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Jade had always been like a black fog to him, one that could seep in-between any crack he had, tainting him with dark, but not malicious, no never malicious, smoke. It would get inside of him like a drug, attacking his cells, starting, electrifying them. She was his drug - His secret little addiction.

They had grown up together. No one was aware of that, not Beck, not Cat, not Tori, not Andre, not anyone. It was part of their past, no one else was allowed in. A locked room full of secrets, promises, confessions, and wounds.

They lived across from each other from the ages of six to thirteen, back when Jade's mom had that 'little' issue with drugs; back when he lived with his real dad. Back when all two kids had were each other. They had each other's backs, they always would.

That's why when he gets a phone call at three in the morning, not from Jade, but 'blue' – her childhood name he had given her himself – he answers right away. A choked sob has him jumping up off his bed, picking his jeans up off the floor tugging them on without her even having to say anything.

"Robbie…" Her voice breaks off.

Something was wrong; she wouldn't call unless something was wrong, really wrong. "Jade, what's wrong?" She wouldn't call with this number unless something was wrong.

"I need you… God Robbie I…" Her breathing was coming out in heavy pants. "I…"

She needed him, that's all he needed to hear. "Give me your directions; I'll be there as soon as I can." He hangs up once he gets the address and grabs his jacket and heads out of his bedroom nearly bumping into his sister.

The girl looked ready to give him a piece of her mind until she noticed his alarmed expression.

"You'll think you'll be alright for a few hours alone?" He asks the eight year old. She had been left alone before and he wouldn't be gone long. The child nodded and he moved around her without another word.

He finds her in the basement of a large home, bloody, immodestly dressed in a tiny black skirt. But truly, his attention is on the man's body in the corner, limp and bloody. His heart thuds in his chest as he very slowly descends the wooden stairs.

His eyes return to Jade, his legs grow weak as he moves towards the balled up shivering form. He bends down next to her, his hand landing on a bare bloody shoulder. She moves, flinching back and up, throwing up a blade between them.

"It's me," he quickly says, holding his hands up.

Her eyes move over his face for a long moment, before her shoulders begin to shake, tears race quickly down her cheeks. He cautiously reaches for her and carefully pries the blade from her shaking hands.

"What happened?" He asks slowly, glancing to the body a few feet away from them, lying in a pool of its own blood.

"I… I…" Her mascara bleeds, tainting her pale cheeks black.

His eyes fall on needle between them and the man. His heart quickly plummets. She was supposed to be beyond that.

"It was self-defense," he quickly says, meeting her eyes, "All you have to tell them is that it was self-defense."

Her lips tremble and her chest moves up and down rapidly. "I'm not even supposed to be here." Her voice cracks. "I was finally getting away from this stuff." She whimpers. She meant being accepted to a college in New York, she was truly going to get away from their troubled past instead of just ignoring it.

A feeling rumbled under his skin, a dangerous thought wormed its way into his mind, mentally going back and forth.

"I should have listened to you… I'm so sorry, Robbie." Her bloody hands go to cover her face.

The girl being so broken brought a memory to him, one from a childhood he tried not to remember.

A young girl with light brown hair, dressed in dirty pink overalls slid into the back of his duplex, crying and bruised. The trash bag he was carrying slipped from his hands and he yelped out of surprise. Her eyes were big, blue, and afraid. So blue and so afraid…"Please…" the girl had whispered fidgeting from one foot to another.

He was smart enough to understand what was going on. He had done it himself – ran from someone trying to hurt him. Wordlessly he motioned her to a wooden tool box sitting on the edge of their patio, he helped her in, and closing the lid just as a man rounded the corner of his home, big, angry, with a bleeding hand.

"You see a kid in pink overalls, kid?" The man grunted, inviting himself into his backyard, looking around. Robbie only shook his head, he never talked much then and this man was certainly not a person he wanted to talk with.

"Don't lie to me…" The man growled. The man's eyes had fallen on the tool box; Robbie moved to block him, small body shaking, but brown eyes steady and hard.

"Why don't you get the fuck outta here?" The young boy had said in a surprisingly calm voice. "I'll call my dad if you don't."

The man had snorted. "What that boney crack head?"

"Who in the hell you calling crack head?" His daddy's rough voice hissed as stepped into the backyard, a pistol raised at the other man's head. "Get the fuck off my property."

The other man raised his hands in surrender. "Alright man, just looking for my woman's little girl, that's all."

"You see her, get the fuck out!"

The man glared but left out of the backyard. Robbie turned to his father, just as the man was reaching for him. His father grabbed him but the front of his shirt.

"What in the hell was taking you so long?" He was picked up by his shirt, the tips of his toes brushing the ground. "I told you to clean the bathroom, dumbass." His father began to drag him back into the house; he turned his head, his eyes locking with a pair of blue… very blue eyes peeking under the crack of the tool box.

It was history from there. That's when he began to drown slowly in that black fog of Jade.

He looked around the basement quickly before quickly standing, picking up a cloth from the built in shelves pressed to the walls. He moves back over to Jade and picks up the blade he had made her drop earlier and wiped the cloth over it.

"Tell me what you touched, everything you touched." He breathed heavily.

"I dunno… I can't…" Getting to her feet the girl looked him in the eye. "What are you doing?" He could tell she already was aware. Why was she even surprised, he always saved her. "You can't…"

"You were never here. This was a drug deal gone badly and you were never here."

"Why would you do this?" She yelled at him. "After how I've been treating you these last few years, you're going to do this? After I…"

"It honestly doesn't matter, alright?"

"No," she whispered weakly. "I…" She trails, her eyes find his again, and then she hugs him tightly, throwing her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his neck. It felt like hours that they stood there holding each other. "I really do love you." She whispers.

Finally he gently pushes her away. "Leave now, Jade."

Her body shakes and she looks at him for a long time. "I'll wait for you." He believes her. Finally takes a step towards the basements door, looking at him one last time before quickly leaving.

Alone, he goes to work, he wipes Jade's finger prints off the handles of the basement and anything else in the fairly large house might have. He looks for surveillance cameras. Then, he calls the cops and he waits.

()

At his trail she's there with the others in their group, he's glade. But he wishes she could have been blue instead of Jade.

They find each other's eyes when he's sentenced to ten years, pain is there. He hopes she becomes successful.

()

He gets out in eight for good behavior. They talked a lot in the beginning, he and Jade, then the letters became every other week instead of every day, then every other week merged into every few months and every few months turned into nothing…

He understood.

His mom let him move back in even got his a job as car wash. All he could get. He was fine with it. He never tried to get into contact with any of his old friends, not even Jade. All he had to do was turn on a television, pick up a magazine to see how they were. Happy, successful, and still friends living their lives; and he was happy for them.

Then, his mother overdosed and his sister fell ill. He was left in the care of sixteen year old with only a job at a car wash. He needed the money.

He called her. It had taken three gulps of vodka and an hour of staring at his phone and he could only get her assistant, then a manager at one time, who assured him he would give her the message. He told himself that the manager had lied, that the woman hadn't given Jade his message.

Recently, she had written a book on the 'hard' struggles of Broadway. Her book was fifteen dollars; he bought it anyway and went to the book signing, stood in the long line that wrapped around the block. He waited the whole three hours and by the time he got close enough to see her, her eyes hidden behind large black sunglasses, hair still black and long, skin still pale.

His stomach churns; he's only a person away. When he finally makes it to her she only holds her hand out, not looking up. He hands her the book, his body tense. The woman signs it.

"Thanks for coming," she mumbled half-heartedly. He makes no move to take it, which makes her look up, her lips then and pressed, that is, until she looks up. Her lips part and he can see her eyes widen behind those glasses.

"Hi Jade," he tries to smile but it ends up more like a grimace. His heart moves so rapidly in his chest it takes his breath away. She bites her lip staring at him. A body guard steps forward noticing the hold-up, she holds up a manicured hand.

Robbie watches the bodyguard until he takes a step back. He manages to swallow and lean forward towards her whispering into her ear. "Can I speak with you later at the café - Moe's?" He leans back and watches her, she watches him. Finally she nods, handing him back the book.

He waits for five hours, a cold cup of cheap coffee in front of him. She never shows. Like that cup of cooling coffee, his heart eventually turns cold.

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