among a gaggle of ducks. Dazed, I let it rest in the palm of my hand like the precious thing that it was... had been... still was, I guessed, even if it was now relegated to a relic instead of the key, both literal and figurative, that it had once been. The metal was like ice against my skin, the edges sharper than the other keys that had all dulled from frequent use.

Now there was something rather hilarious in a very bitter and twisted way. I had spent the last few days doing everything I could to steer myself, both in a physical and emotional sense, away from anything that could remind me of Heero. I had tried to keep my thoughts focused on other things, even if that other thing was nothing at all. I had done my best to not even look at him or cross his path, even if I had failed a few times. I had disabled my phone. I had thrown away my memories of him in a very real, tangible way. I was even considering giving away my CDs and player, or at least never pulling them out again if I could fight that temptation. I wasn't going to go back to the beach or the library. I had thought that I was on the right path, that I was doing the right things and making strides to do what I had set out to do in the first place: to erase the stink of me from Heero's life and guard myself from the ghosts he had left behind in mine. And all that time, that key had been right in my pocket, right in fingers' reach for me to caress and hold and remember all the times I had used it. Holding it now, if I let my mind clear, I could remember that day in Justin's office, the very first time I had been there. I could remember how nervous I had been in his personal space, how bumbling. I could remember his accepting smile as he had held his hand out to me to give me that key. And I could remember what he had said.

"You are always welcome-"

I suddenly squeezed my hand around the key, almost like a reflexive spasm. The teeth cut into my skin and that small but sharp pain woke me up a little, banishing the beautiful, sweet memory that had since turned sour and mutilated, that feeling of biting pain in the palm of my hand an echo from that same memory. I had forgotten all about it. How stupid of me. How utterly silly. It was no wonder Justin kept trying to get into contact with me. It was no different than if I had forgotten to return one of my library books. What an absolute fool I was, walking around with something that didn't even belong to me. It was even on my personal keyring. I felt like a thief. But that was one problem that was easily remedied. I slipped my keys back into my pocket and walked back down the driveway to the street and continued north, my resolve letting me walk with a stronger, surer gait and my exhaustion a little less heavy.

I don't really remember that walk. I don't know if it's because I had some kind of time lapse, more from my near temporary insanity than my tiredness, or if it's because I don't want to. I only remember walking away from my house and thinking about how cold it was and how I shouldn't take too long on my errand or I wasn't going to get any sleep again. Then, the next thing I realized when my awareness came back was that I was standing in front of Heero's house in the dark, cool solitude of early morning. A spike of fear jolted me to reality and I had a scary moment when I was so sure that I was dreaming. The sight of that house, the home and sanctuary that I had been craving like a man in the desert craves a glass of ice water, both didn't seem real at all, more like something I had pulled from my self-conscious, and startlingly there, like suddenly realizing that the boogieman standing in the shadows of your room is very real. In that moment, if I had had the energy for it, I would have panicked, scared that someone was going to see me. Justin would see me through one of the front windows or Kanuck would bark, or maybe one of the neighbors would spot me and report me back to the Yuys like one would a thwarted burglar. Only I wasn't stealing anything, I was returning something I had stolen.

Besides, there wasn't anyone crazy enough to be awake at that hour of the morning on that street besides me. Everyone that lived there had nice 9-5 jobs that didn't see them working until the small hours of the morning. All Heero's neighbors were probably in bed, deep asleep, like I should have been instead of standing in front of a house that I wasn't welcome at anymore. Justin would be dead asleep, too. And even if one of the neighbors did see me, they might not think anything about it. They had seen me coming and going enough to be familiar with me, even if we didn't talk much, nothing more than a friendly wave in passing. But even knowing that there weren't likely any eyes on me, being there felt wrong, like I was thinking of vandalizing the place.

'I don't belong here,' I thought and felt a deep, piercing pain at the truth of it.

I didn't belong there anymore. If I went inside, I would be an intruder. If that key even worked anymore. I didn't think Justin would have had the chance to change the lock in a few days, although it really depended on how he felt about me and if he thought I was going to come back there, didn't it? It was a theory I didn't have the backbone to test, because if the key didn't work, that a meant that Justin thought any number of unflattering and unsavory things about me, and it would only confirm that he really didn't want even the possibility of me coming around. If I went to that door, I already knew that it would be locked because there was no one to welcome home. The front light would be as dark as my own home had been-

Only that wasn't quite right. I frowned as I looked at the house, trying to memorize as much as I could because I had decided that it would be the last time I would see the place, trying to create a perfect photograph in my mind of the only place I had ever felt safe, had ever felt was my home, from the ivy covered lattice to smooth, oval stones of the pathway, and realized that something was out of place. Justin had forgotten to turn the front light off. If I let myself, if I squinted at it just the right way, I hadn't come here to... to do what I had come here to do. If I tried hard enough, I could make myself believe that it was a week, two weeks ago and I was just coming home from a long, hard day of school and work. I could walk up that lit walkway to the front door, use my key and go upstairs. I could quickly dress into the night clothes that might still be there if they hadn't gotten around to tossing my stuff yet. I could brush my teeth, get a drink of cool, clean water. And I could slip in Heero's bed, warmed from his body, and feel those arms wrap around me... Just another, normal night. I could sleep, really sleep. And when I woke up for school in the morning, I could make some omelets for the two of us, and then we could walk together to school just like always.

When I swept over the front porch, I could see him there, sitting in the porch swing, like before. I remembered him waiting up for me and the fear I had had of him making himself vulnerable, but then he had noticed me standing on the pathway of his house and that sleepy look on his face had melted into this brilliant, happy smile just to see me. That one smile had washed away all the shit of my bad day and I had felt that intense love for him, that he had not just stayed up waiting for me to come home from work, but had wanted to meet me out there. The memory made me feel stricken for more reasons than I can name, but it was so powerful, so complete and crystal perfect in my head that I really could see him there, like he was a tangible thing in my reality. Like if I reached for him, I could touch him. I saw him there, waiting for me to come back, waiting for me to come home. And I knew as an absolute fact that if I took a few steps more down that pathway, his eyes would find me and he would smile and he would say "you're home."

I jerked back towards the mailbox, fear and horror bursting in my chest, unable to take my eyes off that porch swing. But it was only for a moment, and the second I stepped off the pathway and back onto the sidewalk, the image dispersed like so much vapor. There was no one there. Just an empty porch swing, lit by the front light, but still empty and I knew that if I sat down on it, it would be ice cold. Or maybe my broken mind would make me feel lingering warmth, like someone had been sitting out there for hours and had only just left it. I'm not sure which was be more terrible. It took me a long time to get myself back under control enough to breathe normally and take some very shaky steps towards the mailbox.

I hadn't come here for a trip down memory lane, I reminded myself harshly. I hadn't come here to torture myself or remember or lie to myself that everything was fine and like it used to be. The only thing that would happen if I walked into that house was Justin throwing me out or a screaming fight with Heero. All those things only existed in my head and they were lost to time, just like the love that had made Heero smile so sweetly at me. I could live in my head all I wanted, could live in that blissful fantasy of the past, but it didn't change what the world really was. My hands shaking and telling myself that it was from the cold, I put my backpack on the ground so I could rummage through it for everything that I would need for the chore that I had gone there to do in the first place. A pen, a scrap of paper, and the bank envelope that I kept my money in after I cashed my paychecks to give to my father. It was the only reason I had a bank account at all, so I could cash the things without having to pay the surcharge that grocery stores took for the service, there hadn't been a since cent in it since after my father had opened it.

With my meager bounty in one hand, I struggled with my keyring. My fingers stubbornly refused to listen to me between the cold and the swelling and I almost dropped the damned things a dozen times, but after a few minutes, I finally managed to get the silver housekey off the ring. It lay, cold and lonesome, in the palm of my hand, so tiny and common looking for something that had ripped my heart to shreds. I slipped it inside the envelope, but even though it was out of sight and off my keyring and no longer my problem, it didn't bring me any relief. I put the envelope in my jacket pocket, needing my hands free for this next part and used the top of the mailbox as the flattest surface I had and put the paper against it, the metal almost frozen and painful to touch. I stood there in the dark and cold for a good ten minutes before I could make myself uncap the pen and place the tip on the paper, some gibbering, scared part of myself screaming at me that all of this was stupid and I should just go back home and go to sleep and when I had gotten some rest and some sense, I could revisit this asinine idea and see if it wasn't completely insane after all. But I knew that it wasn't, just like I knew this was the right thing to do and it wasn't something that was going to vanish with a few hours of sleep, If it would let me sleep at all, so that voice was easy to ignore.

Shoring myself up, I had an after-thought, a rare moment of clarity that, if I had been writing one of my now dead stories and not this dreary chore, I would have called inspiration.

'Please take care of Pepper,' I wrote, struggling to make my handwriting legible with my fingers still shaking so much, 'Please don't abandon her because of me. She deserves a good home. If you don't want to keep her, please give her to someone that will take good care of her. There's a shelter that's run by Betsy Liddle that will take her if you can't find anyone.'

I paused, the words burning in my vision. It sounded so needy and pathetic that I almost crumpled up the paper and said the hell with it, but I couldn't think of another way to ask what I needed to. There were so many other things that I wanted to write, knowing that this would be the last time I would get to say anything that I wanted to the Yuys, but all of it sounded just as pathetic or worse. 'Please don't hate me.' 'Please understand that I didn't mean to hurt anyone.' 'Please tell Heero I didn't mean to break his heart.' I thought about begging them not to throw my things away and to bring my mother's locket back to her, but I already felt like scum for asking them to take care of my cat. After what I had done, I couldn't ask them for anymore favors and I was sure that they would figure out what the locket was as soon as they went through everything I had left behind. They knew my mom's name and Justin had talked to her before, so it would be easy for him to track her down to give it back. I thought about him not doing it with a heavy pang and wondered if I should just risk sneaking into the house to grab it. My mother might have given it to me, but I still considered it hers and it pained me to think that it might be lost, one of the only things she had to remember her mother by, all because I was spineless and stupid, but I knew Justin wasn't cruel enough to toss it.

I flipped the piece of paper over with disgust that wanted to cross off what I had written, but needed for them to do what I had asked too much to go through with it, just reminding myself that it wasn't for me, it was for Pepper. Making myself believe that she would still have a home wouldn't make me miss her any less powerfully, but it might help my guilt a little and, like I had written, she deserved better than I had done for her. Then I wrote what I had gone there to write in the first place on the other side of the paper.

'I'm sorry.'

My vision was suspiciously blurry as I slid the note into the envelope, sealed it as well as I could with my mouth as dry as it was, and put it in the mailbox, closing it tightly so the wind wouldn't whip it open.

There's this… hole in me. I've felt it since the moment I broke up with Heero. It's like a sink hole, one that's been getting deeper and wider little by little. When I walked away from the beach the previous day, and again when I walked away from the library, I had felt the earth give way and that hole had opened up even more. But when I closed the lid on that mailbox and walked away from the Yuys' home for the last time that night, I felt that hole open up like a fissure, turning that deep, empty and dark hole into a chasm. That emptiness and that I wasn't bawling like a baby like I should have been worried at me, but it was just as well. I didn't have anything left in me for another crying session and I supposed numb and empty was better than crawling off to some dark corner for another mental breakdown. It was probably only because of that emptiness that I had managed to go back there at all.

I put it to my back, that place and that family as well as my feelings and memories of all the other times I had gone there in the small hours of the morning. Happier times that were now just poison eating away at me. Instead, I let down the walls that I had been shoring up all day and, as I made the long walk back to the south end of town, I finally let myself look at everything that had happened that day, as clinically as I could manage it, instead of doing the mental equivalent of covering my ears and screaming whenever I had gone anywhere close to acknowledging those memories as soon as I had realized what I was doing. It had been the only way I had managed to get through my work shifts, and it probably wasn't a great idea, but I was too tired to care, even to protect myself anymore, so when the thoughts and memories bubbled to the surface, I let those walls crack and crumble apart. Compared to what I had just done, it really didn't matter.

It was that damn altercation during lunch with Zechs that weighed on my mind the most, although watching Heero not eat his lunch and then almost running into him at the library were close seconds. I had tortured myself through the day about what I had done to Heero and why he had felt the need to come to my aid again, but I hadn't done a lot of thinking about the alternative. What would have happened if he hadn't been there. What Zechs would have done to me if someone hadn't come along to stop him. Would he have eventually stopped and been appeased with just a bit of groping? Or would he have done more, not caring who saw us? Or even done what he had been threatening to do for weeks now and dragged me off to some abandoned classroom for some alone time together? And just how far would I have let him go before I would have felt the need to defend myself? Would I have at all?

I couldn't deny that the thought of him trying to rape me again scared me, deep down where that terrified child is in my head, but at the same time, I also felt this deep and pervasive apathy about it. I was sure that that memory of Zechs pinning me to the lockers and molesting me would haunt me for a very long time, but there was a very large part of me that didn't care what he did to me anymore, that felt that none of it mattered. That part of me was the same part that suggested that it might be better to just let him do what he wanted to get it over with. That seemed easier than this constant state of fear and tension and looking over my shoulder and jumping at every shadow. What was I safeguarding against anyway, it asked. It wasn't like I didn't know what it felt like to be raped.

And it wasn't like, if I tried to stop it, I wasn't going to be raped anyway. If not by Zechs, then certainly by my dad. So much effort, and for what? And really, didn't I deserve it just as much as when my dad fucked me? Even before I had broken Heero's heart and pushed him away, I had deserved it, so what was the point of fighting? It seemed so inevitable. Not that Zechs was going to get his way, although that certainly was. I had only managed to escape the other time because of Heero and Zechs was more than capable of overpowering me without getting his friends involved. But the whole scene itself was inevitable. Being raped. Being treated like a whore. It seemed like every connection I had with any man, it eventually went that way no matter what I did. Zechs, Trowa, my father. Even Pat had grabbed my ass more than once.

I know that's not true, and I know what a disservice I do to men like Heero and Justin and Solo by thinking those things, but that's what it felt like to me. Like no matter how I closed myself off from people, any time someone came into my life, that was all they could possibly want from me. I could run away from home and my father and Zechs, but it wouldn't matter. Rape, abuse, humiliation, being treated like a doll… it was all inevitable. Maybe there was just something about me that screamed 'trash'. Maybe there was some scent coming off me that told everyone that this was all I deserved, all that I was good for.

Maybe there really was just no point in fighting because you can't escape who you are. You can run from it, try to change, try to be someone else, but deep down, you know you'll never be anyone but you. My fear and pain were irrelevant. Hadn't I found that out when I had asked my father in tears to stop raping me and he had just laughed? Hadn't the universe made that abundantly clear when Trowa and Zechs had tried to rape me? Hadn't I learned my lesson yet when I had been given the one person who had treated me better, treated me like I was something special, something to be cherished and respected, only to have to throw him away like he was the garbage?

Those thoughts brought me low as I got to my house and was finally pulled out of them enough to realize that my father's car was still gone. Even more than before, with those thoughts of inevitability circling in my head like hungry vultures around a fresh kill, I felt no relief about that. I didn't think that I had been given a respite, that maybe my father wouldn't come home that night and might get some peace from him. He would be back and all of this, all of these moments when he wasn't there and I thought I could breathe wouldn't amount to anything at all. Just like everything else in my life.

I took my keys out of my pocket and fumbled with the lock on the front door. The weight of them felt… wrong. There was a moment of almost panic, that feeling of something missing or forgotten as even the glimmer of them was off, some vital thing gone from the background of ritual, like coming home and sensing that something wasn't right and it takes you a few minutes to realize that a picture that was always hanging on the wall is gone or something that's always where it was supposed to be has been moved, but you're so used to seeing these things in that background, in the corner of your eye, that you only instinctively feel that something is off… almost distorted before you properly notice what it is. I imagined that it was a feeling I was going to have every time I held my keyring for quite some time. I felt that empty hole give way just a little bit more.

I managed to get the door open and went inside to my dark house. My hands were so cold that I didn't really feel the pain and swelling in them, but my fingers were still awkward to use and I almost dropped my keys a couple times before I got them back into my jacket pocket. I flicked on the light and saw that my father really wasn't home, his work boots were missing by the door. My mother's weren't, however, and the fact that the bedroom door was closed and there was no one on the couch was all the proof I needed that he wasn't just having car trouble or something. I finally felt a tiny spark of relief as I thought about crashing on the couch instead of my bed, but it wasn't the weekend and the possibility that my father would eventually come home was too high. I didn't care if he did, but my mother would, and would be looking for somewhere else to sleep.

I was too tired to consider the possibility that she would sleep in my room or my father's chair or just suck it up and stay in the bedroom, my thought process just stopping on me stealing where she slept like the inconsiderate piece of shit I am and made for the stairs, my heart feeling heavy again. I had enough thought processing power left to pop one of my mother's painkillers for my headache, taking it dry because getting a glass of water was too much work. I didn't care about checking to see if the kitchen was a mess or if there was something small I could have for a quick dinner, either. I didn't care about anything but sleep. I hadn't dawdled that much at the Yuy's, but it was just a little before three in the morning and my time to rest was dwindling away. I needed to sleep while I could, especially with my father gone.

The bitterness of the pills gave me enough awareness to get up the stairs and dressed in my nightclothes without keeling over. I was so far gone by then that the feeling of my mattress and the imaginary smell that usually accompanies it now didn't even filter into my consciousness. I think I was even too tired to torture myself because, for the first time in what felt like weeks, I was asleep in minutes, barely enough time to pull my blankets up. My fear of sleeping, everything that had happened that day, the pain in my head and my hands, and even the knowledge that I was about to start the cycle all over again was all washed away in this haze of pure, weary exhaustion. If I had had the remaining brain cells for it, I would have cried with relief.

I wasn't, however, too tired to have a nightmare, apparently. With all that had happened and all that had been weighing on my mind, it wasn't surprising. What was surprising was that I didn't have that dream of Quatre again or something awful involving my father and Zechs. I suppose it's a bit messed up what was really tearing me apart, because the nightmare wasn't at school or the train platform or even the library. I dreamt that I was standing in front of Heero's house, just like I had that morning. Only this time, the light wasn't on and when I looked at the place that had once been the closest thing to a home I had ever had, I got the same feeling that I had had when using my keys in the real world. That feeling of something being off, something that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

The house was completely dark, which should have made sense given that it was so late, but it felt wrong to me. It took a few moments for my dream self to realize that it was wrong because it wasn't late. The sky overhead was a dreary grey, a sky just before a storm, but it wasn't night at all. That didn't mean that there was no reason for the house to be dark, but that darkness felt oddly unnatural. And when I walked up the path to the door and found it unlocked, that feeling of wrongness only strengthened. But I had this strange sensation that one can only feel in dreams that the door had been unlocked for me and that I needed to go inside.

I knew that the house was empty the second that I walked inside, strengthening that feeling of wrong. It was too quiet, too still, too dark, too cold, all things that that house has never been to me. Even when there's no one else there, I never felt like I did when I was alone at home, like I was in a tomb. Maybe it was just Kanuck's presence, or maybe it was some kind of aura that it exuded that only I could pick up on, but it had always felt warm and inviting there, the quiet comforting instead of stifling. But in my nightmare, the quiet was eerie and I somehow knew that I was the only one there. Even the dog and Pepper were gone. So I wasn't surprised when I opened the hall closet and found it empty, not just of the shoes and jackets that Heero and his parents might have taken if they had gone out somewhere, but completely empty. There wasn't even an umbrella or the basket full of winter wear.

I wanted to call out 'hello' to verify that I really was alone, but I knew it wasn't necessary and I was suddenly gripped with this fear of saying anything out loud, like I was walking through a crypt and if I dared to speak, all the caskets would open. The place made me feel uneasy and that feeling was enough without the knowledge that I was alone that the real, awake me would have promptly left. Dream me, however, walked further into the house. Everything was telling me that this was an empty, abandoned place, that the Yuys weren't just off on errands, but just gone. Moved on. Even in the dream, my heart bled and I felt stricken by the loss. It had finally happened, Heero had left me for real. He and his parents had moved, maybe back to Florida, maybe to somewhere else entirely, but they weren't here anymore. I had done this. I had driven them away. It wasn't just the missing clothes and shoes and that Kanuck wasn't there at the door to greet me. Other things were missing, too. There were no pictures on the walls. No vase of flowers on the hallway table. That light, floral smell was gone, too. In its place was this smell of nothingness.

As I went, I realized that all those feelings of something being off weren't just paranoia. The house wasn't just abandoned, it was wrong. Yes, some furniture and other fixtures were missing, but not all of them, not everything that they would have taken with them. In the living room, the television and a couple of the arm chairs were missing along with one couch, but the big one that was the pullout I had become acquainted with after my dad had tried to break my ass with that chair leg was still there along with Justin's recliner. A quick glance into the kitchen showed me that Mariela's mixer and the microwave were gone, but not the kitchen table or the whiteboard. What was missing and what was still there seemed completely haphazard, like they had grabbed things at random. It made no sense.

The missing and not missing belongings wasn't the disturbing thing, though. Like I said, it wasn't that the house was vacant, but that it was wrong. There were little things here and there that were off, and a few big things as well, like the remaining couch being green instead of blue and the doorway to the kitchen being slightly… crooked. The windows looking out onto the back patio were yellowed, stained glass the same disturbing color of the yellowed walls of my kitchen except that was from age instead of design. It reminded me of the version of Hansel and Gretel that my father had read to me when I had been very little. How perfect and fanciful the outside of the gingerbread house had looked, but when the siblings had gone inside, things were crooked and out of place, the same sweets looking almost threatening because what was the point of maintaining the illusion once your prey was inside the trap?

The Yuy home wasn't nearly as bad as that, but all those little things that were just wrong or askew or distorted disturbed me. The couple of walls that I found that were warped, like they had undergone decades of heavy water damage while still remaining otherwise pristine or how the fireplace in the living room was in a completely different location. Even in a dream, every ounce of common sense and sanity I possessed was screaming at me to just go. Heero was gone. Justin and Mariela were gone. This house held nothing for me anymore, not even the pleasantness of memory, every change a perversion, a mockery of those memories, like the universe had stripped my very last comfort from me out of gleeful sadism. Instead, I wandered to the stairs and went up them, only vaguely taking note of how they listed and sagged just a little to the right and how the wood was a bleached sand instead of a dark mahogany, like something was calling me up there.

I met Heero's room with a pang of sorrow as I noted more changes. The room was completely bare except for the desk and dresser. It felt… hollow and alien, the place covered with dust. The only remnants of the bed were some blankets on the floor. I went to where the bed would have been and sat down on the floor, staring at the far wall. Gone were the shades of white and blue that had always reminded me of calming waves of seafoam. The color now was a cool and faded, dingy grey-blue that matched the dismal afternoon light filtering in from the window, basking the place in gray murk. It reminded me of the condemned house I had broken into on my side of town the night that I had broken up with Trowa, that feeling of utter emptiness that an unlived in place has.

Quatre sat down next to me, so close that his leg almost touched mine, but I couldn't feel any heat from his body and hadn't been expecting to. Unlike my other nightmares, he didn't torture me with accusations and hostility, but just sat there in companionable silence. The only friend I had left. My constant shadow. We sat in silence, for a long time as I stared at that wall, not really seeing it anymore but lost in… something. It was too much like the times we would sit together behind the library or the beach, neither of us talking, but just enjoying being with each other as we read or did our homework or shared a snack.

When he finally spoke to me, the sound of his voice unnerved me, not because it was the voice of a ghost, but because of how it echoed in the empty room, how haunted and hollow it sounded, like it was the house speaking to me and not Quatre. Suddenly, even before I heard the words, I felt like an intruder there, like a virus infecting a body with some terrible illness. And I felt that the house was looking in on me with terrible, inhuman contempt. So when my dead spoke beside me, I almost jumped out of my skin.

"Are you going to forget about me, too?"

The cold accusation felt like a slap and I whipped my head around in shock to look at him and meet his piercing gaze, only to see that he wasn't really looking at me, piercing or not. His head was tilted towards me, but under his pale blonde bangs, ashen in the eerie light, he didn't have a face at all.

I awoke covered in a cold sweat that had me shivering slightly, so thick that it pasted my clothes to my body like a second skin. I had enough sense in my waking mind to recognize the nightmare as exactly that and not one of my night terrors, but that I could remember every tiny detail of it was disturbing, almost like it had really happened. My heart was racing out of control like it would after a night terror, too, and I couldn't erase that image behind my eyes of that empty, familiar yet not familiar room, and Quatre's not-there face as he had 'looked' at me. If it had been a normal day, I would have questioned my damn sanity. I would have asked myself what the fuck was wrong with me to dream something like that, something so vivid and twisted and what it meant. But I knew what it meant without needing to analyze it at all and I was too busy trying to remember how to breathe without panting in fear to do much else for the moment.

What the hell? What the hell? My thoughts kept circling around those three words as I kept pulling more and more details from the nightmare. I'm not an idiot, ok? Or at least not a complete one. I didn't need a shrink to tell me that my nightmare had been about forgetting the things that were important to me, now that I was turning my back on them. Heero's house only lived in my memory to me now and those memories were the only sanctuary I had anymore to escape to, but memory is untrustworthy, fragile. How long before I started to forget those important things, or replace them with something else? Distort what had been? I knew where those fears come from, but that didn't make the twisted quality of what I had dreamt any less fucked up. I remembered too easily the almost terrifying quality of that house, could smell its wrongness the same way I could smell semen on my sheets if I let my mind wander places I didn't want it to go. And Quatre...

"Are you going to forget me, too?"

No, I wanted to scream back at him, no, of course not! It isn't like that!

'But isn't it?' the thought popped up and my screwed up conscience had me painting that thought in Quatre's voice, the tone caught between accusing and cool, like it was telling me that water is wet without being either, 'Haven't you already forgotten things?'

I knew it wasn't wrong. I knew that my memories of Quatre had faded around the edges, that there were things that I had to fight hard to remember and others, little details, that wouldn't come no matter how hard I tried, but I still vehemently denied it. There was no way I could forget about Quatre, about the important things about him. I would always hold him close to my heart because if I started to forget, I would lose him forever and I could never allow that to happen.

'Then what was his favorite salad dressing?'

I blinked at nothing in the dark room, confusing falling over me.

'Come on, it's an easy thing to remember. He used it every damn day. You even freaked out at Dad when he bought a bottle that one time and he told you that they had discontinued it. So what was it called?'

It was an easy question. After I had cried in my father's arms, so distraught to have that sense memory of my dead best friend and that there was another thing about him that was being removed from the world, I had promised myself that I would never forget things like that, that I would remember how it had looked, what it was called, how it had tasted, and how much he had loved it. So it should have been easy, but as I dredged up all those memories of sharing lunch with him, and that scene at our dinner table when I had cried, what should have come into crystal clear focus was blurred. I couldn't even remember what color the label on the bottle had been. Green? Red? And what had it been called? Something garden, right? Or was it forest? It had had something to do with vegetation, I was pretty sure of that. And there had been some kind of bird on the label... no, that wasn't quite right.

My head ached heavily, making me feel sick, the harder that I tried to dredge up the name, but to my frustration and horror, it wouldn't come. Tears filled my eyes as I lied there and realized all the things that had slipped away from me. The brand of violin he had played. If his smattering of freckles had been on his shoulder or his neck. What his favorite book had been. What had been our last meal together. Some of those things I can attribute to the sudden stress of needing to remember them, but others were lost to time forever. See, the counselor had been right after all. Time does dull things, just never the things that you want it to. In my head, I screamed at the unfairness of it all, the absolute horror of having these parts of my best friend eaten away by entropy, things that only I had remembered, and feeling like I was gouging out those parts of him with a knife. So many memories, so many moments... how long did I have left before I forgot the vital things, too? Forgot what he looked like? What his smile had been like? How long before I forgot what he had been wearing on the day he had died, or everything that had led up to his death? What had killed him?

No, no! I wouldn't let this happen! I couldn't forget, I couldn't! If I did, it would be like killing him myself! I was the only one who remembered him, how he had really been, all the things he had hid from cruel eyes and indifference. I was the only one that knew what had happened at that train station, the only one that knew what he had been like that day, why he had killed himself! Forgetting even the smallest thing about him was a betrayal. How could I ever do that? How could I ever be so loathsome? I had promised to not forget. I had written all those things down, not to purge anything, not to punish myself, but to remember him. To let the world know, even in such a small way, the truth of my best friend. To share who he had been and how much I had loved him while everyone had spread lies about him. And I had thrown it away like so much trash.

Panic that was closer to hysteria swept me up and before I could think about what I was doing, I was on my feet, almost running to the stairs. The house was still dark and quiet and I only barely managed to not trip as I flung myself down the stairs and out the door, not even bothering with shoes. My mind screamed 'what have I done, what have I done' at me in a constant, crazy loop as I ran to the front of our meager property to the curb.

What had I been thinking? Quatre… the Quatre that had always smiled at me and helped me after Relena had done something awful to me… the shy but intelligent boy that had fallen in love with Trowa Barton and spilled his soul to me, crying because he knew that being friends with him and loving him from afar was all that he could ever have, who still clung to that friendship even when the jackals closed in, who had been like a brother to me, who had shown me what true friendship was, who had liked salads and math and tea and sappy romance novels… the boy that no one, not even Trowa had truly known, and certainly not his own family… that boy only lived in my memories now and when I die, whether that's tomorrow by my own hand or years from now, those memories will also be gone forever. Like mist being cleared away in a soft wind. It would be like killing him all over again, only this time, I would be the one to push him off that platform.

I ripped the lid of the trashcan off and threw it on the ground, not caring about the loud noise that it made and how it riled up my neighbor's dogs. I wouldn't even hear them barking until later. In that moment, I couldn't believe what I had done. I had thrown him away. Thrown away Quatre like he was nothing, like his parents and the entire world had done. So callously, unthinking and unfeeling. Horror ate me alive as my mind kept pulling up all these things that I would have forgotten about him, how close I had come to slamming the door shut on his memory. My words might be trash, but he wasn't. The truth of what happened to him and not the lies that everyone believed wasn't trash. And Heero… Heero wasn't trash. Eventually, he would forget, too. He would move on and forget about me, forget about us, and no one but me would know. No one would know how much I had loved him, and how much he had loved me, and that for a brief moment in time, I had known how beautiful and perfect and healing being held by Heero Yuy was. Our first date, the first time we kissed, his confession of love, the feelings blossoming between us, the one and only time I had been something else, something better… they would all be gone, lost to time, and that was just as horrible and unforgiving as losing my memories of Quatre. How could I have done this? How could I have thrown that away when it was all I had left of the two people I had loved?

I dug into the trash and pulled out journal after journal, my tears making my eyes blurry and my heart racing so fast that it was making me nauseous, hyperventilating without even realizing it. Somewhere in my mad scrambling and insane thoughts, I hadn't thrown away some journals, I had thrown away Quatre and 'Ro. Looking back on it, it was pretty obvious that I was having a panic attack but I was so lost in my own head that my freaking out and going off the deep end escaped me completely. I was on a mission and nothing, not even a gun to my head, could have stopped me. It seemed like the entire universe was conspiring against me, though, as I continued to pull out notebooks, looking for the right one, and seemed to only find every one but the one that I wanted… no, needed. My tears and breathing came harder and harder, my head buzzing and so strained that it's a wonder I didn't give myself an aneurism, panic strangling my throat and chest as the thought came to me that maybe I would never find it. Maybe it was gone. Maybe someone had stolen it. Why anyone would was beyond me, all I knew was that I couldn't see it and it felt like some god was playing a joke on me, denying me what I needed because I had carelessly thrown it away, rubbing that fact in my face.

But then, it was like the clouds had cleared and I was holding it in my shaking hands. The one journal that was different from all the others. The one with the blood-stained pages, a clear red stripe going across the underside of whiter ones. The last one I had written in before I had tried to kill myself. The one that detailed Quatre's own suicide and my inability to handle it. I clutched it to me like the sacred, precious artifact that it was and just stood there in the icy, early morning air in my night clothes and bare feet and sobbed like a stupid kid in utter relief, like a mother would after finding a child she had thought she had lost. In pure, insane desperation, my fingers so stiff and my hands trembling so badly that I had to exert real effort into not ripping any of the pages, I flipped through the notebook, my wet, red eyes searching frantically until I found what I was looking for.

There. I stilled my hand and scanned the lines of my own handwriting. I read with intense perusal until I found my recount of the night that I had cried in my father's arms. Cried to him for the very last time in my life. I hadn't written down the name of the salad dressing, but as I closed my eyes with my words filling me and conjuring it out from the murk in my head, I could see that memory so clearly and perfectly, as though it had happened mere minutes ago instead of almost half a decade. The tears still streaming down my face only made it realer. I could feel my father's arms around me, could smell his shirt as I pressed my face against it. I could taste dressing and cucumber on my tongue, as real as the coffee I had drunk that afternoon.

The image came to me then like a bullet through my skull. My father putting a bottle of dressing down on the table. My eyes, wide with shock and a betrayal he didn't understand, staring at it like he had just put a rattlesnake down in front of me. Lush Gardens. I had gotten half of the name right after all. The label was green on the bottom half and blue on the top half. I had been right about there being a picture of something with wings on it, too, only it was an angel, not a bird. I carefully closed the notebook and clutched it to me again. My intense relief made me feel lightheaded and dizzy and I had to stand out there for a good ten minutes before my tears stopped enough that I could think as close as rationally as I could anymore and wipe them away.

A bit more calmly, if not sanely, I bent down to pick up all the notebooks I had dropped on the ground in my mad search and carefully arranged them and the remaining ones in the bin in my arms. I didn't bother with the rest of my writing. The journals were the only ones that mattered. Securing the lid back on the bin, I took my bounty back into the house where they belonged. Despite all the noise I must have made running outside, I snuck in silently, feeling very odd, like I was a thief stealing from my own trash bin. Even though trash day wasn't for a couple more days, I felt like I had just saved them in the nick of time and the whole thing left me shaking.

I was so gone, both physically and mentally, that they didn't notice the time or that my father was still gone. Even if I had, I wouldn't have put much thought into it. If he wanted to drink the night and early morning away when he had work in just a few hours, why the fuck should I care? I was at the point where I wouldn't have so much as blinked if my mother had told me he had gotten fired again because of his drinking and we would be without another sizeable chunk of income for a while. I wasn't quite at 'I don't care if we're homeless', but the truly terrifying thing was that it wasn't that far off anymore. More and more, I was starting to feel less like I was going through a particularly bad break up and patch of my life and more like I was going through a major, psychotic breakdown. Maybe I was. Am. I don't think it matters.

I went back to my room, moving stiffly and listlessly like a zombie. The little amount of sleep I had gotten hadn't done me much good. Enough that I could probably get through the day, but not enough to make a dent in my exhaustion or bring me back to reality, let alone allow me to think clearly. But it was the hornet's nest in my head that was really taxing me that morning, not the sleep deprivation. I guess they were linked, one feeding the other. Nothing was making much sense anymore and I didn't really care, just going through the motions and reacting to everything around me. That morning was especially bad. The house could have been on fire around me and I don't think I would have noticed so much as the smell.

I switched on the attic light, made it to my desk, and sat down heavily in the chair like a marionette whose strings had just been suddenly cut, putting the journals down on the desk in hefty stacks with barely any energy left to manage it. I should have gone back to bed. The nightmare was still fresh and normally I wouldn't have bothered, not wanting to slip back into it, but I was so drained that I think I could have easily managed some more sleep and there was time enough before school to get in a couple more hours that I desperately needed. Hell, in the state I was in, I should have woken up my mother, told her I was sick and asked her to call me out of school that day. I think she would have easily believed me.

Instead, I opened up one of the journals from the stack at random and, my heart heavy and my eyes burning fiercely, I flipped through it until I found a section… a part of my life that I wanted to read. I read through my memories like a voyeur, the dinner I had had with Quatre and Trowa, Heero throwing away his mask of safety to drag me home with him, Quatre surprising me at work on my birthday, lying in bed with Heero and just listening to his heartbeat as I rested my head on his chest and he lightly stroked my hair. I read moments of love and friendship, moments when I had been happy, when things hadn't been so dark and lonely and I had had people who cared about me. I read about their loving me and cherishing me and me them and I wept. I cried almost endlessly for everything that I had lost, things that I could only revisit on those pages.

I read the start of my relationship with Heero and tried to live in those moments again, to remember what it had been like, but it only made me cry harder. This was really becoming a bad habit. If I had had any sense left in me, I would have done what I had done to my CD player and phone and hidden them away to protect myself, but the damage had already been done and I didn't care anymore how much it hurt. I read like an addict getting a fix.

I think I might have passed the entire morning away like that, not even paying attention to the time or when I would need to leave for school. It seemed… unimportant to the miserable state I was in. But just before five, I was roused from my readings by the sound of my father's car pulling in. I guess he wasn't pulling an all-nighter or crashing at Pat's or wherever else he holes up in when he's too drunk to go home. I hoped that he was at least too drunk to bother me, but I doubted it. My father always seems to have this additional sense for when I'm near a breaking point, just so he can mercilessly shove me over it. He wouldn't even need to rape me. I was so emotionally raw that he could just give me a snide look and I might snap. I heard the car door slam and it jolted me out of my seat like I had just been electrocuted.

The inevitability that he was going to come up there and start shit with me had me scrambling to grab all my journals. I couldn't let him see them. He didn't know how important they were or even what they were, but when had that ever mattered to him? He would destroy my shit just because he felt like it in a drunken rage or just because he was feeling mean and suddenly, those journals had become the most precious, valuable things that I owned. The hole in the floor was obviously out since he knew about that one, as was my dresser or desk, so I quickly stashed them in the hole in the wall that had used to be Pepper's hideaway. It wasn't the best place, but he didn't know about it yet and the space was only just wide enough for me to squeeze through halfway. My father's shoulders were too wide to manage it unless he used something to pull them out. It was the best I could come up with in the time that it took him to go from the car to the front door.

I breathed in relief as I got the cloth down over the hole just as the door downstairs was swinging open with enough force to hit the wall, feeling shaky with it until I heard my father talking to someone, someone that responded with a very familiar laugh that always makes my skin prickle, along with the sound of two sets of boot treads and that feeling dissipated into nothing. I felt myself bristle as I listened to the two of them chat away loudly, laughing to themselves about some stupid joke that was probably crass, not giving a single, solid shit that there were people trying to sleep. What the fuck was Pat doing here? It was the middle of the week, not the weekend, and there wasn't any poker game that early in the morning. He had his own place to crash and while it was true that he would every once in a while, he hadn't done it since my dad had gotten fired.

Whatever Pat did now, he made more than my father did, something that didn't seem to rankle him much, oddly, but that meant he hardly stopped by to mooch beer or drag my father out for drinks unless he was willing to pay. He still did that, more than I or my mother liked, but it was always solely on Pat's terms and mood. I've wondered about that a lot. My father hates owing people anything. He resents any kind of handout and anyone having anything over his head, even if it was just a small debt. He'll go out of his way to make himself miserable just to avoid anyone trying to help him unless he can immediately pay it back, yet he doesn't seem to mind when Pat spots him drinks or meals for some bizarre reason. Maybe because they're friends (another concept I don't really understand since I think Pat is an irritating asshole) or because he's used to him holding things over his head. Pat had got him his job on the force in the first place and he was exactly the sort of person who would use that to manipulate my dad into whatever he wanted.

The thing that pisses me off is my dad never seems to see it that way. For a guy that takes every nice thing someone does for him as a personal attack against his pride, he should resent Pat for having that kind of leverage over him, but Pat is always the exception. If Justin tried to do something like that, get my father a better paying job to help pay our bills, he would spit in his face. I had understood from a pretty early age that Pat doesn't do these things for my dad because they're buddy-buddy with each other or he's such a nice guy. He does them because he likes knowing that he's superior, and so he can have something to rib you with or hold over your head any time he wants something back. And he always does. My mother knows that perfectly well, too, but like me, her survival instinct is too strong to point that out to my dad. There's a fancy word for guys like him: users. But 'douchebag' works just fine for me.

I didn't know why Pat was in my house that morning and I didn't really care. I wanted him gone. I couldn't handle my father, let alone that pig. It was difficult enough on a good day, but after the day and early morning I had just had, it was very possible that I was going to take a swing at him for daring to breathe near me. Not even that really bothered me. What bothered me was that all my shields were down and there were a thousand things he could say to me to wound me worse. I felt like screaming with frustration at his mere presence as I heard him and my father moving around in the kitchen. I felt like the universe hadn't just thrown me into the mud, but was now drowning my face in it.

I wished that I was small enough that I could just tuck myself away in that hole in the wall along with my journals like I used to be able to when I had been younger and my father had been on the warpath, but too drunk to really remember if I had been upstairs or not. That was the key to a good hiding spot, that shred of doubt, because if they knew you had to be in the room but couldn't find you, that's when they would start looking extra carefully and that self-made crawl space behind the wall was all I had had to escape my father's wrath, even if it was extremely conditional and had an expiration date. Back then, anything at all like that had been a miracle, even if I could only use it successfully five percent of the time. I haven't had the luxury of that in a few long years, not unless I got extremely lucky and my father was too wasted to want to go looking for me in the dark basement or I managed to outrun him.

Pat's presence, like it always has, made me want to go to ground. Not just because I hated him and he treated me and my mother like shit, but because he makes my father worse just by being around. You wouldn't think it possible, but he gets about ten times as macho, always needing to save face around his friend. What little sense he has about his drinking always vanishes when Pat is around and he'll take every drink that's offered to him, no matter how drunk he already is just to prove that he can. Worse, Pat's special brand of personality is like an infection. My father always comes back from being with him meaner, more sexist, more racist, and easier with a cutting word or slap. Pat keys up every ugly facet of my father's own personality, like forcing pus out of a wound.

And under it all seems to be this vein of resentment. Not towards Pat, but towards my father's life and his family, like Pat makes him realize how lacking his life is. As much as he hates me, Pat makes him hate me more, makes him see my flaws tenfold and eradicates what little patience he might have. It's the same towards my mother. I don't know how, but being around Pat, or maybe being around the things Pat has to say about us, seems to make my father even more aware of his broken marriage and not just that my mother can't stand him, but how unfair and cold it is that she can't, what an injustice it is to him as a man that his wife doesn't treat him like he walks on water. Pat's disgusting misogyny just rubs off onto him like grease. Have I mentioned how much I fucking hate Pat?

But even if I could find someplace to hide from the two of them, or even just bide my time staying up in the attic until Pat went the hell away, my anxiety wouldn't allow it. I didn't like the feeling of being up there and not being able to see what they were doing or what mood they were in, even if the attic was relatively safe so long as I could hear them in the kitchen. It was like watching a grizzly bear as it stared you down. Sure, if it decided to charge at you, there wasn't a damn thing you could do to stop it no matter if you were keeping an eye on it or not, but you still had to do it, you still needed to see what it was going to do. I hated that itchy feeling along my back that you get when you turn away from it. Going downstairs would be putting my ass in the blast zone, but strangely, that was better than the whole not knowing thing. Besides, my mother was down there alone and I knew how Pat got around her and how much she hated him, too. I couldn't do anything if he decided to start shit with her, but I could at least even the odds. Although considering my father was the other party, it was really more like 10 versus 2 than 2 versus 2, wasn't it?

I cautiously and, with a great deal of weariness that made the trek feel like I was making a hike through the wilderness instead of going one story in my own damned house, I trudged my way downstairs, shoring myself up to dealing with the two things in the world I had no ability to deal with that morning. I really wished it was later in the day so I could use school as an excuse to leave, but I really didn't want to leave my mom alone. It wasn't that I thought Pat would do anything to her, but he gets under her skin even more than mine and my dad had sent her to the hospital on more than one occasion for blowing up at Pat and 'embarrassing him'. I was unsurprised to see her coming out of the bedroom just as I was walking down the steps. She had that same prickly back feeling, too, I guess. She had obviously realized who our guest was because she had put on a bathrobe over her pajamas, although they were far from scandalous. She had the front of it clutched closed in a tight grip, her hair up in a tight and neat ponytail that told me she had done it just seconds ago, and wasn't bothering to hide how she felt to be roused in the small hours of the morning by this with a glare on her face, directed solely at Pat.

From the bottom of the stairs, I could already smell the two of them. They reeked of equal parts booze and cigarette smoke, making me feel queasy. They didn't look that unkempt, but their cheeks were flushed and their eyes glazed. I felt a spark of irritation at my father, but it was small, overwhelmed by the hope that he would make Pat go home and would just crash for the night. Pat cut off what he was saying to my father as he realized that they now had an audience and his dark brown eyes moved almost lazy between my mother and I, but oddly, it was me they stayed on instead of her, even though most of the time, he was usually entirely focused on her when the both of us were around. He grinned at me, that sleazy grin he always seems to have plastered on his face, the one that always drives me up a wall.

"Well, well, look who woke up from their beauty sleep," he said snidely, "Good morning, Princess."

I bristled but refused to rise to his bait, like always. Snapping at him would get me hit, which was probably his goal and would crack him up, ignoring it would only make him keep going, so no matter what I did, I would lose anyway. My mother knew the game, too, and usually has the sense not to respond to him, so I was surprised when she shot back at him in irritation, either for waking her up, lingering around, or waking me up.

"It's nearly five in the morning, Patrick," she said icily, deliberately using his full name because she knew how much he hated it, "of course you woke him up, along with the rest of the neighborhood with how much noise you're making."

She, also very deliberately, refrained from lumping my father into that statement, but it was implied and I thought she was about to get slapped as he glared at her. Pat, on the other hand, just grinned wider.

"Aw, what's the matter, Helen? Jealous because your drinking days are over? Or is menopause setting in a bit early? You know," he said with a leer that had always had a bit too much intent in it, "I have something that I hear is a real good cure for that. Instead of being a grumpy bitch like usual, why don't we have a little night cap together and I can cure what ails you?"

I thought my mom might scratch his eyes out with that ugly comment, but wisely kept her mouth shut before my father decided that wasn't she needed wasn't alcohol or sex but a reminder of her place in front of his friend and settled for glowering at him hatefully. My father didn't so much as bat an eye at Pat not so subtly suggesting he would be happy to plow his wife right in front of him, but that was pretty much par for the course as well. Somehow, he never seems to realize how disgusting Pat's sexual harassment is or what my mom and I do, that his 'jokes' weren't really jokes at all, only to my father's ears. I wanted to punch his lights out myself, if only for taking a dig at her sobriety. I had no doubt that he would consider getting her to take a drink to be the highlight of his week.

"I'm taking a shower," my father grumbled, clearly either too drunk or too tired to deal with Pat and my mom's taking pot shots at each other, "so if you need the bathroom, you'll have to wait."

"Whatever," Pat waved him off, still too busy staring my mother down to care about anything my father was saying.

I really wished the prick had taken that as his sign to go the hell home with my dad trying to get ready for bed so he could get at least a little sleep before work and not in the mood to entertain anymore, but he just kept grinning at my mom, amused by how pissed she was getting. The second my father closed the bathroom door, he let his eyes rake over her, taking in her mussed, chestnut hair and slender, pale legs that weren't completely covered by the robe. It was the same, exact way I remembered him looking at a teenaged girl in a tube top and mini skirt when I had been a kid on one of the very rare occasions that my father had taken me out to lunch with them, before I had become too much of an embarrassment for him to want me around.

Just like back then, and like every time he did this to her when my father was out of the room (and sometimes when he wasn't, just too drunk to notice or care), he made no attempt to hide that he was ogling her. I suppose that was part of the fun for him, her knowing that he was looking at her like a piece of meat on display. Sure enough, she made a disgusted noise and had finally had all she could stand of Pat Donovan for the morning, retreating back into the bedroom with a slam of the door. Leaving me out there alone with him. I felt a strange mix of relief and abandonment. I wondered if I could do the same and sneak back upstairs before he remembered that I existed again, but he didn't give me the chance.

"Hey, fag-lover," he turned that sick, arrogant grin on me, "why don't you make yourself useful and get me a midnight snack, huh?"

Instead of getting pissed that he was ordering me around like he always does, my insides turned to ice water at his slur. He couldn't know, there was absolutely no way... right? But of course there was. If my father had heard the rumors, then Pat most definitely had. Had he pointed out the possibility that those rumors were right to my father? No, if he had and my father had put any real thought to that possibility, I would have been bleeding and broken on the floor right then instead of dismissed without so much as a cold look. But if he had put the thought in my father's head like a seed ready to sprout, and I had no doubt that Pat would do something like that, it was just the kind of 'joke' he thrives on...

I almost had a full-fledged panic attack right in front of him before it registered in my head that he had said 'fag-lover', not 'fag'. Which meant that he had heard the rumors, which was far from surprising, but what was was that he was putting stock in my father's interpretation of what they meant, that Heero was the fag and I was just getting pegged with that label because we were friends. It really wasn't like Pat. Like my dad, he usually assumes the worst of people, doubly so if it's something he can use to torture them with. I wondered what would be worse to men like Pat and my father, me actually being gay, or my being best friends with one, a veritable traitor to a couple of dyed in the wool homophobes. It clearly drove my father insane, but with Pat it was difficult to tell, he always tended to be a lot meaner than my father, less likely to get angry, but just... cruel.

I had expected him to come after me over maybe being queer, but him calling me a fag-lover was worse in a way because it was a dig against Heero more than one against me, even if Pat had intended it to be one. I was used to being called fag and the only reason why him calling me that had scared me so badly was if my father started to believe it, too, but it always made my blood boil hearing anyone throwing that same slur at Heero. I had to remind myself that we weren't together anymore, weren't friends anymore, and I didn't have the right to get protective of him, but it did nothing to quell the rage I felt at Pat for saying it. When I glowered at him, his grin only grew, happy in that perverse way of his knowing he had gotten under my skin, probably thinking it was the order to make him food, treating me like his servant as usual, and not the fag remark. He didn't even cuff me for glaring, probably as happy as a cat with cream that he had gotten the response he had wanted from both me and my mother. I didn't bother shooting anything back at him, just hurriedly went to the cupboards over the sink. I couldn't win against him no matter what come back I could think of and I just wanted the son of a bitch out of my house. If I had to cater to him like a maid, then so be it.

Pat was at my back the whole way to the cabinets, so close to me that I could feel his body heat and just a couple footsteps from colliding into me, like he was herding me where he wanted. Which was probably the reason, or because he just wanted to mess with me, or more likely, both. It irritated me, but it mostly made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, leaving my skin prickling with the urge to get away from him. I couldn't stand anyone getting that much in my personal space, but Pat got under my skin almost as badly as Zechs and my father do, although I can't say exactly why beyond a general distrust of him and all the times that meanness has been directed at me.

I hurriedly rummaged through the cupboards and fridge to find something to slap together for him, too tired to play this stupid game with him. I would have just thrown a bag of chips at him if I had thought it would make him go away. I skipped my father's tuna because he would murder me if I gave it to anyone but him, even Pat, and the bacon as well. BLTs are Pat's favorite and he would usually force me to make him one, but there was no way I was prolonging this by frying up bacon, so the asshole would have to make due with baloney and a few other things that I put in there to appease him, even some potato chips because I knew how much he liked that. I hated doing even that much for him, but I'd rather my pride take a hit than be stuck with dealing with him for any longer than I needed to. I completed it with a can of beer because I knew that he would demand one no matter what time of day it was.

I opened the fridge to grab it and suddenly froze. Even though I had opened it minutes ago, I felt like I was really seeing the more… liquid contents for the first time. There was certainly nothing shocking about them. A bunch of cans of beer, a couple bottles, and a big bottle of some kind of amber liquid, but with the label turned around, I couldn't tell off-hand which kind it was. It was that big bottle that I suddenly noticed, not because I had never seen it before or because I knew that by the end of the week, it was likely to be empty. It was the urge that swept over me when I saw it that had me paralyzed. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was grab that bottle and run. Bolt out of the house, go to the park or behind the library and see how fast I could down the whole thing. Just like I had on the train tracks when Quatre's funeral had been happening across town. Just like when I had after my father had raped me for the first time and I hadn't cared about consequences, or how horrifying just the act of drinking that shit was or that I might be following in my parents' footsteps. I had only cared about dulling myself until I could survive.

That's what I felt then in my kitchen with my father's best friend at my back. I wanted a drink. I wanted something to take away my feelings. Take away my memories. Let me sleep without the nightmares. I wanted something to muffle my heart and my head. I didn't care about things like addiction or genetics anymore. I only wanted to go… somewhere else, even if that somewhere else was an alcoholic fog. And if that much booze would kill a novice like me instead of stopping the thoughts and memories and heartbreak, even better. Is this how it starts, I wondered as I stared at that bottle like the veritable moth to the flame. Not with parties and a couple drinks among friends, not with genetics or peer pressure, but with a bad day? A burning desire to not think anymore? Is this what turns a bad habit into a full-blown addiction? Is that how it had happened for my mom? For my dad? Had they just wanted to not feel, too? Just wanted a little rest, even if it had to come out of a bottle? To escape the misery and pain and stress in the only way they could that didn't evolve a bullet through the brain? I think, in that moment, even though I knew it was a fleeting urge and I would never take that sip, my repulsion and shame not letting me fall that far from myself, at least not yet… in that moment, I came the closest I ever have to understanding my parents.

"Hey, shithead, why don't you hurry up?" Pat's sneering voice from behind me jostled me from my staring contest with the bottle of whatever flavor of poison it was, "At the rate you're going, you might as well make me fucking breakfast."

He grinned that shit-eating grin of his when I dug the rather innocent and underwhelming looking beer out of the fridge and handed it to him, refusing to meet his eyes. That grin was enough to make the weird moment I had fade and I was back to being irritated at him. Later, I would worry about where my head was at that I could want to risk the one thing I've been terrified of my entire life, but Pat had reinserted himself and, I hate to admit this even to just myself, but it was how much I hated him that saved me from myself. Not that I would ever admit it to the prick. The need to escape melted back into wanting to hit him for bossing me around. Even though I tell myself that my pride is worth shit and even though I've been dealing with this for most of my life, it still burned having to wait on him like I was his servant. My dad is one thing, he's my dad, and while he expects things out of me, he only treats me like this when one of his friends are around. He'll bark orders at me, but not cattily or derisively unless he's in a very specific mood.

"Thanks, Sweetheart," he said in the same condescending way he always talks to my mother and any other woman over the age of seventeen I've ever seen him converse with, "You're a real doll."

Seething, I quickly turned so he wouldn't see how much he got to me, masking it behind grabbing his stupid sandwich for him. So, I was completely blindsided when he used my sudden motion, and slapped my ass. The bastard hit me hard, too, the force and stinging pain reminding me of getting nailed in the ass by my father's belt. I almost smashed the plate over his head and somehow managed to keep my reflex down to just jolting away from him. His fingers lingered across the curve of my rear, just for a second before I jerked away, but long enough that it made me nauseous. It wasn't the first time he had done something like that to me when drunk, whether it was slapping, grabbing, fondling, or pinching, usually hard enough to leave a mark. My dad gets pissy when he drinks, Pat gets… handsy.

After years of dealing with it, I was used to it. Or at least, I had been. It used to piss me off more than anything, and shock me because Pat is a letch, but he's as much of a homophobe as my father, yet the fact that I'm a boy never seems to bother him much when he's like this. Now… after my father raped me, while it still makes me angry being touched like that by a pig like Pat, and someone both twice my size and three times my age, what I feel the most is fear and sickness. That screaming thing in my head that my father's actions birthed tries to swallow me whole and bring up a whole slew of memories and feelings I've tried hard to lock away. Instead of belting him, what I want to do now when he touches me like that is run away, find some dark, safe corner, and hyperventilate or puke or cry. And I hate myself for that, even more than I hate him for the sexual harassment.

Pat took his sandwich from me with a gleeful laugh. I hoped he would finally leave, he could keep the plate for all I cared. But to my dismay, he went into our living room and plopped right down in my father's chair, turning on the television and I realized that he had no intention of leaving anytime soon. I watched him open the beer with that sharp hiss that always goes right through me and take a bite of his sandwich. I hoped he fucking choked on it. I pulled myself away and hurriedly went back to my room before my father could leave the bathroom. I couldn't deal with the both of them. It was in me to escape the house, go take a very long walk until it was time to go to school. As late as it was, I might not be missed and it was difficult enough trying to sleep with just my father there, with the both of them in my house, I doubted I was going to get any kind of rest. But I was so tired… so achingly tired. I didn't think it was up to me anymore. I think I couldn't have left that house if my ass was on fire. The choice itself was too much for me and that was dangerous. Not that I might not leave if my father came after me, but that decision making was becoming impossible and with the way my life had become, that wasn't acceptable.

Sleep. Just for an hour or two. It was late but I still had some time. I just needed to sleep and not dream. Easier than the choice to go to school. I could do that. I lied down on my mattress and pulled my sheets up. Closing my eyes felt good, even though it was pitch black in the attic except for the tiny bit of light streaming under the door from downstairs and I really wasn't cutting off anymore sensory input than when they had been open. I lied there for a good ten minutes, listening to my father finish with his shower and go into the bedroom. Sleep, predictably, wouldn't come, but it had nothing to do with Pat being there or my father still being awake. It was that stupid interaction with Pat in the kitchen that kept me up. All his snide, arrogant comments. Him slapping me on the ass. His condescending 'thanks'. Heero had never treated me that way. Not the slap, of course, but just like I was useless, like I was expected to wait on him just because I could cook and he couldn't. He had always treated every meal and snack I had ever made for him to be like a precious gift. No matter what I had made for him, whether it was that omelet roll he liked so much or just a simple sandwich, he had always beamed at me and thanked me like I had made him a five course meal from scratch, both with his words and with a kiss.

It completely blindsided me, like so many tiny, seemingly insignificant things have been lately. Something in me cracked further and hot tears were suddenly pouring down my cheeks. Remembering all those early mornings and afternoons together with him in the kitchen, baking his mother's cake together, him making me oatmeal or me making him scrambled eggs, enjoying each other's time together more than the food, and remembering all my father's snide comments about my cooking to his friends, Pat ordering me around, my father's snort of derision when I made him something and he was in one of his mean moods and I knew he was thinking about how disgusted he was to have a son who could cook even if it was something he liked and he wouldn't need to fend for himself, how he had never told me 'thank you', had never been grateful for me a single day of my life because even my slight usefulness was an embarrassment to him, I broke.

My thick tears quickly devolved into sobs as I let my sudden grief and loneliness devour me. I missed him. God, I missed him so much. I wished that I had left after all, but not just for the night. I wished Solo had never been nice to me that day. I wished I had ended things the day that I had broken up with Heero. I wished for a brain aneurism. I wished that my father had managed to talk my mother into that abortion and I had never been born. I think, if I could have traded the entire whole of my life and soul for just ten seconds of seeing Heero again, seeing him smile at me, I would have done it in a heartbeat. I missed him more than I could bear anymore. I missed just talking to him, feeling his arms around me, just seeing him early in the morning before he had his coffee and how messy his hair was, how grumpy he was, but those pretty blue eyes would still light up when he saw me-

The sound of footsteps treading up the stairs jerked me out of my head more effectively than an electric shock. I completely froze, my heart seizing in my chest, not even able to breathe as I listened intently to those footsteps, but they didn't disappear like I hoped they would. I wanted to scream. Not in fear, although there was plenty of that, but in frustration.

'Stop!' I screamed silently in my head instead at God or the universe or whatever force there is that decides these things, 'Just stop! Please, no more, I can't take it!'

But if there was such a thing as a god or an intelligent consciousness that had any control over reality, it wasn't listening. There would be no last minute stay of execution, and I couldn't handle it. After everything else that had been thrown at me that day… two days… whatever the fuck time it was, I couldn't take this one last straw on the camel's back. By the time my father made it all the way up the steps, I felt like my head was going to crack open as neatly as an egg and my sanity was going to come spilling out. What little amount of that I have left.

I shoved my face into my pillow, muffling my crying and tried to get myself under control. I didn't care if my father beat me for crying, I just couldn't stand the thought of him knowing that I was, or if I still was when he was raping me… it would be like letting him win. I know how stupid that sounds. Saying 'I can't let him win' would insinuate that I could ever be on an even playing field with him, that I could ever win anything beyond staving off as few as his own victories as I could. Like it mattered. Like he even fucking cared. It was just like trying to not let Pat see that he had made me angry, or letting Zechs see my pain. Tiny, petty wins didn't matter because, eventually, they won all the important battles anyway.

It was pointless anyway. I tried as hard as I could, but the tears wouldn't stop coming, soaking through my pillowcase. As the door opened, I buried my face even deeper into the pillow and tried to feign sleep. I'm not sure why I bothered, I knew what he had come up here for and I knew that he would drag me out of sleep in order to get it. It wasn't like he had ever given me a shred of comfort when he was hard up. The breath that I couldn't stop hitching as I sobbed childishly into my pillow gave me away in a second. I felt more than heard my father stepping into the room, like he brought with him a foul smell or a draft or just a small, electric current, a subtle shift in the atmosphere.

He paused by the doorway and I forced myself even harder to stop, incredibly ashamed and hating myself for letting him see me crying like a baby. If not my tears, I at least wanted to stop sobbing and shaking and looking so weak. I actually managed to still my heavy sobs, strangling them through sheer force of will, but my breath still came out harsh and stuttering. My body unconsciously curled into a tight ball as I felt him there, staring into the room, my heart racing as I waited for him to come for me, but he just stood there. I thought that he was letting his eyes adjust to the dark before I realized that there was plenty enough light spilling into the room from the open door that he should be able to see me clearly, but I didn't hear him take another step. I felt his burning gaze on me, making my back twitch. I felt like I had my back on a tiger and was waiting for it to pounce on me and the longer it didn't, the more scared I felt.

What the hell was he doing? I wished I dared to turn around to glance at him, but a part of me was terrified of breaking whatever spell had fallen over us. Another part of me wanted to scream at him to just get this stupid dance over with, do what he had obviously come up here to do and stop dragging it out like this. But he didn't move. My breath petered out and I forced myself still and I wondered if he really thought I had fallen asleep without noticing he was in the room with me. But then I wondered why that mattered at all. I'm not sure how long we stayed there like that, him staring at me like he was looking for something elusive, and me feeling like I was trapped in some endless hell of panic and fear and confusion. It was probably only ten to fifteen minutes at the most, but it felt like hours. It was almost like he was getting up the courage to rape me, but we were so past that point by now. Then, I finally heard him move and almost flinched in pure terror before I realized that he wasn't stepping further into the room, but had left. He even closed the door softly behind him, like he used to when I had been little and he had actually cared about not waking me up.

I listened like the scared animal that I was, listened for the trap, the trick that he was clearly pulling on me. I would turn around and he would somehow still be there in the room or something, but the sound of him walking down the steps was unmistakable. Probably the most confused and bewildered I've been in my life, I rolled onto my back and looked up at a ceiling I could only barely see until my father retreated into his bedroom. What the hell had just happened? In all the months that this had been happening, he had never stopped himself. Not a single damned time. If he wanted something, he took it, with as much force as he needed, and if he ever didn't, it was only on the very few times I had managed to escape him. He had never had me obviously trapped like that and had just… not done anything. Why?

Had he changed his mind? Decided that he didn't have the urge after all? The only thing I could think of that made any kind of sense was that he had suddenly realized that Pat was still in the house and didn't want to rape his son when his best friend was sleeping just a floor away where he potentially might hear something. But if that was the case, why had he gone up there in the first place? Had he really been so drunk that that hadn't occurred to him? And why had he spent so long just… staring at me? None of it made any sense to me and the more I tried to untangle it, the more confused I got and in the end, all it awarded me was a heavy, hot throb in my skull.

I lied awake for a while, waiting to see if he would come back until I heard him snoring, then rolled onto my side facing the closed door. There was still a strip of light coming from underneath. He had forgotten to turn it off, which told me how stinking drunk he was. I should really get up and turn it off or he was going to be pissed when he realized it, but I couldn't move. I told myself that it was just the adrenaline crash of being so scared and stressed, but it wasn't physical exhaustion that kept me there like a paralyzed lump. The thought of getting up out of bed again, trudging downstairs, risking running into my father or Pat and having to deal with them for even just a second more was more than I could bear. The house could have been on fire and I think that I would have been happy to stay where I was if it meant not seeing them again for a couple hours. This heavy, blanketed fog of misery and depression and weariness stole over me then.

I'm not sure exactly where it came from. My father trying to rape me again? Him not raping me, giving me a shred of hope that I couldn't even decipher? Teasing me, playing with my pain? Bringing Pat back with him only to pull this on me, like I was in a constant tug-of-war of confusion, depression, relief, reprieve, the ground under my feet constantly shifting at the same time that all the things that made me miserable stayed exactly the same anyway. I was so tired of it. So tired of all of it. Of my life. The things that had always been like this and the new things that sprouted under my feet since I had broken up with Heero, things that looked new until I peeled the skin back and saw that it was just a different shade of the same, rotten shit. I was tired in ways that a full night's rest would never touch and I think I understood that morning that that tiredness was never going to go away. It would follow me like a bad smell for the rest of my life.

I shifted my arms up to in front of my pillow where the tiny slit of light from the door fell. The light was dim, barely enough to even aggravate my headache, but it somehow made the wide, red scars that arced from one side of each of my wrists to the other stand out like vibrant ribbons. Drifting in that nebulous state between too awake to doze off and too asleep to do anything but let every strange impulse, every buried thought come unfiltered, my tired, burning eyes studied them. Every disgusting, fold and puckered bit of what looked like raw, angry meat, even if they were four years healed. Twisted, ugly things, caverns and gouges that I would never be rid of, not without thousands of dollars to throw away on plastic surgery. But I don't think you're meant to get rid of scars like those, either as a reminder or a punishment. I just wasn't sure what they were really a reminder of anymore. The awful thing I had tried to do because of infinitely worse sins I had already committed, or that they were still works in progress. Incomplete.

"Not long now," I murmured to them and to myself, "I promise."

The words were barely out of my mouth before I was falling. I'm not even sure if I really said them or they were just in my head. Then I was melting into a strange, bastard child of that nightmare I had had about Heero's empty, distorted house and… and something else. I don't remember much about it, but I have this feeling that that's a good thing. I remember the thick, cloying smell of fresh blood, a lot of it, the hot, red smell that can only belong to meat freshly exposed to the air, and the sound of someone screaming and sobbing. Their voice was familiar, but I couldn't discern if it was Heero's voice or my mother's or someone else entirely. I only know that the dream disturbed me awake instead of my biological clock or any kind of restlessness or even my father. I woke with my heart pounding psychotically in my throat and feeling vaguely nauseous. I opened my eyes to meet Heero's soft, blue ones gazing at me tenderly as he laid on his usual side of the bed next to me.

His… existence was so sudden and shocking that I almost jerked away from him and probably would have fallen off the bed if I had, but I was completely frozen and paralyzed just by the sight of him. How… how could he…

Then he smiled at me. That beautiful, wonderful, loving smile that had always seemed to belong to me and me alone. The smile that I had known I would never see again. I had… I had been so sure… He lifted himself up on one elbow next to me, resting his cheek on his hand and he was so beautiful and so perfect with his hair mussed from sleep and those eyes of his smoldering with affection and happiness just to see me… just to wake up next to me… just like always. I could feel his warmth on the sheets, so warm that I shivered a little. I smelled his shampoo and soap on those same sheets and pillows, all sea salt and sage, the smell of the earth and the sea.

"Good morning," he said softly with sleepy contentment. Just like so many other times. Just like always.

I just stared at him owlishly in a mix of wonder and horror. What was going on? How could he be here with me? We weren't… we…

He reached out for me and there was some skittish, screaming thing in me that made me want to pull away from him. I couldn't let him touch me. If he touched me, he would vanish and I couldn't let that happen, I couldn't-

His fingers brushed through my bangs like the kiss of a breeze as he tucked them away from my face. I felt them graze my skin and almost slipped my eyes closed in pure bliss. I felt them. I felt him. He was really there. How? How? I didn't care. It didn't matter. Heero was here. He was here and he didn't hate me. He still loved me. He still loved me.

It hit me then like an almost physical blow. It hadn't been real. None of it. The break up. Hurting him. Pushing him away. Telling him that I didn't love him. That I didn't want him. I hadn't done those things. I hadn't done it. It… it had just been… A nightmare, I realized. It had all been a nightmare. Vapor and smoke born from my stress and fear, my head playing out all the terrible possibilities like it always does to torture me. We were still together. I hadn't fucked things up beyond repair.

My vision of him wavered as tears filled my eyes as something in me broke like a shattered dam and I was sobbing, as openly and harshly as I had when… no, that hadn't been real. Heero pulled his hand away from me like I had burned him in shock and alarm as I suddenly cried, probably looking like a nutcase to him. That look… the look of worry, the look of someone that wanted to bundle me up and hide me from the world, to make everything right was so familiar that it hurt. I hadn't even realized how much I had missed it.

"Duo, what's wrong?" he asked, scared and confused.

He put his hand on my shoulder briefly before taking it away again, unsure of what was going on.

"I-," I gasped for air and some measure of sanity, "Oh god, Heero, I had such a horrible nightmare…"

It felt so good to say his name again. It felt so good to be with him. The relief I felt completely ripped me apart and left me trembling in the face of what had almost been. I wanted to throw myself into those lovely, familiar arms and tell him the truth. 'I love you. I love so much,' I wanted to cry to him until it could erase every single time I had dreamt of telling him that I hadn't.

'Something isn't right.'

'Of course it isn't. How could I have dreamt all those awful things? How could I ever think that I would be capable of doing those things?'

'That isn't-,'

"Do you want to talk about it?" Heero asked me in sympathy, resting his head back on the pillow next to me so we were looking at each other eye to eye again.

I shook my head. I didn't want to talk about it. I just wanted to drown in his eyes and forget everything. I wanted to hold him and kiss him and bury myself in him and not feel how terrified I was.

"Just don't leave me," I begged brokenly, refusing to take my eyes off him, soaking in every inch of him, "Please just don't leave me."

'This isn't Heero's bed, you can feel that. This isn't his bed and this isn't his room, so how can he-,'

'Shut up, you're being stupid. Stop thinking.'

Heero's face smoothed into another endearing, loving smile.

"Don't be silly," he soothed.

His words and assurances would usually make me feel just that, like I was being ridiculous. But it was too late. The infection had set in and it was spreading. I clung to him with everything I had with an insane desperation. His hair, his eyes, his skin, his smell, the feel of him, how he made me feel, every piece of him. The sweet feel of his warmth next to me, the dip of the bed, the love in his eyes. I clung and dug my claws into the memory, trying to sear it into my eyes forever. But I couldn't stop myself and when I finally blinked, he was gone.

End Part 35

"Well I was there on the day

They sold the cause for the queen

And when the lights all went out

We watched our lives on the screen

I hate the ending myself

But it started with an alright scene

It was the roar of the crowd

That gave me heartache to sing

It was a lie when they smiled

And said 'you won't feel a thing'

And as we ran from the cops

We laughed so hard it would sting

If I'm so wrong (so wrong, so wrong)

How can you listen all night long? (night long, night long)

Now will it matter after I'm gone?

Because you never learned a goddamn thing

You're just a sad song with nothing to say

About a life long wait for a hospital stay

And if you think that I'm wrong

This never meant nothing to ya

I spent my high school career

Spit on and shoved to agree

So I could watch all my heroes

Sell a car on TV

Bring out the old guillotine

We'll show 'em what we all mean

If I'm so wrong (so wrong, so wrong)

How can you listen all night long? (night long, night long)

Now will it matter long after I'm gone?

Because you never learn a goddamn thing

You're just a sad song with nothing to say

About a life long wait for a hospital stay

And if you think that I'm wrong

This never mean nothing to ya

So go, go away, just go, run away

But where did you run to and where did you hide?

Go find another way, price you pay

You're just a sad song with nothing to say

About a life long wait for a hospital stay

And if you think that I'm wrong

This never meant nothing to ya

You're just a sad song with nothing to say

About a life long wait for a hospital stay

And if you think that I'm wrong

This never meant nothing to ya

At all, at all, at all, at all"

-Disenchanted by MCR

Note: Apologies once again for the obscenely long wait. Writing this part of the story is becoming increasingly challenging, plus the holidays and certain game releases slowed me down a bit. Also, this part was originally going to be half this length, but when I got to Nanowrimo and was already 100 pages into the part, I decided to cram part 35 and 36 together into this monstrosity. The next part is almost definitely going to be shorter, so I hope it won't be another massive wait for it.

As always, thank you so much for everyone who has been kind enough to leave a review. I don't think I need to say at this point that this story is kind of a labor of love at over 2M words and it taking me 18 years to get to this point, so it's amazing to me that not only do people enjoy this story, but I still have anyone reading this far in, let alone anyone that wants to take the time to say anything about it lol.