NOTE: I'm really sorry this took ages to post. I hope you enjoy and I'll be really happy if you let me know what you think.

Faye's POV.

I don't own The Secret Circle.


When I was little I always imagined storms personalized: their bodies translucent, ghostly, beautiful. They would reach out to me and call my name and it felt like heaven in their slippery wet embrace. Mom used to get so upset when I came home all soaked up and trembling but she never knew about these perfect pale beings that sprang out of my head, assuming their shape under the touch of moisture in the air, and kept me safe as I ran through the rain.

I stare at the dust-covered windows of the abandoned house (it has been kind of filthy around here since Diana took off), watching the rain grow heavier behind them. The voice of the thunder lulls my mind into a strange, delirious peace; I squeeze my eyes shut until my eyelids ache, then open them again, desperate for inspiration.

We watched Sweeney Todd all day and got a little carried away, my hazy mind offers.

I've always had awful trouble shaving my legs properly.

Adam is on Devil Spirit. I didn't do a thing.

I grin at the last one, then take a deep breath and look up to meet Jake's eyes. I really have no idea what Melissa was thinking when she dragged Cassie out of that door, leaving us alone: that the two of us would actually talk about this? Jake and I don't do talking. We only do angry sex and sarcastic insults we don't really mean.

Not that I feel that horny right now.

His eyes are mocking when he speaks and I instantly feel solid ground under my feet: mocking's good. I can do mocking.

"Razors, Faye? Really? Seems like a hell of a way to deal with your drama."

The downplay stings a little but I try to ignore it. I also decide there is no need to dwell on details, such as I mostly used kitchen knife. "I didn't ask your opinion," I hiss instead. "And it's long over anyway, so back off."

I turn to the door then, half-expecting him to grab my arm again but he doesn't move a muscle; instead, the door slams shut before my eyes, shattering to pieces as it hits the doorframe.

"You had no reason to be messed up like that," he says as I turn back to stare at him, a little freaked out. I can barely hear his voice: it's low and harsh and cold in a way that makes me wish he would shout instead. The sweet delirious haze is gone from my mind, crumpled among the sheds of the door.

I honestly don't know what's wrong with me. I mean, it's just Jake being an ass – that's what he does when he feels anger or guilt or any other emotion he can't handle, which is pretty much all of them. I know this, I always have, but it doesn't matter because when I stare at him now, I'm suddenly fifteen again and he's the gorgeous senior boy whose parents died before they could teach him that people have feelings.

"I had plenty reasons," I say and somehow the bitchy hiss I was going for comes out as awkward whisper. I wish I could look away from his face and hide myself behind a chair or something, peekaboo-style.

"Like what?" he scoffs. "Me dumping you? You could screw any guy you wanted and it's not like we ever did anything else back then. So why exactly did you decide to slice your skin when I was gone?"

Then the blood boils in my veins and rage takes over.

Maybe I just really didn't want him to know. It has felt so good to forget that broken kid I was back then, to bury her in the past with all her sleepless nights and blood-stained towels, the thrown-up dinners her mom never knew about. To cease to be that damn clingy Faye I was, and perhaps deny she ever existed.

Now she's digged up again in all her pathetic, vulnerable glory, turning bitchy hisses into awkward whispers, and I feel like I can't bear the humiliation.

So yeah, I'm mad.

But I also can't help thinking - having heard the outraged disbelief in his voice - that he never really got what being with him meant to me. How fucking happy it made me when I woke up beside him - not even in his arms, we never slept like that, just close – and for the first time in my life I was not cold. Cause I always used to be so damn cold when I was a kid. Not that he knew that.

Not that he knew much of anything, as it turns out.

So yeah, I'm mad. A lot.

So much that I honestly don't know what I´m saying anymore.

"Just so we're clear," I whisper, suddenly feeling a weird thrill flash through me. Can't help it, I'm a sucker for dramatic intros. "It's my body and if I ever feel the need to slice my skin again, then that's what I'll do, and you don't get to ask questions."

There, done.

Outside, the sky is all thundery, clearly rooting for a theatrical departure.

I turn on my heel and run out of the room before he has a chance to yell my name.