SUMMARY: Some things are better left in the past.

DEDICATION: To Leah, even though she totally does not deserve it. Nymbis will be posting a companion story, so please make us both happy and read and review.

Not Bad Enough

…

"You've spent a long time in Nefandus. I thought you'd like bad boys by now."

"You're not bad enough for me."

…

"I just wanted to party with you, Goddess and Bad Boy – we could have a fucking good time."

…

"Didn't they feed you in Nefandus? I'll buy you a meal."

…

"Escape is impossible. Take a bite. Join the victors. Save yourself."

…

"Nice dress. Did you wear it for me? I knew you couldn't stay away from me. In the new world, after the eclipse, you'll wanna hook up with me. So why wait?"

…

She started awake. It was that dream again. The dream she always had when things seemed strange, chaotic even, in the world post-her seventeenth birthday. She didn't know why she catalogued time like that. Didn't most girls think about being over 18 or over 21? But for some reason she was stuck continually defining herself by the number of years since her 17 birthday. She couldn't even figure out why. Was that the day she finally realized her friends were not coming home? The day was too fuzzy for her to remember but she had a feeling that it also had to do with the boy. The boy who always haunted her dreams, telling her she would want him… in the new world.

Was the new world the world she lived in now? The world where she was no longer seventeen?

She shook her head and sat up. There was no point in lying in bed any longer. She knew she would never get back to sleep after that dream.

…

Her friend called her crazy when she brought up the dream.

"Por favor, stop worrying about this nightmare."

"I didn't say it was a nightmare."

"Some creepy gabacho all over you, talking about weird places and having a good time? Sounds like a nightmare to me."

She couldn't explain it to her friend. What would she say? That she went through her life thinking that she had been irrevocably changed on her seventeenth birthday, but she had no idea how?

…

So she went through her mornings, waking from the dream she both hated and craved, and through her days, wondering what was wrong with her, and through her nights, forcing herself to sleep.

…

It seemed like an ordinary day when it happened. When she saw him. When her world seemed to stop around her. Ringing filled her ears as her eyes locked with him from across the street. Piercings and tattoos and ratty clothes covered him.

…

"Do I know you?" she asked him. She wasn't even sure how they got to be standing next to each other.

"You know that you do."

"I don't remember."

"There's a lot you don't remember."

They were standing so close. So close. They were touching.

"Remind me."

He leaned in to kiss her. She should have been repulsed. She wasn't. Their lips brushed. He pulled away first and laughed humorlessly. He brushed his hands across her cheek.

"Sorry, Vanessa. I'm a bad boy." She looked deep into his eyes. "But not bad enough."

He disappeared.

"Vanessa!" Jimena came running up to her, an almost terrified look on her face. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah… yeah… I'm fine."

But she never was. Never again.

…

"Tymmie." Vanessa woke from her dream whispering his name. But she didn't cower in fear; how could she fear Tymmie? Tymmie… A grunted snore broke through her waking dream. She glanced over. Ben breathed heavily through an open mouth, lying on his stomach, one arm thrown over his head.

He wasn't Tymmie, but he would have to do for the times when she couldn't be in her dreams.

She drifted back to sleep with a smile on her face.