She listened to rain pound off the window. She wanted to think Tony would crawl through it at some point, sitting on her bed, telling her he can see right through her and knows exactly what she's thinking. She missed his smart-ass. She looked at her legs, crossed in the Indian position. A curl fell into her face, and she blew it away. It was another day of nothingness. Nothing but the voices in my head, she batted the thought away. Every day it became more prominent and the voices get louder. They're the only things she heard.

"Effy!" A happy voice yelled up the stairs. She stared at the door knob, but the footsteps stopped on the stairs. "Eff?" A few more steps and she saw a concerned Freddie walked through the door. She half smirked at the way his eyes widened when he was worried. "Why didn't you answer me?"

She half smiled again and looked up to him. "Sometimes it's nice to know someone is worried about you." He tilted his head and sighed, half in relief half in disappointment of my playful ways. She stood up and wrapped her arms around Freddie's neck.

"Effy, you drive me mad."

"I know." She kissed him, making him forget about any anger he had inside towards me. He spun her around and dropped me onto the bed, sitting up on his knees laughing at her.

He leaned into her and kissed her once again. "Effy Stonem, do you know what you do to me?" She nodded her head with a smile. "Good. Because you make me mental. Mental in a good way. I love you, Effy. I love you."

"Freddie…" She tried to kiss him again but he pushed her back onto the bed. "Fine, Freddie. I love you. I love you and I hate the demons in my head. I'm mad when I'm with you, absolutely mental." She roughly pulled at the tear on her cheek. "But I suppose I'd rather be mad with you than mad all alone." She smiled at his worried face.

He slowly reached for her hand, but she scrambled to pull it away. "You can't do that. Don't do that. I don't want affection."

"Then what do you fucking want, Effy?" She was sitting on her shins, her legs folded underneath her. Leaning on her left hand, she fiddled with the fingers of her right, watching herself do it. She shrugged, barely noticeable because of how hunched over she was. Freddie rolled his eyes and scoffed at her. "Don't pull the fucking silent shit, Effy. I know you can talk. And I know you've got so many words in there that you just want to let explode out of that sealed mouth of yours."

Freddie stood and then sat back down on the edge of the bed. He put his elbows on his knees and then put his head in his hands. "You know what people think of you? Of course you know. They just think you're Effy fucking Stonem. Fit and mysterious. Tony Stonem's little sister. 'She's fucked up,' 'she's a good shag,' 'she's marvelous,' people say, nudging each other." He looked at her with his head tilted slightly, barely seeing past his own shoulder. He saw her intent fixation on him with her eyes, her empty eyes that she sucked people in with. Her furrowed brow and pursed lips made him question himself on starting this little rant, but he continued anyway. "The thing is, Effy… The thing is, I know that you're so much more than that. I know there's something in there. There's something inside you, and it's not your demons. It's love, Elizabeth Stonem. Fucking love."

Effy's face became more furrowed. Freddie let himself fall onto his back staring at the ceiling. Effy's voice was becoming something foreign to him again, and he hated it. She couldn't be distant. He needed her and he knew she needed him whether she was ready to admit it or not. "Effy?" Freddie looked at her with a confused expression and waited for her to look back up at him. When she did, he continued. "Why did you start talking?"

Effy's face became masked with some sort of hidden pain. She looked back down at the bed, picking at a stray thread with her hand that wasn't holding her up. She sighed, "Tony."

"What do you mean, fucking 'Tony'?" He knew Tony was her brother but she never spoke about him. Effy didn't speak about anything. She didn't want people to know that there was any possibility of vulnerability inside that hard outer shell she had.

She shrugged again, like she did every other time. "He said he could see right through me. And he could. Why try and hide yourself from someone if they know everything about you just because they know themselves?" For the first time since meeting Effy, Freddie didn't know what to day. She was finally talking but he didn't know what she was trying to say. "Tony lived in this shit house with me for my whole life. He translated for me when I wouldn't talk to people. He could do it because my inner anger and fucking pain was caused by this damn house. The walls hold secrets, Freds."

She stared at the wall, completely intrigued. Effy was different, not hard to tell. She didn't really give a fucking and she wasn't going to start anytime soon. Freddie's eyes shot to her nightstand as Effy's phone vibrated shockingly against the wood surface.

She sluggishly moved to get it, and it seemed like it took her an eternity to get there. "Hello, wanker. Oh, sorry. I mean my lovely fucking brother." The bitterness in her tone was something surprising, even for Effy. He knew something else had gone on between them, there must have been an unwritten rule broken. "What the fuck do you mean, what's wrong? You left me here. Alone. With them." She stressed the word them. "No not our fucking parents, you twat! No, Tony. Listen, Tony Stonem, I can see through you just as clear as you can see through me! Tony, no!"

Hang up the phone, Effy, said one little monster.

No Elizabeth, tell him what he wants, said another.

She screamed into the phone, but it wasn't a shrill scream. It was a deep frustrated grunt type thing. She hated this. She didn't want to be told what to do. Especially by these things in her head that didn't know her. Or did they? She knew they weren't real… most of the time. "At that right there, Freds, is why I keep you held at arm's length." The words came out of her mouth before she could filter them. I guess she had forgotten how many pills she had taken this morning, or how many shots of vodka she had put into her cereal, juice, milk, or had just taken on its own.

But she watched Freddie's expression change. She watched him worry. He could see inside her head as if by looking into her eyes it was an open door to her thoughts. She hated that. Effy didn't like not being in control. Freddie's head turned for just a minute but just a minute was all she needed. She slid her other half empty bottle of vodka out from under her pillow and the pills came along with it. She took three pills following with three long swigs of vodka.

Effy's mouth pulled into a smile and she felt like she was floating. She had the all too familiar feeling of a balloon inside her skull, not a brain. She swayed on the bed with eyes closed. "Freddie," was all she managed to whisper out, in a euphoric tone, before crashing head first off the bed, unconscious.