*A/N at bottom*


"I keep telling myself, I keep telling myself

I'm not the desperate type."

7 Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen) | Fall Out Boy


Chapter One: Texting in the Fast Lane

Summer camp was my mother's idea. Lorelai said I had to go, to make friends, make memories. It was only a week. I could handle that. Six days and a trip to Six Flags.

I didn't want to go. My body told every fiber in me that going would be bad. I was scared to go, scared to let myself be seen by these people. Everyone was talking about going to this particular summer camp the last day of school.

They wanted to be awakened. Sexually, mind-blowingly awakened. And I watched them all disappear out the school doors, friends and friends and friends talking, kissing, loving, hating. Chewing each other apart with smiles that showed too much teeth, too much jealousy.

It was like watching men with knives dancing around each other. No one wanted to die, no one wanted to kill, but their switchblades were out, glinting and sharp. They had to do it, they had to destroy because when you're young and foolish, all that matters is destroying.

Destroydestroydestroy. That's all we did. That's all he did to me.

O-O-O

When I met him, I was soaking wet from the lazy river. Water was dripping down my body and hitting the heated concrete, sizzling and melting away into the cracks. Lane and Paris had abandoned me, citing the need to go on a roller coaster. I hated roller coasters.

The sun was fading fast, setting off pink bombs of smoke in the sky. I watched as they exploded and spread out in puffs, lining people's heads and making them almost beautiful. Almost.

The leader of the group said it was lucky I walked by them, that it was them I found. I was let into the group as a tagalong. I smiled shyly and wrung my hands together, tilting forward and back on my heels, blisters popping against my sneakers. My belly was twisted from nerves and the sick feeling that I should not be there.

I rotated my head every now and again, trying to get a good look at the group I had stumbled into. No one was looking at me, talking to me, but I didn't mind. No one ever talked to me except Lane and Paris, and they were on a roller coaster.

To all of them, I was just a shadow. Something to be afraid of, to step around. Something that haunted them, breathed down their necks, reminding them I existed even if they didn't acknowledge me. It was pathetic. They were pathetic, looking at me, looking through me.

When he broke away, I pretended not to notice. I twisted my head the other way and tried not to throw up. Out of the corner of my eye I could see his friend, tallish and blonde, with a gaping mouth. He looked like someone just stabbed him with their switchblade. Like someone had destroyed him.

He reached me finally, saying an awkward 'hi.'

I looked at him incredulously for a moment, scanning him up and down carefully. He was tall. His hair shagged a bit over his ears, parted down the middle. It was brown, like mine.

Lanky. That's what he was. Lanky and pale, with a mole on his cheek.

My voice came out slow and weak, like I hand't used it in a long time. "Hi."

"I don't really like roller coasters," he said loudly, his eyes flitting to our surroundings. He was nervous. I didn't know why.

"Why?" I asked. Then I winced. I wasn't supposed to be nosy. It was a bad thing to be. It got people talking, thinking they could open up to you. I wasn't a shrink.

He smiled, showing off teeth. They were straight, like he had just gotten his braces off, but there was a crooked one. A mar of imperfection on a seemingly perfect face. "I've got a heart condition. It could kill me if I went on one of those things." He pointed around us. He looked too happy about having a heart condition.

I didn't know how to respond to that. He had shared something personal. "Oh," I said lamely, watching the dirty water drip down my legs and feeling a tightening in my stomach.

"Yeah." He said, rubbing the back of his neck like he wished he hand't come over.

"You can go back to your friends," I told him, my eyes darting back to where the blonde was still staring, mouth open, drool almost spilling out.

"Nah, they're getting boring. I wanted to know what you were doing hanging back." He tilted his head to the side as if he was trying to see something that wasn't there. His eyes squinted, darkening the iris'.

I folded my arms across my chest, feeling my heart thump thump thump. "I'm not good company."

He smiled again, not as wide, not reaching his eyes like it could do. "How about I find that out for myself." It wasn't a question. He wasn't going to leave me alone. I didn't want him to. And that pained me to admit. Sometime's The Police lie.

"Okay." I turned my head away, his eyes beginning to be too much to take in. They were studying me, I could feel it like pinpricks on my neck, my chest, my legs. He was going up and down and up and down, getting ready to paint me onto a large easel, find every imperfection on me. There were plenty.

My mother used to tell me I was perfect. I was her perfect girl.

I wasn't.

I was the product of two stupid teenagers who didn't know what love was. Didn't know what devotion or care was.

And she never understood why I grew up hating my teenage years, dreading them. I didn't want to be like her or dad. I wanted to be quiet, hide away like a ghost. Boys, they literally terrified me. People, they made me want to throw up.

Why was he talking to me?

"You like music?" He asked suddenly, drawing me away from whatever I was looking at. His eyebrows were furrowed, like this wasn't just a question to pass the time, because he didn't have to be there talking to me at all, but he actually wanted to know if I liked music.

I mulled over an answer for a moment, trying to find the right words. "Yes." I said simply, nodding my head in one slow swoop. He smiled again. I felt my stomach flip.

"Okay, what type?"

My mind started filing through all the music I listened to. It was considered bad taste and untrue to claim you liked all music, but I liked all music I could get my hands on. Or at least, I appreciated it all.

"Most types," I said.

He laughed, a disgusting sound that pulled my stomach even tighter. "Do you have a favourite band?"

"No." I said firmly. He eyed me expectantly. "Do you?" I asked in return, hopefully satisfying the guy's clear need for stimulating conversation.

"Mm, Rush."

I had never heard of them. I just nodded my head and tried to smile against the blazing sun.

"Do you like Rush?" His voice curved upward in question as the sun began its decent down down down.

Before I could reply 'no,' we were being told that it was dinner time. I smiled shyly at the guy, whose name I did not yet know, and waited for him to start walking before taking up step behind the entire group.

Everyone was in the little diner, sitting at round tables like King Arthur and his knights. Lane and Paris were surrounded by boys and girls I didn't know the names of and there didn't appear to be any more room in the tight spaces between boy/girl flesh.

I was about to sit down, alone, like always, but a voice caught my attention. "Sit with us," it said lightly, as if asking me, ME, to sit with anyone was normal.

I turned slowly, shrugging my shoulders nonchalantly despite the ringing of my heart. "Thanks," I mumbled when I sat down. He had an earphone in one ear and was chatting idly to the boy with sandy blonde hair who didn't look my way. I moved my head to watch the world outside the window as it faded with the sun. People held their kids by the hands, hair, shirts, pulling them along with angry huffs. I could see the redness pouring off their bodies, they were fire in the dying night.

"Rory, why didn't you go on any roller coasters?" My name. He said my name. How did he know my name?

I faced him, but refused to look him in the eye. They were boring into me, green orbs trying to read my soul.

My voice shook when I answered, a nervous twitch I had grown accustomed to in my short lifetime, "I, uh, don't like them. They're high."

His lips pulled apart almost painfully into a dazzling smile. "You don't strike me as one who's afraid of heights."

He said it like he knew everything about me. Like this wasn't the first time we were speaking to each other. It gnawed at me, his tone. "It's not the height," I said. "It's the safety."

Which was true. I had a stupid fear of dying; roller coasters seemed like a good one way ticket to death, no matter how slim the chances.

The boy smiled a knowing smile. "Ah." He clasped his hands together on the table and turned his entire body toward mine like he was getting ready to interview me. Maybe he was getting ready to interview me. "Dean, Dean Forester." His hand shot out and I flinched away instinctively. I blinked at the outstretched limb and cautiously took it.

There was no spark; no glimmer of satisfaction from the contact of flesh. His hand bit like dominance and he shook three times before releasing. My hand was slightly red, but I didn't bother rubbing it better. I liked the pain.

"Nice to meet you, Dean," I said, knowing that's what you're supposed to say even if it wasn't all that 'nice' to meet this guy. Humans and their never-ending lies. 'It's rude to say that, say this instead, even if you don't mean it.' 'Who wants to be told the truth? It only hurts you more in the long run.' Lie lie lie lie. It's all we're good for. Lying, destroying.

"Where are my manners?" He interrupted my thoughts by slamming his fist on the table. I flinched from that as well. "This is my friend," he gestured to the boy with sandy hair sitting next to him on the other side. He looked angry at me. "Logan, Rory. Rory, Logan."

The guy, Logan, nodded his head once in my direction before turning back around. He started talking to someone else. I could hear bits of their conversation. Video games, cars, boring stuff. Nothing about me. Good.

"He doesn't talk much. To people who aren't rich that is. I'm an exception. I've known him since we were babies." Dean laughed at his own joke. It didn't sound like much of a joke.

I smiled, fighting down the warm feeling bubbling in my tummy. "That's nice that you've known him for so long. It's like that with me and Lane," I said, testing the waters of opening up. I had to be careful not to drown completely. But I was so lonely even if I couldn't admit it to myself and when I got the opportunity, the chance, to tell someone all these things about me, I took it. I plunged myself deep into his skin and it didn't strike me as a bad thing. It felt good, one person being on my side. And it's like they say, it's easier to spill your secrets to a stranger.

"Why aren't you sitting with her?" He asked, looking back at the golden glory that was Lane.

I coughed into my hand and said the first thing that came to my mind. "Sometimes she doesn't like me."

Dean frowned a little. "That's not good. Why are you friends?"

I wanted to be angry at him, and a little bit of me went defensive, but I didn't say anything other than, "just because. She's good most of the time. It's summer camp, though. I'm giving her a pass."

"Understandable, I guess. So, tell me, why haven't you accepted my Facebook friend request yet?"

Facebook. That damn website that had just started to blow up.

My mind raced to figure out what he was talking about. People "requested" my "friendship" all the time on there, more for their benefit of having more friends on their list than actually wanting my friendship, and I breezed by them without a second thought. If I didn't know them, which was most likely the case, I wouldn't accept.

Friends weren't born on the internet.

"I-I didn't know you'd sent me anything," I said finally, squinting as I tried to remember seeing 'Dean Forester' in any of my emails.

He smirked and I frowned. "I didn't put Dean Forester as my name. That's probably it." He was still smirking.

"What did you put if it wasn't Dean Forester?" I asked.

"A nickname. Everyone calls me Ducky."

I remembered then. A picture of a duck, the swift click of 'deny' as I didn't give the name another glance. "Oh, well, request me again and maybe I'll say yes this time."

Was I flirting? His smirk grew and his eyebrow raised provocatively. I had just flirted.

I didn't eat anything for dinner that night. Whether it was the tightness of my stomach or the fact that food never interested me very much, I couldn't tell.

Dean offered me food, but I didn't take any. He said he thought I'd just said no to make it look like I wasn't fat, to please the males around me because they like skinny girls and skinny girls liked them. He said he thought I'd steal a few fries off his plate like girls do when they say they don't want the extra calories.

I just smiled because this was the first time a guy had ever willingly talked to me for more than an hour, but I made it a point to not take any food for the rest of the night.

When we left the amusement park, Lane, Paris, and I all together again, I was feeling elated. I had spoken to someone and not vomited. He showed me music, Rush and Porcupine Tree and Dire Straits. I bobbed my head along to the songs, not telling him that I didn't like Rush.

-First Lie-

Before I left camp the next day, the last day when all we did was laze and pack haphazardly, Dean Forester knocked on our door. He wasn't supposed to be back there. It was the girls' dorm.

I didn't ask how he found where I was or why he was there. He slipped me a piece of paper and said "Phone." Blinking rapidly, hoping to wake up from whatever dreamnightmare I had walked into, I grabbed my spare pack of sticky notes and scribbled my number on it, handing it back to him. He grinned and walked away without saying another word.

Lane and Paris all made weird noises meant to deter me, but I stood at the door, ignoring them and thinking about how weirdly good all this attention felt.

There was a nagging thought.

Fast. It said. Just. . .fast.

O-O-O

Lorelai picked me up and didn't say anything but hello. That's how we greeted each other when I was a teenager. Her newly engaged ring finger flashed in my eyes in a gloating manner before she swept me up and drove us back home.

I spent the entire time staring at the landscapes. The green grass was lush and you couldn't go two seconds without seeing a horse. They galloped freely in their respective fields, manes flying and neighs falling on deaf ears.

Happy. That's what they looked like to me. Some nuzzled together, noses inches from touching, ears flicking and tails swishing at flies.

Horses are better than humans. Animals are better than humans. They don't test your loyalty, your love. They accept it. And they give it without any ulterior motive. It's just there.

When I used to see a dog cowering in fear of its owner, it was the owner, the human, that provoked the reaction. Horses, dogs, cats, they all want affection. And unlike humans, they try to earn it.

I think that's why Lorelai refused to ever let me have an animal to call my own. It would have treated me well and she couldn't have that. She perpetually punished me for not being like her. For not being open and friendly.

In my younger years, my mother and father were pinned together like the same ends of a magnet. The world, all the sciences, told them they were wrong. They repelled each other. Each time they got close, something would shoot them apart. But it was as if a child, one who didn't understand the workings of magnets, continuously pushed them together, trying and failing to force them to touch, to connect, to stay. . .just stay.

Eventually they flew apart, both landing on different sets of metal and staying stuck.

Mothers often forget that their children aren't young. Our minds see the world through new eyes every day, but when you're older and the colours seem duller you convince yourself that you are smarter, that you know better. My mother spared no expense in telling me how wrong I was. How foolish and naïve I was.

I couldn't very well tell her that thanks to her and dad I already knew more about the world than my entire school combined.

I knew that sex was bad. I knew that people were awful. She was content to just stare at me and berate me, though, for not having friends and not going to parties. "If you're going to be a journalist," she would say, "you'll need to get off your ass and live because how can you expect to write about other peoples lives when you don't even know what it feels like to go outside." Then she'd take a breath and force a smile.

I wouldn't even try to smile back.

When Lorelai looked at me on this particular drive, when I could feel the beginnings of a talk coming on, I shoved my earbuds in my head, close enough to my brain to make me buzz, and pressed play on my iPod. I allowed the drowning sound of The Killers to tear my thoughts away from Lorelai. From Dean.

My head smacked the door and I opened my eyes, realising with a groan that I'd fallen asleep. Music was no longer playing in my head and I looked around. Lorelai was sitting next to me and we were just entering the town of Stars Hollow.

This place was small. It had a number of residents, but like all small towns everyone knew everyone. And everything about everyone.

We made it to our house and I slumped out the car with my buds still hanging in my head, making my way to the boot and opening it in my sleepy daze. My duffle bag wasn't heavy and I flung it over my shoulder, narrowly avoiding smacking Lorelai in the face.

"Watch it," she warned, pointing a finger at my nose. Her blue eyes mirrored mine so perfectly, but while mine are generally filled with fear, her's are dangerous and spiked with ice.

I didn't say anything back, a biting comment was somewhere on my tongue, but I would've rather not be grounded just before school started up again. She stepped in the house before me and I heard Luke's gravely voice echo outside. I smiled despite my horrid resentment and went inside to greet him as well. He pulled me into a hug quick and planted a sloppy kiss to my forehead.

"Missed you, kid," he grumbled, ruffling my boring hair out of place. I giggled against his chest and wanted so badly to chastise myself, but his grip was warm and strong and I didn't feel out of place all of a sudden. I felt like I was home.

My mother's voice sounded through the hall, "Rory, put your things away. We're having dinner with your grandparents tonight."

I retreated from Luke's hug and ugly-open-mouthed stared at him. He shrugged. "It's about school next year." Was all he said, winking and turning away to the kitchen where no doubt there was some appliance that had broken.

My curiosity got the best of me and I tapped Lorelai's shoulder. "Why are we going to grandma and grandpa's? I haven't seen them in years."

Lorelai jumped and her body moved slowly towards mine. She had an offhand smile playing at the corners of her mouth, something usually reserved for good days. Today did not seem like a good day for Lorelai, but there she was, smiling. She reached out for something on the table by the door. An envelope, thick and crisp.

"It's a letter from Chilton." Her words dripped lazily, but there was a hint of pride in there somewhere. The envelope was unopened and she handed it to me, her fingers releasing the warm paper to me.

A powerful wave of nerves washed over me, soaking into my skin and writhing in my veins like blood. "Do you want me to open it?" I asked. Lorelai laughed, a sweet sound that was almost lost to me in my daze.

"Of course. It's your achievement." I didn't miss the surety of my acceptance in her inflection. Any daughter of hers was going to get into Chilton Prep. There was no room for doubt.

With quaking hands that were doused in sweat, I tore at the envelope meticulously, loving the sound as the creamy paper ripped in my fingers. Eyeing my mother and Luke, who had just entered the room, I pulled out the folded up letter.

Lorelai gasped, Luke winked again, and I wanted to pass out. It was a yes. I had been accepted. They, Chilton Preparatory School, wanted me to be there next year.

"Mom," I said in a shaky voice. It came out as more of a question.

Lorelai nodded her head and grabbed my hand briefly before turning and kissing Luke on his scruffy cheek. They nuzzled like that a lot and I can't say I minded it. When Lorelai wasn't paying attention to me and my failures, she was paying attention to Luke and all his wonderfulness. It made my life easier.

"Go get dressed. We'll be leaving for your grandparents in five minutes," Lorelai ordered. I left with the letter still in hand and had made it halfway down the hall before I heard my mother call out again, "Oh, and darling," I keeled back to mildly glare at her. "Do try to look nice tonight." Her hand moved up and shooed me away. I took the opportunity to return to my bedroom and flung myself on the bed for a moment, letting all of this information sink into my head.

Lorelai got pregnant at sixteen. She was the epitome of ruined and rebellious. Grandfather and Grandmother despised her and that only caused her to rebel more. The final straw was me. When my mother told them she had a baby in her belly, they freaked. They had this plan for her: go to an ivy league school, graduate top of your class, enter into business, be a stay at home wife and go to balls and charity events, sit by the fire while your husband does the work, be boring, lazy, and entitled. Of course, Lorelai didn't want that. She wanted to be herself. And she didn't know who that was, still doesn't know who that is.

I can only imagine why we're going tonight. To beg for money?

I stood up and pulled all my clothes off, getting a look at my just barely pubescent body. The small curves of my breasts had just recently been deemed worthy of a bra and I itched under the fabric, scratching at the irritated skin. The light pink hue of the "sexy" garment contrasted heavily against my paler than ghost white skin and I grazed my thumb along my protruding ribcage. My bones stuck out, the skin stretched over my body dangerously thin.

If you were to ask me now why I tortured myself the way I did when I was a teenager, I would tell you it was because of my parents. Nobody loved me and it tore me to pieces, made me sick to my stomach. But in reality, it was no one's fault but my own. But then I was too focused on telling everyone I was fine. And I was fine.

I was fine.

Lorelai had placed my fanciest clothes out on my bed, a light blue satin dress that cut off just before my knees. It was a strap-y dress, thin, spaghetti-like wires of cloth dug into my shoulders supposedly to make me look less of a whore and more like a sophisticated somebody. When I slid into it, I noticed how loose it hung on my frame. Grandma liked a good meal, it'd be difficult to hide being small in there when her eyes were like a magnifying glass.

Staring at myself in the mirror only made myself hate the reflection even more, so I stopped. I turned around and found a book to read. My Darling Villain was a book not sold in America, but my father had picked it up for me on one of his trips to England in an old second-hand bookshop. It was my favourite at the time. So I read through it until Luke knocked on my door and swished me off to my Grandparents house.

O-O-O

The Beatles taught me that all you need is love. And as cliché as that is, I believed them. I believed them because when I was a teenager, I didn't have love. And I was broken. And I thought that maybe it was because no one loved me. Truly, truly loved me.

My grandparents gave us sideways looks when we got there. Luke had never been a favourite, I had always been a favourite, Lorelai used to be a favourite. Grandma took our coats and flung them to some maid and I felt like I'd entered some movie where servants actually wore French maid costumes. Grandpa hugged me, but no one else. It was so bone-crushingly hard that I felt maybe I'd collapse in his arms, but he let go before I started seeing stars.

Grandma gave a quick tour of our immediate surroundings as if Lorelai had never lived there, brushing over the wonderful woodworks and antiques, eyeing Luke like he was a thief there to steal everything. I stifled a laugh throughout that entire ordeal.

When we got to the dining room, with everything set up like some magnificent ballroom, Grandma ordered us to sit down. Lorelai and Luke sat next to each other, their hands immediately gripping under the table, and I sat across from them with Grandpa and Grandma at either head of the gigantic table. A shining chandelier hung above our heads, just waiting to collapse and trap us all in shards of glass and electric light. It reminded me of The Phantom of the Opera.

Everyone was silent as the food was served. Grandpa asked about drinks and Luke and Lorelai agreed to share a gin and tonic, but no one else spoke. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, my bony ass squishing against the wooden structure terribly painfully. I was worried for a moment that my bones might actually break through my skin with all the sliding.

Luke and Lorelai kept glancing at each other from the corner of their eyes, talking without using words like all "connected" people do. Grandpa and Grandma kept doing it too. I felt alone all over again.

The food smelled sickeningly good. Roast beef, carrots, broccoli, and Yorkshire pudding. Gravy slathered around, drowning the poor food in its greasy digustingness.

They dig in. All of them. Savages, just tearing at red meat, bloody gristle dripping down their chins as their teeth shine in anger, pent up stuff from years of neglect, war, loathing. It was all being ripped to shreds.

I looked away because the sight made me want to vomit.

The fork I held in my hand moved over the food idly in an attempt to distract myself from how good it smelled. And if I thought hard enough, the smell would prove to be too much of an instigator. Forcing my head away from the food on my own plate, I eyed everyone else still swallowing their beef whole.

Mom dipped her Yorkshire pudding in some gravy, slopping it up, pressing it down. She picked it up with her fingers and I watched it slide down her throat in a gulp, she lapped at the remnants of drippy food on her fingertips with her tongue like a dog begging, yearning for more food, doing anything to find some.

Grandpa was staring at me. He always knew. Always. No one else did, but he did. On impulse, because sometimes my trained brain lapsed, I looked back at him, flicking my eyes up for just a moment and catching his. I regretted it instantly. There was pain in his gaze. He looked at me like I was a lost puppy dog that needed rescuing.

He cleared his throat and began speaking. "So, Lorelai. Let's talk business." He said calmly, carefully lifting a single carrot to his lips and chewing slowly before swallowing it down. His Adam's apple bobbed in appreciation.

Lorelai put her fork down and placed her elbows on the table. I heard Grandma's audible gasp as good as the rest of the people. I sniggered, but that just brought on more fumes from the food, so I stopped right away.

"Right, Dad, let's. Rory has been accepted into Chilton and I unfortunately need money to send her."

Simple. Precise. Down to the point. No dillydallying around. That was my mother. Never wanting to work too hard to get what she wanted.

"Unfortunately? That's a big word, Lorelai. Be careful how you use it. We'd be happy to help." Grandmother's chilly tone sent a shiver down my spine.

Mom choked on her gin and tonic, Luke slapped her back, Grandpa laughed, Grandma sighed, I tried to not throw up.

I tuned out after that, focusing on the gnawing sensation scraping at my belly. I wanted to hold my stomach, but it would draw too much attention. Instead I gently put my wrists on the edge of the table and press down down down. Further and further the wood penetrated my skin, eventually slipping beneath the top surface and sending shoots of painful pleasure. The wolves stopped howling in my stomach and I retracted my wrists, carefully running my thumbs over the damage to erase any evidence.

You have to understand, a teenager always thinks the world is coming to an end. Whether or not they realise that this is how all teenagers thinks is a moot point. Every problem is life threatening and every situation is worse than the one before. It's entirely selfish, I assure you. No matter what, the world is always ending. They are always two steps away from being blown up.

It was settled at the end, after shouting and throwing and hissing. Money for school in exchange for dinner once a week (Friday, because I had no life and Friday seemed like a good day to waste) at Grandparents house.

Luke soothed Lorelai on the way home, holding her hand as he drove us all back through D.C. and back into Virginia. I watched the waters when we passed over the bridges. The waves sparkled with headlights and street lamps. They shone with manmade glory. And for just a few seconds, I forgot how cruel the world was.

When we arrived back in Stars Hollow, all the people were asleep. It was nearing autumn and the townspeople were afraid of the chilled darkness. Afraid of being caught by the shadows. By me.

I mumbled goodnight and thank you to Lorelai and sauntered to my bedroom, picking up my book while stripping off all my disgusting clothes. I flung the garment somewhere, I can't remember where. It laid there for a long time after that night.

I felt ugly in it. It made me look fatter than I was. The fabric itched at my skeleton like it was laughing at me.

Hopping on my bed in just my underwear, I read and read and read until I was too tired to see straight. To see the words, to read Lynne Reid Banks' remarkable story.

My eyes closed for an instant. Just an instant. And then it happened. I started drowning. That was when I began my downward spiral into nothingness. Right then.

It was a buzz that started it all.

No, it wasn't. It was a flirtatious smile and a willingness to be something other than me.

But I'll always blame it on the buzz because that's easier than saying it was my own fault. Which, in the end, it was.

My phone buzzed. And then it buzzed again. Two buzzes. Like two warning shots.

I groaned and got out of bed, plopping the book down on the covers and walking against August air to the devise. The demon.

One New Message flashed over and over until I flipped it open.

With my heart in my throat, I clicked the "READ" button:

What did you say your favourite band was again?

It's Dean, by the way.

It's Dean. Dean Forester. Tall, lanky, mole on his cheek. Green eyes, talked to me. Was nice to me.

Look past his flaw, Rory. Look past it. Answer it, answer it. Reply.

God, that voice in my head, it told me to do it.

Pretty sure I didn't say I had one.

And I hit send. I could taste my heart. It tasted like blood and poison. Like regret.

Remember before when I said that it's easier to spill your secrets to strangers than anyone else? When I said that I was lonely?

Less than thirty seconds later, my phone was buzzing again.

I giggled, elated.

Come on, you must. Everyone has a favourite band!

Not me, sorry.

I don't believe you. . .

Please do, I'm not a very good liar.

This is a conversation over texting! There's no way for me to tell if you're a good or bad liar on here!

Are you always this excited, or do you save exclamation marks just for texting?

Snappy, eh. I like it.

Well, you're in luck. I'm a snappy person.

I can tell.

I can't tell you what got us there, to that point of no return. But it didn't take long.

I had taken to lying back down on my bed, still clad in nothing but my skimpy undergarments. Only called skimpy because I was so small that nothing fit me properly except for children's clothes.

The phone buzzed again, shining a bright light in my darkened room. I'd long forgotten about Mark and Kate, I was lost in my own fantasy.

Then he said it. He said those words: I used to cut myself.

Shaking, I remember shaking. Not violently like when a panic attack would hit, but softly like when I knew someone was telling me a darkness inside of themselves that they couldn't contain any longer.

I shook, my fingers trembling as I typed a reply: Me too.

-Second Lie-

What?

Me too. . .

But you're so perfect.

I'm so not.

Well, I was depressed for a long time. Always sick. No friends, shit like that. I got a knife and sliced my back. What's your story?

I was offended he didn't believe me. Stupid, right? I was lying to him, so why did I feel the need to defend myself.

Sometimes I get sad. I don't cut myself per say. I pinch mostly. Until my skin breaks and the blood bubbles.

-Third Lie-

My breath was stuck in my throat.

Why? Why hurt yourself?

I gave him an honest answer: Because it feels good.

I'm sorry. He said, like my pain was his fault.

That turned out to be our thing. Saying sorry. Then we'd get mad at each other. It was sign, but I didn't see it.

Or maybe I did. Maybe every time my phone buzzed, the flashing light was really saying "don't do it!"

Regardless, I ignored it and kept on going.

It was two hours before we said goodnight. I knew Dean Forester then. Didn't know his middle name nor his greatest fear nor his favourite book, but I knew him. And he knew me.

Flits of our conversation bled into my dreams.

"You'll be tired of me in two weeks," I droned to him, standing a foot and a half shorter than him. My nose came to a couple inches above his belly button.

He laughed. "Why do you say that?"

"Because we talked about everything and anything. More than you're supposed to. We're friends, Dean. You'll get tired of me. I cut myself too. I'm sorry. You're my friend. I was bullied. No one likes me. I love books."

It all blended into one jumbled mess of words.

Two weeks, I predicted. He laughed, told me not to be silly. We'd established a lifetime of friendship in one night. There was no need to put a time stamp on it because this friendship would be forever.

And that was the beginning.

He had just started to pull me out from the quicksand.

I can still feel his rough, slimy fingers wrapped tightly around my arms.


"Sitting out dances on the wall,

trying to forget everything that isn't you.

I'm not going home alone,

'cause I don't do too well on my own."


A/N: Okay, I feel I owe you all an explanation:

There is something I find so utterly personal in regards to reading another author's stories, and yet so many people are focused on telling you those stories while completely excluding themselves from the process. While I may never tell you my age or real name, I feel there are certain things the people who read and appreciate a writer's work deserve to know. I know most people run to FanFiction to escape their mundane lives and get lost in some sappy love story, but I am trying to deal with real events here. This story has an up in the air feel to it. You just don't know. I told you before that you'll never be able to tell what's real and what's not in this story and that's true. Take what you want from it. I'm not Rory, though. And my "Dean" is not Dean. Although his name did start D and his close family called him "Ducky". Me and Rory are not the same people in or outside of this story, so please don't go making assumptions about who I am based on reading this. Besides, this was years ago. I'm definitely not the same.

So, you can tell that Rory is OOC and so is Dean and so is Lorelai and so is everyone.

The book I mentioned isn't available here, actually. It's a book from the 70's about an English upperclass girl who meets and falls in love with a working class guy who's got a Cockney accent. Beautifully written and if you like stories with double meanings, then try and find it. It's worth it. And yes, it's by the same woman who wrote The Indian in the Cupboard. Oh, and that song. . .just listen to it.

I hope you all enjoy this story from here on out because it kind of plunges into the deep end. It's a backwards story. We start in the darkness and make our way to the light.

Thank you to those who've liked this story so far. It truly means the world.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Until next time,

(insert name here)