Draw Back Your Bow

(Fate Is A Cruel Bitch)

I'm a fuck up.

My entire life I've done nothing but destroy everything and everyone around me. I thought that maybe things could be different now. That I was different enough for things to change. Of course they're not. Because even though I'm not the same Oliver I was before, it's still me. On some deep and hidden level I can't understand and never will be able to, there is something about me. Something about me that will always cause pain and death and destruction. Fate is a cruel bitch.

Only this time it's different.

I didn't cause someone else pain, at least not pain that I'm able to see right now. No, I fucked myself up this time.

I can't see anything for a second. My vision goes red as I look at her, look at them. My God, is this what Felicity felt like last year, when she found me in my room in Russia and Isabel came out, her hair ruffled and a complete tell-tale of what we just did?

There's a stabbing pain in my chest. Familiar because I've been stabbed before, and completely new because it's never hurt like this before. Not when I found out that Laurel was with Tommy. Not when I realized I knew that Sara would never love me the way that she loved Nyssa, that she was with me simply because she couldn't handle the death and darkness that involved being with Nyssa, and that was only slightly different and more bearable with me. If only because I tried to save people.

Trying. I'm always trying and never really succeeding.

I have to leave. I have to leave right now, because I can't let them see me. Felicity… my Felicity, and this Ray Palmer. It's not right, they shouldn't be kissing. It's not right.

My body is a machine, it's taken me entirely too long to make it that way, and it responds to me now when I need it most. It walks away, a ghost in my legs making it move because God knows I couldn't - shouldn't - be able to move at all right now.

My eyes burn, and it takes me entirely too long to realized that it's because of the tears that have welled up there, fighting and threatening to make their way out.

I haven't cried in a long time. I'm used to just shutting down. It's safer that way, because if I shut down then I can't feel. I can't afford to feel. Oliver Queen doesn't get that luxury. The Arrow doesn't get that luxury. My life used to be a whirlwind of luxuries, the best of everything. I could hit him, that stupid kid I used to be who took everything and everyone for granted simply because he didn't know any better.

It's as simple as placing one foot in front of the other. Repeat. It's as hard as walking away from her. Repeat.

You did this to yourself Oliver. It's all I can think. I really do have to be alone. When I finally decided otherwise, I was beaten to it by someone else. She's beautiful, smart, brave, innocent, and much too good for me. Hell, she's too good for anyone, even Ray Palmer. Especially Ray Palmer.

But there's nothing I can do there, or here, or anywhere. I go back to the foundry because it's the only home I know now. The fern she gave me is sitting on her desk, it's growing limbs and leaves darling off the edge of the desk.

Rage is all I can feel now. It's safe and familiar. I let it envelop me as I stupid and uselessly attack the things on the desk in front of me.

Rage is safe. Rage is best. Because she's not my Felicity, not like I thought earlier. Not like I wanted to think earlier, my thoughts more of a wish that I desperately wanted to be true.

She's not my Felicity. Right now, she's Ray's Felicity.

AN: I started this as a means to keep my creative juices flowing and to practice with the first person narrative, since it was something I hadn't dabbled in in a while. This will probably be a collection of random drabbles. Please review and let me know what you all think.