You keep trying to convince yourself that it's okay.

But it's not.

You're scaring Cat and you feel pathetic for hiding like this, but you're too frozen to move.

Frozen is a much worse way to go than burned. It's slow, the pain goes on and on and you know you're dying but you can't move. You feel you're heart beat gradually slow down and you're oh so sleepy and you've lost the strength to hold your eyes open any longer. But no, you can't give up, your survival instinct kicks in and you're eyes open slowly, but it doesn't even matter because you're chained to the ground and you're arms and legs stopped working a long time ago. It could've been over, but there's still that horrid little buzz in the back of your head fighting to live and you just can't get rid of it. So you stay awake, feeling the ache of the cold seep all the way into your bones, and it must have somehow pierced your lungs because it's so hard to breathe and you're getting just enough oxygen to keep you tethered to the agony.

It's like that, but freezing to death only takes hours, and this just might last forever. You're so close to your breaking point, so close to having nothing left, nothing to hang on to, but Cat cares. You kind of hate her for that, because it does nothing to dull the pain, in fact, it's the only thing keeping you from being blissfully numb. That last little bit of love is holding you back from sweet nothingness, but you don't have it in you to break away from it.

Because that little piece of love is like crack to you. You tried to get it from your parents, from Beck, form society in general. You tried to be famous, so then everyone would love you, but along came Tori Vega and you may never get another lead roll again if things keep going the way they are.

So you'll take what you can get, even if it destroys you. That's why you stayed with Beck even through the ruthless power games he loved so much, because all you had to say was please and those three sacred words came whenever you needed them. But it wasn't enough, because you shouldn't have even had to ask.

Cat loves you, and you don't ever wonder about it. She doesn't hold it over your head to see how many hoops you'll jump through to get to it. She doesn't even have to say it, it's so obvious in the way that she stayed up with you all night and tried to convince you to come to school, but she says it anyway, because she knows how much it means to you to hear the words.

What are you doing? You're Jade West, you don't just give in and let yourself freeze. You're strong. You finally get up from Cat's bed and take a shower. You borrow some of her clothes and head to your house, it's not a home, but it'll do for now.

Being strong doesn't help the pain, not even a little. But it'll get better. It has to get better, because you aren't crawling back to him this time. He doesn't want you, and you won't beg again. You won't be his plaything. That's why broke up with him in the first place, you have to remember that. You deserve to be wanted for who you are, and you won't accept anything less.

It still hurts more than you can even begin to describe, but you'll heal. You have to.