"Please, stay here tonight" Alex was sitting on her bed, touching Piper's hips that quivered under those fingers she had missed too much.

Alex slowly closed her arms around her waist and brought herself nearer. The blonde girl tried to react, but she couldn't. Alex passed her hands under the girl's shirt and slowly skimmed over her smooth skin, now gathered by the goose bumps. Piper closed her eyes in desire, but she stopped Alex's hands and pushed them away, with a sigh.

She had been so stupid to go there, to accept Alex invitation after those years. She wanted to go away, so she freed herself from Alex's grasp and made two steps forward. But the brunette instantly started to panic.

She was going away again. Alex grabbed strongly Piper's shirt and the blond got so surprised by that strength that she turned away disgusted by that woman she now barely knew.

All that scene was just a play to make her fall in her web again; but this time it wouldn't work. Piper stared at her for a while; once so beautiful, now Alex looked like a creepy creƤture of darkness, grabbing her knees to her face, trembling and sweating.

That woman was unrecognizable: she had been so soft, so bright, so breathtaking; now she was nothing more than an empty shell. Her face was carved, the hair messy, her clothes, hanging on her delicate body in many folds, left a void between the fabric and her pale skin, so tight on the bones.

Everything in her looked dead, ruined, worn out. She had the signs of pain, suffering, crying, no rest and all her body emanated destruction.

Suddenly the brunette raised her eyes and met Piper's gaze. A lightning. Piper's heart started beating faster: in front of her had just appeared the real Alex. Inside those eyes there still was that light, that magnetic force which had always caught Piper.

Hidden behind that casing, an alive soul was firing up.

The blond looked away with a wince of pain: memories were hurting her, but Alex was still searching for her look.

Piper didn't want to let her doing that; Alex was a great actress, she knew, and she had always lied. Everything from her mouth had been sweet poison that intoxicated her, drop after drop, until she reversed it all against Alex, five years before.

But Alex's red, tired eyes got crazy following her Piper; she looked like a blind without any handhold.

A whisper: "I need you".

"I know your game, don't you dare do this with me again."

At those words a slice of tears blurred Alex look and turned off that light; then the woman looked away and silently broke down in tears, shaken by heavy shivers.

She didn't want that; she had always been the strong one, the careless, the fearless, the imprudent; she had been hiding her feelings for her entire life, everyone saying her to be strong, but now she couldn't resist anymore.

She was losing the love of her life again; she was a failure, a joke.

She had nothing to lose and nothing worth living. She was a weak, stupidly in love, loser.

The carelessness and the indifference Piper showed had given the finishing stroke and Alex had collapsed.

Piper reacted unexpectedly to the fact. She started trembling and saying "Oh my God" as the images of her first leaving attacked her brain and started overlapping in her mind; she suddenly felt sick, ashamed, guilty, horrible.

All the love she had felt was real; there hadn't been any lie at all in Alex's words, not for her. She had never been true and clear with anybody, but with her there was just sincerity.

Piper turned into a sorrowful expression, she knelt in front of the brunette and held her face in a soft grasp, grazing her skin. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Please, forgive me.."

"Oh my God, Alex!"

The woman had just fainted in her arms and her head was lying lifeless on her shoulder.

Piper didn't know what to do, she took Alex's face in her hands, frantically passing her fingers through her wet hair and she tried to lay her down on the bed even if her hands were shaking and sobs were jolting her body.

While she was lifting her, a sleeve slipped up and uncovered her skinny arm.

Piper boggled and left the girl on the bed.

Her limb was full of holes.

Piper was speechless. She knew she was the reason of all that.

She tried to think about something to do, anything, but she just kept weeping and caressing that wounded arm, looking like a numb.

She deeply had understood that all those trembling and sweating and crying were the abstinence from the heroine, and that she couldn't do anything.

Miserable and useless.

Piper was so afraid to keep a thing so huge and scary on her shoulders, that she just let it go away.