This world is all turned around,

We're caught in this place, stalled in this place.

Don't let it kill you now.

We're not here to stay, we're not here to stay.

The moment the words had escaped her mouth, Annie had wanted to take them all back. She had built up her walls and she never even meant to - she had never wanted to keep him out. At first, the walls were built when she had to keep things from him because of the agency, but now it was just habit. And all she could feel was hatred for it because all she wanted to do was pour it all out and let his words come rushing in, but she kept it all inside instead. Annie had learned her lesson about misplaced trust. Even though she knew better and trusted him with her life, she could not bring herself to trust him with the mess that was left in her head and her heart. And what made it worse was that he knew.

"Auggie, I -"

"It's alright," he lied. "I just wanted to check in with you and see how you were doing."

"I'm fine," she lied too.

He wanted to tell her how much he hated this and began to wonder if she hated it too. These games, they just kept playing them. He shifted the phone against his ear as he fumbled in his fridge for a beer.

"I should go," she hesitated for a moment, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"That makes on of us," he said without a thought. The silence that followed did not sit well in his stomach. No laughter. No smile. Nothing. He clenched his jaw before taking a swig of his freshly opened beer.

"Goodbye, Auggie."

"Goodnight, Annie," he emphasised his words by speaking it as a breath and fought back a sigh until he heard her disconnect. He had not even thought about what he was doing until his fist made contact with the wall behind him. The lies were becoming unbearable and the fact that they both just kept doing it drove him mad. It was hard to imagine that either of them had worked so hard for this - worked so hard to become people they hated. Again his fist made contact will the wall before he took another long drink. No matter what either of them tried to do, the silence just came roaring it. It was like the snow in winter. It was disorienting and frustrating, and nothing could make it stop coming. Here he was drowning in the silence and she was drowning in pain; and neither of them could make it all stop. In less than eight months, their lives - everything about who they were - had been turned, tried, and tested in so many ways that he could not have even imagined it in his darkest times.

It almost felt like it did when he had returned home from Iraq, but this time he could not just sit in his head for weeks on end like he had then. The nightmares were not the same - they were cryptic and confusing now - and still were happening when he woke up. He was living a nightmare right now; and the broken Annie he talked to every day had become, like his blindness, a constant reminder of everything that was lost. The pain within the darkness of his heart had grown over the last few months. Not only did Auggie hurt because of himself, he was also bleeding for her. Annie was being reckless and foolish, and if he failed to pay attention she would destroy herself. She had felt so much. She had hoped so much. Now it was all gone, and if the puzzle did not get put back together again he would have truly lost his best friend. And maybe he already had.

His lips went for another sip of his beer but he was surprised to find that the bottle was empty. He took a deep breath and, to the chorus of shattering glass, wondered if she was aware that he knew she was slipping off to Russia tomorrow.