Mom and it's not a shallow cut. It's deep and it doesn't stop bleeding no matter what I do.

Buffy, because I lost her and she came back but she was still lost to me. Sometimes I think that maybe I was the one who was lost. It doesn't matter either way. She was my sister and she wasn't there. And when she was she died for me. She killed people for me. Because of me. That's strangely worse than her being gone.

Spike. Somehow I'd always thought of him as mine but then he loved her and any claim I'd ever had on him was instantly gone. Recently Buffy's decided that hey maybe she loves him too, he has a soul now, and that seems to justify it for her. Me, I don't seem to care now, he's not even Spike anymore. Why would I want him?
Tara. My mother was gone, Buffy was someplace I couldn't get to but Tara, she was there. Really there and she cared about me. About Dawn, never mind I was the Key or Buffy's little sister, she cared about Dawn. And then...she was irrevocably gone to a place that we could never reach. I didn't understand how a little piece of metal could end things so suddenly. Still don't. Oh I understand the science of it but I don't *understand*.

Justin - and the thing is I knew what he was. I knew from the beginning. I *knew* and I didn't care. I was going to let him bite me, only for a heartbeat but I was going to let him.

Most of all? Me. Memories of blood and death that I can't escape. Dreams that come upon me in the night reminding me of what I am...was. Am or was? Like I said it doesn't matter, it's all the same now.

Everything is and I don't know what the point is. Of me existing. The Key part of me is apparently gone now and that was all I was ever supposed to do. It's what I was made for after all. The Dawn part, I lost somewhere along the road to now and I don't remember what ever distinguished that from the other part of me. Dawnie, she wanted to fight like her sister, she wrote everything that ever happened to her down in diaries and had crushes on vampires that just happened to be in love with her sister. This new Dawn who's leaning against a wall outside the Bronze and doesn't give a damn about the guy who's kissing her right now can't seem to care about any of that.

I tell myself I changed after she died because I'm starting to forget things that happened before that. I had never dreamt like I do now before the tower, but after it my head was suddenly full of memories and scenes I had never seen before. Other lives and the sharpness of their pain cutting into me were all I could feel for hours on end. And then eventually it didn't hurt anymore, it all became this dull blur that was the same through and through. I was numb and that was okay.

I glance down as Sean's - I think it's Sean but I really can't remember - hands stroke briefly across my skin and then reach for the top of my jeans and start to unbutton them. The old Dawn flashes briefly through me wondering what the hell I'm doing. I'm not even sure of this guys name and he doesn't know mine but here I am and I don't care anymore. He slides my jeans down, and then my panties, his breathing heavy. I wrap my arm around his neck and kiss him hard and pretend I want this.

Then he's inside of me and I'm hardly aware of it until it hurts. It hurts but not so much as everything else, I close my eyes briefly and then it's over. He pulls away from me and fixes his clothes.

"See you around" Sean or is it Scott? says with an easy smile like I'm the kind of girl that does this all the time. No, not all the time. Not ever until now. I nod a little, I can't force a smile today and pull up my underwear and black jeans, hastily zipping them.

Oh God.

I bite my lip a little and feel a kind of anger that there's still something left. Should have been sliced away by now by the multitude of shallow cuts inside of me. Right now though that something has caused unfamiliar tears to form at the corners of my eyes. It doesn't matter, I tell myself one more time wondering if thinking that again and again could ever help and I hug my jacket closer to me.

It's just one more shallow cut for little Dawnie. Just a few more drops of blood. I wonder if anyone will notice this time.