a/n - This chapter contains sensitive subject matter of a sexual nature, therefor is potentially triggering.
Proceed with caution

Chapter 11

Squid kept his teeth clamped down on the little piece of wood hanging out of his mouth. Months ago a cigarette sat in its place but they were confiscated when he arrived. He never saw them after that. He was sure Mr. Sir kept them hidden somewhere if they weren't already smoked. The withdrawal symptoms hit him hard in his first week at Camp Green Lake. His head pounded, he couldn't sleep, his anxiety sky-rocketed, and he barely kept anything down. In fact, he was almost bestowed with the nickname "Barf Bag" but he managed to get his stomach under control to save himself the fate (plus, the real Barf Bag leaked like a fire-hose over the smallest thing so he was thankful for that.)

He thought he'd needed a cigarette before but the past few weeks took him to the point where he'd give his left arm for one. Or at least some dip or low-grade chew. Anything. He'd tried to get some off campers in C-Tent but they were a stingy bunch and he didn't have a reason to strong-arm it out of them. Yet.

His hands shook as he tried to pick up the tokens he had won in poker. They felt cool against his slick palms and nearly slipped through his fingers. His leg bounced rapidly beneath the lopsided table, rattling the surface.

"Easy there, Squid," X-Ray commented with a little laugh. "You tweaking or something?"

"And if you are you should share that stuff, bro," Magnet added. "We could all use a bit of help around here."

"Shut up," Squid grumbled, brushing the back of his hand against his forehead. He opened his palm, briefly counting the tokens he'd received and then dumped them into his pocket. Tapping the cards in his hand against the tabletop, he allowed his eyes to scan around the room. They barely made a sweep across the room when his eyes rested on Caveman and Mickey sitting on the busted couch. His eyes narrowed as he watched them talking about…something. Their faces didn't give anything away regarding the subject of their conversation. He grunted and gathered up the cards, practically throwing them back at Magnet and X-Ray as he dealt.

"So what do you guys think of having Mouse around?" X-Ray asked. Squid didn't look up from his hand. He could feel X-Ray's eyes on him but didn't take the bait. Instead he slowly applied pressure to the toothpick in his mouth; it was soggy due to his saliva and he could feel the ends splintering between his teeth.

"Think she's an angel in a desert," Magnet said, laughing. "Best sight I've seen in a long time."

Squid finally lifted his eyes, regarding X-Ray. "Are we actually calling her that?"

X-Ray shrugged. "Sure, why not? It's fitting, don't you think?" Squid didn't reply, which only made a smirk rise on X-Ray's face. He nudged Magnet with his elbow and wiggled his eyebrows. Magnet chuckled and looked at the cards in his hands. "Speaking of fitting, did you ever hit that or…?" He kept a straight face when Squid spluttered at his question.

Squid, on the other hand, had a hard time concealing the disgust that seeped onto his face. "Don't be sick, man!" His lip curled and a sour taste filled the back of his throat. He grabbed his canteen from beneath the table and took a swig from it to rid himself of the bad taste. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then dropped his canteen down onto the floor by his foot. "Can we just get back to the game?"

"Now now, relax," X-Ray said with an easygoing smile. It only made Squid glare at him and flare his nostrils. "Damn, you're so wound up, s'almost like she's your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend," Squid all but growled. "She's not even my friend. I don't even know why the fuck she's here. It was better when she was back home living her prissy life away from here and away from me."

"What'd she even do to you? Comment on your teeny weenie?" Magnet cracked. X-Ray laughed and threw a shower token into the middle of the table. Magnet also threw a shower token onto the table, momentarily frowning at his dwindling pile.

"Your mom didn't have a problem with it," Squid replied, picking up more cards. Then he shrugged and continued, "But I couldn't really hear what she said, she had her mouth full." He lifted an eyebrow at Magnet, silently challenging him to say something else. Magnet held his gaze for a moment and then looked down at his hand. He made a face and then threw his cards down. X-Ray followed suit and Squid reached forward to scoop the shower tokens into his palm.

As he counted he heard her laugh and paused and, against his better judgment, looked across the room again. She and Caveman were laughing about something. What could possibly be so funny? He shook his head and focused his attention back to the game. He didn't care what she was doing or who she was doing it with. He was long past caring about her; she had made it perfectly clear where he stood in her life and that was a line he didn't dare try to tread over again. There was no point.

Not that he missed her and not that he wanted to be her friend again. It came with baggage that he was glad to be rid of. It was exhausting being around her: having to pretend to be someone he wasn't for her sake, having to look her mom in the eye and take her charity with a smile, having to hear her go on and on about her stupid little problems with Alexis while he had other things to worry about. Like finding enough change in the couch to be able to afford a few items from McDonald's or scrounging up enough money to keep the lights on. Important stuff that she'd never experience in her cushy life, if her mother had a say in it. And she always did.

"Squid. Yo, earth to Squid." X-Ray's hand waving in front of Squid's face made him blink. His eyes shifted from X-Ray's to Magnet's concerned faces, well as concerned as they allowed themselves to appear. He glanced over at the windows on the wall nearest him, noting that the rays of the sun had taken on a deeper golden hue than it had been before. "Y'alright man?"

Squid swallowed the thick saliva in his mouth and nodded. "Yeah…yeah. M'alright. What were you sayin'?"

But as X-Ray spoke again his voice lowered in volume, as if water had seeped into Squid's ears. All sound in the Wreck Room became muffled. He gave his head a shake, to rid himself of whatever it was that put his head in a fog but it didn't work. Everything began to move in slow motion: X-Ray's lips moving as he spoke, Magnet's shoulders shaking in his laughter, the boys standing around the pool table slowly bringing back their arm to strike at the pool ball, Zigzag's slow stretching smile directed at the blank TV screen, everything.

The sound of his heavy breathing and his steady beating heart got louder by the second. Thump, thump, thump hard against his chest. The resounding sound slammed around in his head and made his stomach lurch. He slowly put down his cards and lifted his hand to his forehead to rub away the pulsing ache. His fingers slipped against his sweat-slick skin. He pressed his lips together, fighting the rolling waves of nausea that crashed through him.

"Yo, man, snap out of it!"

Everything came zooming back at once; the movements, the loud conversations, the laughter, the grunts and shouts slammed into his brain. He swallowed thickly and blinked his eyes rapidly to clear his vision.

"Geeze, Squid, are you sure you're not high?" X-Ray asked.

"Huh?" Squid blinked and glanced at X-Ray. He shook his head at the confused expression on X-Ray's face. Why was he looking at him like that? Even Magnet looked spooked over something. Just to be sure, he patted the top of his head to be sure that a spider hadn't dropped from the ceiling. "You're losing it, man. Come on, Magnet's on his last legs."

"Nah, man, I'm out," Magnet announced, tossing down his cards.

Squid watched as he pushed away from the table and joined Armpit at the pool table. Chuckling, he counted half of the shower tokens in his possession and dropped them into X-Ray's outstretched palm. "He's too easy," he snickered. "Bet we could shakedown Caveman next."

"Not Zig?"

Squid gave him a look. "Take it from me, you don't mess with crazy."

"Cross one too many psychos in your lifetime?"

Squid lifted the hem of his shirt, showcasing the scar in his side. "Knife attack. Tried to get an owed debt. He decided he didn't want to pay it." He dropped his shirt and shrugged at the incredulous expression on X-Ray's face. "No big deal."

# # #

Alan sighed and lifted another spoonful of warm milk and Froot Loops to his mouth. The sour taste tinged between the bursts of sweet flavor turned his stomach but he kept eating. He didn't have much of a choice, his mother hadn't been to the store in a while. Froot Loops became his breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

He chuckled when Tom got smashed on the head by the bulldog's fist and then slapped a hand to his mouth, glancing at his mother over his shoulder. She was sprawled across the couch, her mouth hanging wide open as she snored. She didn't like it when he was loud and disrupted her sleep. But he was getting tired of eating the same thing. Maybe, just this once, she'd be in a good mood and maybe take him out to Chuck E Cheese or something.

He set the bowl down and stepped across the magazines and papers and beer cans on the floor to reach his mother. He made a face when something wet soaked into his sock but he didn't dare stop to see what it was. It was better not to know.

"Mom?" He stared at her, waiting for some sort of response. All he got was a loud snore. Huffing, he grasped her shoulder and gave it a shake. Her snoring stopped all at once; she smacked her lips and hummed as the firm grip of sleep loosened on her. Alan stepped back, waiting for her to wake up all the way. "Mom? Can we go to Chuck E Cheese? Mom?"

"Hmm?" His mother rubbed at her eyes and squinted at him.

He grabbed her arm, careful not to hurt her. He once asked her about the scattered marks that dotted her arms but she brushed him away and told him to mind his own business. He never asked again after that. "Mom." He grabbed her hand with his small ones and smiled at her. "Can we go get pizza?"

"Mmm…not today, sweetie. Sorry." She sat up on the couch and brushed drool off the corner of her mouth. She kicked away the moth-eaten blanket that covered her legs and grabbed the abandoned brown bottle. She held it up to the light that streamed in through the window and swished the liquid in the bottom around. Tilting her head back, she drained the liquid and then tossed the bottle aside.

"Please?" Alan grasped her hand harder, leaning closer to her face. The awful smell on her breath hit him square in the face but it barely phased him now. "You said…you said if I was a good boy we could go. I've been good. Please, Mom, please?"

His mother heaved a long sigh and trailed his hand down her cheek. Goosebumps erupted over his skin as her fingertips brushed against the curve of his cheek. "Okay, baby. Just let me take care of something first and then we can go."

"Okay Mom!"

Elated, Alan ran off to his tiny room. His cat lifted its head from the bed in the corner and watched him run around with its large, golden eyes. "I'm getting pizza, Mittens! We haven't had pizza in a long time." He picked up and discarded the clothes he left piled on the floor and frowned when the threadbare carpet stared back at him. "Where are my shoes, Mittens?" he asked the black cat. Mittens stretched his mouth open, his long pink tongue sticking out. "I don't know, either. I checked the floor. Maybe the closet?"

Alan pushed open the sliding closet door and peered inside. Nothing was there except for a pile of ice pop wrappers. Even so, he pushed them aside to check. Still nothing. He placed his hand on his hips and pouted, feeling a sense of panic rising up in him. The last time he lost his shoes his mother took dessert away from him. And when he couldn't find them he was forced to sit and watch her eat his slice of cake as punishment. He eventually found them beneath the couch but that didn't bring the cake back. Since then he'd been careful with them. Until now.

"Under the bed?" he directed at Mittens. Mittens blinked at him, which he took as encouragement. He dropped onto his stomach and crawled beneath the bed, pushing aside books and forgotten toys. He found one of Mittens' old chew toys and threw it out into the open. He laughed when Mittens immediately attacked it and then carried out of the room. Alan pulled himself further beneath the bed, stopping to excitedly grab for the Power Rangers action figure he'd thought he lost. He pushed aside his backpack and beamed at the sight of his shoes. He had just grasped a shoelace when the sound of the front door slamming stopped him.

"Did you bring it?" His mother asked.

"Maybe. Let me see what I'm working with first." A man's voice replied. It didn't sound anything like his father's. Alan pressed his lips together. How long has it been since he'd last seen his dad? Two years? His mother said he'd be back any day now. He couldn't wait!

"…So? Do we have a deal or what?"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's get it going."

Alan lay still beneath his bed, listening as footsteps grew closer. He clapped his hand over his mouth when the door flung open and hit against the opposite wall. From beneath the space of the bed he could see his mother's legs and the man's legs move towards each other and retreat and entwine. He sighed and laid flat against the floor, getting comfortable. When his mother had "friends" over they tended to take a while. But she promised he'd get pizza if he was good so he was going to be the best he could and be as quiet as possible while they wrestled around above him. At one point he thought that the man was hurting his mother with how loud she screamed but he kept quiet.

He had to be a good boy.

He was such a good boy that he ended up falling asleep and he didn't get the pizza he was promised. At least, that's what his mother told him when she found him hours later.

# # #

"Hey. Hey man. Are you alright? Dude! Wake up! Al!"

Alan's eyelids fluttered. It felt as if weights were pressed down on his lids but he forced them open anyway. The bleary sight in front of him cleared out as the face of Landon eased into focus. He removed his cheek from the couch armrest; the sting in his face let him know that a mark had been pressed into his cheek. As he sat up Landon seemed relieved. The people around him grew into focus and the loud, pounding music filtered in through his brain.

Where was he again? His eyes swept around the room of fellow partiers, hands clasped around red Solo cups, stacked atop of one another as they spread out in the living room. Some people danced, pressed against each other with barely any space between their bodies, and some sat in a smoke-filled corner, passing around a blunt.

"You alright, man?" Landon repeated.

"What? Yeah," Alan replied, rubbing at his face. His arms felt as if they were filled with sand as he used them to brace himself to stand. He teetered for a moment but regain his balance. He placed a hand on his stomach, feeling a hard pang of hunger hit him mixed with a bit of nausea. Nausea won over and he grimaced. "Where's the bathroom?"

"Over there." Landon jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Are you sure you're okay, man? You just…crashed."

Alan's eyebrows furrowed. He'd only lain down for a second and yet Landon was acting as if he was out for hours. But he'd only blinked, shut his eyes for a couple of seconds. "Yeah."

"Because you look weird. Maybe you should go home."

"Fuck that," Alan muttered. If he left Travis's party early, not only would it be social suicide but then he'd have to answer to Brett for not doing his duty. "Jus' need a drink."

"That's over there too. By the way, Mickey was looking for you."

Alan's heart dropped involuntarily at the mention of her name. Shit. He'd gone so long without someone bringing her up around him. He liked it better when people kept it that way; it made it easier for him to ignore the way she'd look at him from across the cafeteria. Like she was the victim in the whole situation. Figures.

He grunted and moved past Landon to get to the bathroom. His movements were jerky and shaky and at one point he felt as if his knee was going to collapse on him but he caught his balance by bracing against the wall. A picture of Travis when he was about six tilted when he knocked into it and he righted it with a push of his finger. The hallway swayed and he put a hand up to his head. He didn't remember drinking enough to be this tipsy. He told himself that he'd get some food after he hit the bathroom.

Alan checked the door closest to him. It was a closet. He shuffled down the hall and checked the next one. The laundry room. He reached for the next door but the doorknob swung out of reach before he could grasp it. He took a step back when he felt a body slam into him and he caught a whiff of coconut shampoo. His stomach clenched.

"Mickey…?" His words died on his tongue as he looked down at her, at her disheveled hair, red face, wide, darting blue eyes, and her rumpled clothing. Her shoulders heaved with each heavy breath that escaped her mouth and she brushed her sleeve against her red rimmed eyes.

"Heyyy, bro! You're late to the party!" Brett said with a lazy laugh as she slipped from the darkness of the room behind Mickey. His unbuttoned shirt allowed the bright light from the hallway to reflect off the sweat that clung to his chest. "What's the matter with you? You look like you saw a ghost." He laughed again as Alan's eyes, still trained on Mickey, narrowed to a glare.

"Alan—" she started.

"Don't," he hissed, pulling his arm away from her grasp. She gasped, almost as if he'd struck her and took a step away from him. He looked her up and down, disgust building deep within his chest. And here he thought she wasn't like the rest of them. But what did he expect? Everyone else stepped on him to get what they wanted, why wouldn't she?

"Alan, please—"

He turned on his heel and stomped back down the hallway in the direction he came. He knocked shoulders with Landon on his way back into the living room, almost causing him to fall over due to the force of it.

"Whoa, man! Did you find Mickey?"

Alan paused, the mere sound of her name causing blood to rush through him. He curled his fingers into fists and whirled around to face him. "Yeah…I found her alright."

# # #

"So what are you in here for?" X-Ray asked.

It took Mickey a few seconds of silence to realize the question was directed at her. She'd gotten so used to them talking around her or through her that a question for her was few and far between. Her eyes slowly lifted from the half-empty tray in front of her only to widen slightly when she saw she had everyone's attention. Save for Zero but that wasn't new, he never got involved in conversations. At least he left her alone.

She brought her lower lip into her mouth and bit it, welcoming the distracting pain that exploded in her mouth like a firework. She knew somewhere deep inside that they'd eventually get curious but she hoped she'd be gone by the time that day arrived, perhaps brought back to her home to be put on house arrest. Certainly there's no way they'd actually send her to a female detention facility over self-defense for a first timer.

Then again, she didn't think there was a chance that she'd be placed in a male detention facility either, even if by accident. One that they didn't seem in a hurry to rectify, she noticed. She'd sent a letter to her mother about it but her mother didn't even seem bothered by it all in her newest response; which was odd on its own with how involved she liked to be in her life. Hell, for the longest time she couldn't breathe without her mother having a say so. Any activity she was involved in her mother put her in, any time she wanted to go out with Alexis to the mall she had to call her mother every fifteen minutes, and whenever she spent time with Alan her mother hovered ten feet behind. School became her sanctuary…until it wasn't.

"Geeze, are you stupid like Zero too?" The laughter that followed X-Ray's question made Mickey blink and tune back into the silence that had settled around the table. She tossed the answer around in her head a few times. Would they believe her if she told the truth? Or would they take it as another excuse to push her around? Not that they needed the excuse.

"Bet she stole some frilly nail-polish," Zigzag spoke up before she could. "All that glittery stuff."

"No, no, it was lipsticks and all that makeup crap that girls pile on, right?" Magnet elbowed her in the side. She sucked in her breath and pressed her lips together.

"No, it was perfume. She had to smell nice and pretty for her boyfriend," X-Ray jumped in.

"Man, I'd like to be that boyfriend."

"At least we get to look at her. Sucks for him." Mickey's eyes shifted from X-Ray at the head of the table over to Caveman who rushed into the Mess Hall. The conversation died down as he leaned against the table, huffing and puffing. "Where's the fire, Caveman?"

"Something's…wrong with Squid," Caveman gasped.

Despite the heat that hung in the air Mickey's body ran cold at Caveman's words. She kicked herself for still having a reaction when it regarded him, after all this time. But the look on his face, the fear settled in Caveman's eyes…she'd seen that look before. She'd worn that look before and no one came to help…

"Something's always wrong with Squid," X-Ray said with a dismissive wave. "Something's wrong with all of us. It's why we're here. We're not upstanding citizens like Pendanski thinks we are, thinks we can be. We're all here for a reason. We're messed up."

Caveman shook his head, as if dislodging what X-Ray had just said. "No, no…there's something really wrong. He's…he's all pale and…shaky—"

The clatter of a fork on a tray made them all stop and look over at Mickey who abandoned her tray and untangled herself from the bench. She shoved past Caveman and with heavy thunk-thunk-thunks of her two-sizes-too-big boots she made her presence known as she made a beeline out the door. Wolf-whistles fell on deaf ears as well as D-Tent's muffled "what the fuck?" when she jumped down the stairs and raced for D-Tent as fast as her shoes allowed her to move.

The dry air attacked her lungs and burned her chest but she kept running. Finally she clomped up the short wooden steps that lead into the tent and froze in the doorway. All the way at the back of the tent on the right hand side laid Squid. But he wasn't lying down, not really. Between the violent jerks of his body he lay still on the cot; the metal legs rattled against the ground and the thin mattress squeaked and creaked with each bounce.

"I knew he was on something," she heard X-Ray mutter behind her. She didn't realize that they had followed her. She whipped her head around, taking in their faces ranging from complete indifference to concern to downright fear. And yet none of them moved from behind her.

"Well?" She pressed, gaping at them. "Someone do something!"

"He's fine, he does this sometimes," Magnet said with a shrug.

"Yeah, he's weird," Zigzag added; which made Mickey do a double take because Zigzag calling someone else weird was weird on its own.

"Get someone. Pendanski! He's a doctor!" Mickey urged.

"Yeah…yeah, maybe we should get someone," Armpit spoke up. He briefly glanced over to X-Ray who gave him a hard look in return. Armpit cleared his throat and looked down at his feet. He lifted his shoulders up to his ears, as if to hide. It was hard for someone as big as him to hide.

"Don't bother Pendanski," X-Ray stressed, his words hardening. All traces of his previous easygoing attitude evaporated like any traces of spilled water in the desert. "You've already caused trouble. You just can't keep quiet, can you?"

"This isn't about…" But what did it matter? No one, none of them would believe a word she said against the reputation she had being thrown around the small camp. She dug her hands in her hair and blew out a breath. She closed her eyes, sucked in a breath, and then clenched her jaw. She pushed her way past Armpit and Zigzag and bolted back out of the tent. She cleared the stretch of desert between their tent and the Mess Hall faster than when she first left.

Their abandoned trays had been ransacked by closer tables, but she expected that. It's like the whole "move your feet, lose your seat" deal: you abandon your tray, you don't eat. Her eyes quickly scanned the trays—seven instead of eight—and she grabbed the apple slices that had been left over. She ran back across the compound and pushed her way in through her tentmates that still stood by the door and moved to Squid's side.

He had stopped shaking; now lying still against his bed. His hair plastered to his forehead due to his sweat-slick skin, pale as she'd ever seen it. His eyes, glassy, stared up at the ceiling as his eyelids blinked rapidly. His chest still rose and fell, that put a little bit of ease into her body but not enough to release the grip of fear that held her.

"Squid? Hey…hey, c an you hear me?" She spoke softly as she touched his shoulder. He didn't react. She licked her dry, cracked lips and tucked her hair behind her ear. The apple chunks in her hand squished a little due to her grip. Her heart raced but she forced herself to remain calm. "Squid. It's…it's me. You're going to be okay. You just…need to come back and eat this…okay?"

"He's fine," X-Ray said from his cot. He lay with his arms tucked beneath his head. "Let him sleep."

"He's not sleeping," Mickey insisted. That's the problem.

"Is he…will he be alright?" Caveman asked from behind her. She glanced at him, eyeing him from head to toe. Caveman wore his heart on his sleeve; she could see through the stitching that it beat and it was warm and it was concerned. Genuinely concerned.

"I think so," Mickey finally replied after a few moments of silence. The other boys of D-Tent had gone back to their cots, but every now and then she spotted Armpit glancing his way and then to X-Ray and back down at his hands.

"What's wrong?"

The words sat heavy on her tongue. It would be so easy, just to say it. But then again, it wasn't her news to tell. It never was. Especially not here. Everyone's business was their own, no matter the illness or the fate suffered, with the exception of Barf Bag. They brought him up sometimes, when they were at their weariest, at their most hopeless. Squid no doubt would break her jaw if given the chance (she'd heard him deliver that threat many times in her life but they were never directed at her.)

She didn't get a chance to answer. His body started shaking again, jerking and twitching. Her heart jumped. The rattling alerted the other boys who sat up on their cots, eyes trained in Squid's direction. Zigzag looked as if his were going to bulge out of his head, Zero's darted around, X-Ray stared, Magnet looked at his hands, and Armpit's bounced from Squid to the tent entrance. He'd gotten halfway off his bed when Pendanski came into the tent.

"What's this I hear about you not eating?" Pendanski asked. He sighed and shook his head. "We give you this food and then you go and leave it untouched. Food can be taken away, boys, but I don't think we want it to come to that."

"Pendanski, you have to help!" Mickey pleaded to him, rising to her feet. "Help him!"

Pendanski's eyes shifted from her face to Squid's still jerking body. "He's just having a nightmare—"

"He's diabetic!" Mickey blurted out. Pendanski's eyebrows rose in surprise, but why? Mickey tried to read his face. They had their files, certainly there would be medical information on it as well. Especially something this important. "Insulin or…or something. Do you have it?"

"We don't have drugs on the premises," Pendanski replied, crossing his arms. "He's done this before. He'll be fine."

But what if he won't be? She wanted to shout it in his face but the way he looked at her made the words die on her tongue. A flush rose to her cheeks beneath his scathing gaze. Strike two. Problem two. But how could he just stand there and not care? He's a doctor! Wasn't it his responsibility to provide some aid? Her breath lodged in her throat when Pendanski looked past her. She whirled around and all the breath rushed out of her at once when Squid sat up, groaning as if he'd just woken up from a good sleep.

"What?" he asked, noticing everyone looking at him. His words were heavy and groggy. "What're you lookin' at?"

"See?" Pendanski lifted his chin in Squid's direction and then turned on his heel. "He's fine."

Mickey looked down at her feet. She felt liquid dripping between her fingers. She glanced down, noticing the now crushed apple slices oozing out between her fingers. She clenched her jaw and threw the remnants of the apple at Squid and stormed out of the tent. She didn't stop until she was safely hidden behind the Wreck Room.

Once hidden in the shade she grabbed at her hair and let out a long, low growl until her body sagged and her chest heaved and all frustrations leaked out of her and was replaced with…something. She couldn't put her finger on it but whatever it was it caused her eyes to prickle and tears to collect in the corners but she didn't dare let them fall.

She had to stop caring about him, wanted to stop, but she didn't know how. What she did know is if she didn't stop, if she couldn't make herself stop, it'd bury her alive. No pun intended.

A/N: It's been a while but I am back! I apologize for the long wait. As the note on my profile said I got into an accident at work and injured my left hand which made it hard and sometimes painful to type or write anything. It's healed a lot but it won't be fully healed for a while now, if at all. Also, honestly, while I was gone and I watched people update their stories to different fandoms and read their writing, I lost confidence in my own abilities.

I went through a time where I wondered why people were reading my works when there are other writers out there, better ones, that they could choose and why I'm still writing. But then I pulled myself away from those negative thoughts and came back to the conclusion that I write because I love it, I write because I have something to say, I write because I have topics that I don't find in published works that I want to see touched on, and, also, I write to give others an escape from reality.

Thanks for sticking around.

~C.M.