Mmmmm. Reviews?

"Are you enjoying it?" an echo, a beat. Evey jumped, the monotone voice a vivid contrast to the soft meadow that this novel had pulled her into. She looked up at him, feeling the familiar catch of breath and the customary surrendering of her senses.

"Yes" the voice was choked and strained in her mind, but it came out as it always had, smooth and unaffected, light, as it always would be.

"Tell me Evey. What is it that you enjoy about it?" the question was a simple one, but Evey found that her brain wasn't capable of functioning properly. He must have sensed it too, but it was hard to tell, that mask always made him look all knowing and content. Content to the brink of insanity.

"I…" her words would slur and contort, she knew they would. For she didn't actually…know the answer herself. What did she like about it? Being taken away she supposed, getting to see someone else's troubles so she could stop hiding from hers, if only for a little while.

"There shouldn't have to be an answer for that question. I'm sorry, Evey. I'll leave you in peace" he retreated, easing out of the room with so much grace that it almost pained her. She would never be on his level, never be as good as him…she would never be good enough for him.

Her eyes looked back down at the book, trying to take in the words on the page, trying to understand, to get back the meadow so she could run and be free. She wanted the breeze fluttering her white dress and the sun to lightly kiss her pale sunken cheeks. But in Evey's world they wouldn't be pale and sunken, they would be full and beautiful, like her lips. And her eyes would regain their color, blossoming and becoming beautiful like they once were, like they could be again, if only Evey would let them.

Of course though, he couldn't know this, he had tried too hard to get her to let go, to grasp her fear, to look it in the eye and kill it, letting it pour out of her until there was nothing left, until she had a clean foundation that she could build on again, so she could start over.

He didn't know that her pain was far from gone, she had just skimmed the surface, and she feared its depths were too deep to conquer without drowning. She had been trying, but so far she had only been successful in masking the pain, but not eliminating it.

She sometimes thought that he had to know. But, she couldn't see his eyes…she could never know what he was thinking, but maybe it was easier that way. She wanted so desperately to cling to him, tell him to help her, to fix her. But she was still the coward that she had been, the fear had gone away for a little while, of course, she had been confident, she knew why she was here, what her purpose was, but it had come running back, clinging to her like smoke, wrapping around her neck, strangling her, seeping into her blood, getting under her skin.

She traced her finger down the lightweight paper, relishing the feel of the smooth words under her fingers, feeling the words flow into sentences and make thoughts that could be contemplated, and thoughts that could make imagery so vivid that you could lose yourself in it.

She was cheating, and with cheating comes the inevitable guilt. How would he feel about his books if he knew that they were helping her to get over this, instead of going through it? She was taking the easy way out and she was completely aware of it.

She tried to run her fingers through her hair, but instead ran them through a phantom. Her fingers found and stumbled over the scars on her face, her breath catching and releasing, her heart beating steadily, his face a constant image in her mind, telling her to breathe, telling her to trust her feelings and that she needed to go through if she had any chance of being a better person.

But who did she need to be a better person for? For him? For herself? He was the only thing in her life that mattered, the only thing that had any significance, any substance. He was there, like a breeze, whispering in her ear, a constant reminder that she had some worth and that doing it for herself was the most selfless thing she could do…if only for the fact that it was the most selfish.

She didn't have to understand his philosophies to unconditionally agree with them. Anything that came from his mouth was fact as far as she was concerned. The way he spun words so perfectly, the way it seemed that truth poured from him…it always captivated her. The second she heard a catch of breath when he was about to speak, her mind would quiet and all of her…all of her attention; her very being would intently focus on him, on the words that he made into masterpieces.

As her thoughts flooded her she felt herself being drawn further and further from the peaceful garden she wanted to desperately to go back to. She found herself drifting into an entirely new world, a world where her thoughts overcame her; and she was scared. She felt the fear start to prickle in her stomach, bubbling hot up her throat and settling harshly in her spine. She took a breath, and then another, and then another, clinging with everything that she had to the words that he had spoken.

"Evey…it's hollow; there is no bases for this fear, let it consume you, let it swallow you whole…Evey, you must let yourself become one with your fear, only then can you truly master it"

But what if she couldn't overcome it?

"Let it penetrate you…"

But what if the pain was too great?

"Become one with your fear"

But what if they were too different?

She saw flashes of the meadow and she felt the old leather under the pads of her fingers, but it was there that the feelings stopped. If she just gave up…she could get through, she would make it, she knew she could.

But she was too afraid.

Her fingers shook and her spine went rigid, she was going to drown here, and she knew it. She would die right here…because she couldn't get back to that meadow…and she was left here alone, to her own devices.

And she wasn't strong enough.

"Evey…"

Ha ha.

"EVEY!"

A pair of strong arms on her shoulders, but they only pushed her deeper into the ocean of emotions, deeper into the current…deeper into the water that she couldn't tread.

"It's worse than I feared"

What?

"Evey, you must listen to me. You're going to pass out. You're not going to know where you are when you awake. You won't remember what I'm telling you. But Evey, I'm sorry, but you'll thank me. I care. I care…"

A pressure, a moment where she could breathe, the water lifted around her, she was free, liberated. But, only for a moment, before she was thrust back into the darkness again, but this time it was quiet…she was free, she wasn't going to die…she could handle it.

Because she didn't have to face it.

Not yet anyway.