Rating: It's 2 in the morning, I just spent an hour on the title, so just go with it's suitable for TV. I swear, no even a mention of sex!
Summary: Have I ever given these? Then why would I start now. Just be warned, angst gaurenteed.
Dedication: To Lisa. She wrote me a story about getting back at her sister and cousin so I wrote her this. Thanks for all of your encouragement, doll.
Note: It's late, I was going to go through it, but my eyes are drooping. Forgiveme.
Distribution: Want? Ask. Have. Any places who already have my fics, of course. Otherwise, please ask, or send a URL where it's going.

It was a long time ago, too long if you ask me, that I felt warmth course through my body. It's been years since I've felt something other than cold-bitterness. I don't when it started, and I don't really care.

Great attitude, isn't it? Aren't I supposed to be helping myself? Shouldn't I want to get better? Not the way I see it. Life sucks. It sucks so much that I have to drown my troubles in a bottle of my best friend, Jack.

Jack, and me we meet up every night. He's always willing to help me forget. I have to have Jack to forget. Numbness to get rid of pain. That's how it works, right?

Some times, when I actually have the strength to say no, I sit on my floor and cry. I cry for myself and I cry for him. God, when id I become so pathetic? I used to be strong, I remember. I used to be filled with so much hope that the thought sickens me. So why am I so bitter now?

It's all his fault. Damn him and his noble shit. < I need you to live without me. > He told me long ago. Damn him. Damn him to hell, again. I hate him. I hate him so much that it almost frightens me. But it's easy. It's easier to hate than to be sad, because if I hate, then I don't have to risk the fact that I'll start crying and drown in my own tears. I hate him.

I hate the way he made me feel so alive. I hate the way he held me. I hate the way that one single touch would melt my heart. I hate how he had so much love for me, and he was so fucking noble that he left me alone to die by myself.

I hate how when he left I fell so hard that I let John hit me until I was on the ground screaming in fear and pain.

I hurl Jack at the wall and watch him smash into a million pieces. Violence feels good. That's what got me where I am today, anyway. Why change the course of my life now? Violence has built me into the strong, hateful person I am. Violence has let me put up a steel wall around my heart, and violence and hatred is going to keep it standing.

Slowly, I pull myself off the floor. I know that if I keep this up much longer, one of the other tenants of the building will call the landlord and I'll be kicked out. I can afford to be on the streets again. I was worse there than I am in here, if you believe it. When I was on the streets I would find anything I could to get my mind off the pain. I sold my body just so I cold get a hit of bad-make coke. So I could get my mind off of him. I really do hate him.

I go into my bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. I'm not shocked by my appearance. I've had the same one for two years. So the dark circles and ratty hair doesn't phase me. And my eyes, they grew more blank today. I can see the emptiness in them, and the hollowness almost shows the wall behind me. I guess I should be concerned, but I gave up a long time ago.

I feel the warm water flow over my skin. It's like an elixir, it the only thing that can give heat to my otherwise cold body. I pour my eighty-six cent shampoo and conditioner in my hair and roughly scrub away the days film. I keep thinking that if I scrub hard enough I can get his scent off of me. I scrub s hard that blood starts to seep from my scalp. I stare at it in fascination. Not in shock because why should I care? Maybe if I bleed enough, I'll die. But that would be a blessing, and someone as fucked up as I am doesn't get blessings. I get nightmares.

I step out of the shower and pull an old T-shirt over my body. I curl under the sheet that is my only protection against the brutal Chicago winter cold. Did I surprise you? You thought I was in California perhaps? Why the hell would I stay in a place so dripping with pain that it was ready to swallow me up and spit me out just so it could continue to torment me?

I came to Chicago a long time ago, hoping to find some resemblance on the normal life Mr. Noble wanted me to have. That's when I met John. I was so young and fragile then that anyone promising to give me love, I took in open armed. We were together for about six months, and then he started to hit me. At first, it was a little slap here and there, but then it turned into full fists. I put up for it for six months. Why? I still don't care. One day I had enough and I brought a vase down on his skull. If it killed him, I don't know. I only knew that I didn't want to be there when he woke up, if he ever did.

That was the last of the strength I ever possessed. Whatever self- dignity or respect I had flew out the window as I flew out the door of John's apartment. I lived for six months on the street until I finally found myself a job and a halfway decent place to sleep. I guess it was a turn around. Not really.

The night air wisps over my body, and I begin to shiver. The shivering reminds me of when he first held me. They started at my toes and went all the way up to my spine. God, I hate how he did that to me. As I think about him, I begin to cry. Alone in the night, I cry.

Until I hear a voice trying to comfort me. "Shh... shh, it's going to be all right. "

I look up and I meet those soulful eyes. Those damn eyes that melt me. "Angel?" I ask. "What took you so long?" I ask as I drift off into my first peaceful sleep in two years.

Send feedback to Cass

Back to the Fanfiction Archive