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'Skinny Love' by Birdy

And I told you to be patient, and I told you to be fine,

And I told you to be balanced, and I told you to be kind,

And now all your love is wasted, then who the hell was I?

'Cause now I'm breaking at the bridges,

And at the end of all your lights,

Who will love you? Who will fight?

And who will fall far behind?

Mia stepped into the room and softly closed the door behind her, only daring to breath out in relief when she heard it catch. Yes she was running away and it was a cowardly spineless thing to do but she was afraid of what she might do if she didn't get out. Get away. Everyone was being so kind, so sweet in their sympathy, but it was a kindness she didn't deserve. The knowledge that she was the one responsible, that it was her actions that had led to this point in time bubble up in side her like acid. And Mia was afraid that when the next person offered her their condolences not only that she might actually start to scream, but that once started she might not be able to stop.

So she had done what she had always done when things became too much for her to cope with. She ran. She ran until she reached the bedroom door and slipped inside the room that had become her sanctuary. The one place she knew she could come and, no matter what, find love and support even if it did come with a side order of sarcastic wit and mild violence. The door still held the no entry sign complete with skull and cross bones that a rebellious eleven year old had put up and had still not got round to taking down eight years later. And now, never would take down.

For a moment Mia just leaned against the door, eyes closed as she sucked in great lungfuls of air while she fought to regain what little composure was still left to her. The bright summer sun was streaming in through the window, bathing the room in golden brilliance, but even though she could feel the warmth of it on her skin it did nothing to alleviate the icy chill that had settled around her heart. It took far more effort than she would have thought possible but after what felt like hours Mia finally forced herself first to stand and then to open her eyes.

Even before her eyes fully focused the first sob had caught in the back of her throat, a half strangled thing that cut off the air and made her feel as if she might choke. The room was unchanged, looking just as it always had every other time Mia had been in it. Clean but messy, the signs of a life being lived scattered haphazardly around the place, posters tacked to walls and photos pined to cork-boards. Draws half closed, and shoes left discarded just where anyone could fall over them, magazines and music players. If she hadn't known better Mia could have convinced herself that Letty would walk in at any moment.

Even lying in the middle of the bed, limbs splayed out in all direction from where he'd been casually tossed that last time Letty left the room was Archibald -

"Why Archibald?" Mia asks burying her face in the soft plush, it smells faintly of vanilla and engine oil a strange combination that shouldn't work but some how does. It's Letty's smell both sweet and not sweet, and it makes her smile.

"I dunno," Letty says giving a vague non-committal shrug and eyeing the mythological pony as if he can supply her with the answer. "First time I saw him I just thought he looked like an Archibald."

- the fluffy purple unicorn complete with sparkly horn. He'd held pride of place on Letty's pillow for as long as Mia had known her, only leaving it when the latina got irritated and threw him at whatever intruder happened to stick their head round the door. She'd always thought that that was the moment her brother realized just how much he loved Letty, when he'd popped his head round her bedroom door and received a face full of purple plush for his trouble.

The book was sat on the bed side table, a bookmark lodged part way threw, as if just waiting for her to stroll back in a pick it up. Perhaps to read or maybe to use as a blunt instrument -

"Upon my oath I'm not a violent man, but if he hurts you skinny girl," Letty says ignoring the way Mia truculently snaps back at her.

"Don't call me that." But it is an old complaint she makes more because it is expected than because it really bothers her any more.

But as she bends down and bops Mia on the head with the paperback the concern in her eyes is clear. "I'll do things to him that will make him wish it was your brother who go hold of him instead."

- something she seemed to do with freighting regularity. But regardless of which capacity she used them Letty was always very hard on books. The little book case by the far wall was crammed to bursting with them. Newest releases pre ordered off the net and out of print things pick up second or even third hand. Battered hard covers and dog-eared paper backs. All broken spines and tattered pages, their covers scuffed and ripped. Not just foxed, as libraries would say, but also badgered, beared and dragoned. And loved, all of them so well loved.

Without conscious direction from her brain Mia's feet picked their way across the floor, and only when she sagged down onto the bed did she actually register the fact she'd been moving. Shoes were easily kicked off and, though the black dress she wore was fitted and pinched tightly, Mia curled up child like on top of the comforter. In her arms she held tight to the stuffed unicorn, all purple fluff and faint lingering scents of vanilla and engine oil.

From where she lay Mia could see the necklace looped over one corner of the dressing table mirror. It shone in the sun light, the cheep stones on the pendant glittering brighter and with more radiance than any diamond. It was the left hand half of a heart, silver plated if that, with the word 'best' written upon it. The right half, complete with the inscription 'friends' was tucked away safely under the collar of the formal black dress. The pendant lying against her skin the only point of warmth she could feel, she had been thirteen when Letty had given it to her.

"Here," Letty's annoyed huffed is softened by amusement as she swats Mia's hands away from the chain's clasp. "You're gonna get it all knotted in your hair if you do that."

"Maybe." Mia hedges while admiring her reflection in the glass, there's just something about the silver of the pendant against her bronze tan that catches the eye. "You've got the other half, right?"

Letty's hand comes up and presses at something hidden under her shirt, while in the mirror an uncertain look crosses her face as if she can't quite interpret the question. But it's all Mia needs. "Good, I wouldn't want anyone else to wear it."

She had been so stupid, Vince had warned her off and Dom had flat out forbidden her. But she hadn't listened, Owen Shaw was pretty and popular and just a little bit dangerous, there was no way she could be anything other than flattered by his attention. And when he had left her at a gas station because she had refused to put out she had been too ashamed and embarrassed to call her brother to come and get her. Unable to face the condescension, the lecture, the judgment he would inflict upon her. So Mia had dismissed Dom and called Letty instead. And like any good friend Letty had come.

She had picked her up and reassured Mia that she had done nothing wrong. She had comforted her and helped her come up with fun and inventive ways to get revenge. She had reached out a hand and brushed hair out of Mia's face a warm understanding smile on her lips. And then she had died when the other car came out of nowhere, clipped their front end and sent them flipping end over end. The other car hadn't even stopped.

Mia had come to in a world of pain and lights. Surrounded by people calling and yelling, who were asking her questions she didn't have the answers to but who refused to answer the one question she ask. Where was Letty? Time and again she had asked, even when pain and fear eventually slurred her voice making her words almost unintelligible she had continued to ask. But no one had answered.

Even as they loaded her into the ambulance she asked but still no one would answer and it was only when the door slammed shut that Mia finally admitted to herself that she had never needed them too. She already knew. Had known it in that first agonizing moment of waking. The shattered glass and empty space beside her had told her everything. And even if it had not then the gaping hollow that had been ripped somewhere deep inside her had told Mia all she needed to know. Letty was gone. Gone for good and never coming back and that she, Mia, was responsible.

She hadn't cried. She'd screamed and raged, lashed out at anyone who came close before succumbing to an almost catatonic state. Mia had found a place somewhere deep inside her own head a craven sanctuary where the misery and lose swallowed her whole. It got to the point where there was so much pain to drown in that she all but stopped feeling it, senses overloaded to where they stopped sensing anything at all. And wrapped around it all a hatred, a self loathing black and suffocating, walls of it that boxed her in and locked the rest of the world out.

No she hadn't cried, not then. But here and now in this place the walls she had built started to crack and then shattered and the tears she had so long held back flowed like the sea. Here in this place, where so many times before she had wept her heart out while rough yet gentle hands comforted and consoled her, the pain of grief and loss finally broke free. It raged like a river and carried her like a leaf caught in the current. Huge gasping sobs that racked her body and left her weak and trembling, but never the less did nothing to dispel the illusion of ghostly hands -

"It's gonna be fine Mia. You're gonna be fine, I know it." Letty murmurs as she rhythmically moves her fingers through her friends hair trying to free the strands that have become snarled by tears and other less pleasant things.

"H-how?" The words is somewhere between a gulp and a sob and muffled as Mia buries her head further into her best friends lap, burrowing like a frightens rabbit seeking safe darkness.

"Because your sweet and kind," Letty's light laugh is more than a little mocking but her hands never hesitate in there comforting motion. "I'm the bitch, remember? And if you're patient just a little longer I promise it's all going to be fine. You will be fine, trust me."

- that pet her hair and tried to sooth away the pain.

Eyes swollen and puffy, tears still rolling over cheeks that were sore and red, Mia looked up as the sound of Letty's bedroom door swinging open reached her over the sound of her own strangled sobs. Dom stood in the doorway, arms held limply at his sides and his face impassive as he looked at her huddled on his dead girlfriend's bed her own arms full of purple plush. The emptiness in his eyes made her want to turn her face and hide from him, but that same bleakness also held her frozen in place.

"They're looking for you." His voice was as devoid of emotion as his face, carefully neutral as if he were talking to a stranger about the weather. Message delivered he turned his back, his actions indicating that he personally didn't care if she came down or stayed locked inside the room for the rest of her days.

"Dom, I…" Mia started but her voice faded into nothingness as Dom paused just long enough to look back over his shoulder at her. The expression on his face said it all, he had no desire to hear anything she had to say.

"Don't." It was both a warning and a threat, a demand and a plea. He didn't wait to see if she complied, between one eye blink and the next he was gone. The door closing behind him with a finality that only underscored just how little he wanted to hear what ever she had been about to say.

Mia bit her trembling lip, almost hard enough to break the skin and draw blood, as if her teeth were a barrier that she would lock her words behind. That her brother, who had once seemed as strong and grounded as a mountain, was poised on a knife edge was clear to see. Part of him blamed her, hated her even, for however inadvertently causing the death of the love of his life. It was a part that wanted to lash out and make her feel just a fraction of the pain he was enduring. While another part, wanted nothing more than to reach out and console her, to wrap his arms around her as he reassured her that she was not responsible. And slowly but surely the internal conflict was ripping him apart.

And so, not knowing what else to do, he avoided her. When she walked into a room he would walk out and when walking away was not an option he would simply act as if she weren't there. He hardly spoke to her and barely even looked at her, the warm hugs and affectionate embraces that had once been such a big part of their life were long gone. And Mia knew it was because Dom no longer trusted himself to hold her, behind the pain and the loss was a fear that the hand that reached out for hers might one day push her away for good.

So he shunned her whenever possible, turning away before she could say more than his name. But there was so much Mia wanted to tell him. That she would take back what had happened in a heartbeat if she could. That if given the chance to do things over again she would listen to his warnings, stay home and make sure that Letty had no reason to be driving that road. She wanted to convince him that if she had the power to change things then she would be the one who was dead and he would still have Letty to hold in his arms.

There were so many things she would say if he could bare to be in the same room as her for long than a few moments. But Dom could hardly stand to look at her and as far as he was concerned he words were empty meaningless things that could do nothing to change the world in which he now had to live. A world which no longer contained the person he had loved more than life its self and without whom that life was no longer worth living.

Lamanth