Title: Embers From a Dying Flame

Rating: Ehh . . . Playin' it safe here and going with a PG-13. Jono's got a dirty mind and a potty mouth. Dangerous combination.

Notes: As a general rule, I don't like sappy love stories. That would explain why this is . . . not a love story. At its core, maybe it is, but it's all Jono's POV and pretty much details the emotions of a jilted teenage boy. A very bitter, jilted teenage boy. Fun, fun.

Second Note: I like Paige. I really do. Honest! Oh, and take this for what you will: a journal entry, just a vignette, I don't care. But since I don't think anyone talks/thinks with an accent (I don't...), his isn't here except for a few of those peculiar Britishisms. Is that a real word? Oh well. It is now.

Disclaimer: I own no one or nothing used in here. No animals were harmed in the making of this story.

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"You were the love of my life for a day..."

- Godsmack, "Get Up, Get Out!"

Blondes are evil. That's all there is to it. I should have stuck with redheads. Gayle was a brunette and she never pulled half the shit Paige pulls with me. I broke up with Gayle over something stupid once and went out with someone else for a few weeks. She was a blond. She treated me like the scum beneath her too-expensive Italian boots.

And even then, she never treated me anything like Paige did.

Maybe it's a masochistic streak in me that makes me get involved with manipulative, mean blondes. Granted, I probably could have been a bit more . . . sensitive to Paige, but this attitude of mine wasn't started just by my powers. I've always been the self-absorbed, brooding English git that irritates people now, but at least before I could function as a normal human being. I could go out and get drunk without worrying about having to tap into someone else's senses and become a telepathic leech. I could have any girl I wanted - okay, almost - and not have to worry about some rich blond . . . thing stealing her right out from under me.

Even if I did, she at least would have put up a fight.

I think that's what hurts me most, that supposedly she only went out with him initially because of the whole blackmail deal. Whatever. He's changed her. She used to be this sweet, innocent country girl that was so sugary sweet it was kind of sickening. Now she's just . . . I don't know the Hell happened. She's turned into some overzealous braniac bent on leading the next team of mutants. Personally, I think she'll end up being a terrorist. A year ago I thought maybe there was a God and maybe "he" had really taken a female form. Now? I don't know, but Paige has a rather disturbing need to dominate people. She told me once one of her dad's friends got drunk one time and caught her alone in her room, tried to force her into some pretty bad stuff. Didn't work, but she did seem to get from that the mentality to not let herself be weak enough so as to be victimized. I guess that means becoming a dictator and completely ruling over everyone else to keep them from possibly hurting her.

Maybe that's all I ever was to her - someone for her to dominate.

Come to think of it, she was rather aggressive every time we ever got anywhere.

I'm watching her now, actually. She's in the kitchen with the rat, flirting around, kissing, all that. Doing it all right in front of me, too. Looking in and making sure I'm watching, then going back to sucking face with him. Bitch.

I still remember when she officially broke up with me. I was sitting in the basement. That was my spot even though Frost forced me into the boys' dorm in hopes of making me more social or something like that. She didn't want the normals to know about the freak that lived downstairs, just wouldn't come out and say it. Anyway, I was sitting down there, just hanging out, really, and here she came. Our relationship had never been steady, and just when it was getting back on track I admit that I blew it big time when I went back home with her. But we got over that, I think. Talked it over, worked it out. Or so I thought.

And then Tristan showed up to complicate things even more.

It was the night after she went on her required date with him, and though I had my doubts, I assumed nothing was going to change. I was wrong. She came in and all but drove the final nail into my coffin, citing her reasons as being she had too many commitments and didn't think it was fair to tie me down when she couldn't fully devote herself to anything at the time. Being the naive moron that I am, I bought it. It's not like I hadn't been expecting the big D-word, dumped. She was an angel, I thought, and as much as I tried to change the way I thought, deep down I honestly believed I didn't deserve her.

It wouldn't have hurt so much if she hadn't immediately started going out with Tristan.

You know, it's one thing to think you're unworthy of attention from someone else even though they tell you otherwise. It's another thing entirely to find out they feel the same way. Talk about a blow to your ego.

I was so depressed after that Monet even commented on it, and I swear that girl's so wrapped up in herself, when she starts questioning your personality traits, it's time to rethink the way your life's going. That being the case, I talked Angelo into going out on the town for the night not long ago, where I proceeded to do the mental-leeching thing and made him my booze conduit. Then we went out, picked up a couple girls, and proceeded to do the things that Mum said would send me straight to Hell. Oh well. If afterlives and such really do exist, I figure that's where I'm going anywhere. Might as well have fun on the way there. I don't think I even learned either of those girls' names, to be perfectly honest. Doesn't matter. The one I was with, I kept calling out Paige's name. Over and over and fucking over again. I tried to stop it. I couldn't.

Makes me wonder if she ever thinks of me.

People can talk all they like about Emma being the ice queen, but I think Paige is giving her a run for her money. The thing I like most about Emma is that she's direct. If she doesn't like you, she'll tell you to your face. If she wants to use a guy, she makes no secret of it, just does it. She doesn't hide behind telling someone she loves them and letting them think that just maybe, all those superficial things like looks and money don't really matter.

I'm still watching Paige in the kitchen, flitting around the place like some cat on the prowl for some greater prize. In a sense, I almost feel sorry for Tristan. Soon as Paige gets bored, she'll dump him and move on, and if the bloke really does develop true feelings for her, he'll get his heart ripped out just like I did. At least, I would have if I had owned one in the first place.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I could swear those are some pretty fake smiles she's giving with Ratboy. Fake laughs, fake touches. At least that's one thing I'll always have over him - I know what the real thing's like.

Paige is . . . God, you're beautiful. Watching you, wanting you . . . it hurts. It hurts more than I can ever explain, and yet if you came back wanting to patch things up right this minute, I'd probably laugh right in your bloody face. Two failed attempts at this relationship were enough to turn me against it completely. I don't trust you now. I can't. As a teammate? Sure. You're great as far as being an effective teammate goes. I won't hold your personal relations against you on that one. But as a person? I'll never trust you again. Never again. Ever. We're through in every way that counts. It'll hurt a while, then I'll get over it and move on. Days will pass and life'll go on, and eventually I'll forget about you. I'm sure you'll forget about me. Maybe you already have.

But I'm sure you haven't forgotten about us. About what we had, as severely screwed up as our supposed relationship was. About how the first time we ever got serious, about how I held you. I hope you remember that. I hope you remember how loud you were moaning, how you let out those little whimpers that were so God damn sexy. I hope you remember the way you just kept whispering my name, over and over again and threading your fingers through my hair. It was like something right out of those bloody romance novels you read, it was, and it was so perfect. For a minute or two you actually made me believe I was somewhat normal. You made me believe we had something special, something lasting. You made me believe.

I'll never forgive you.

I'll never thank you enough for giving me that happiness, however fleeting it may have been and however devastating it was when it ended.

I hope you'll always remember how you almost sobbed every time you reached your breaking point and how I held you to try to stitch you back together again. Overly metaphoric? Maybe. But true. With any luck, you'll remember how you'd scrape your nails down my back, each little gash reminding me that it was real and that you were mine, just for a little while. Reminding me that, at least for a few minutes, I was human.

I hope to God it'll eat away at you like a fucking cancer, just like it's doing to me.

As much as I want to and as much as I think you deserve it, I can't bring myself to hate you. That's probably because I still love you. Even after all the shit you've put me through, after all the times you've jerked me around by my emotions like I was some sort of puppet, you gave something back to me that I thought I'd lost forever, and it hurts like Hell to lose it a second time. I try to forget about it by going out and getting drunk with Ange, sometimes even hacking into a nearby pothead's senses and trying to get a decent buzz and try to kill these feelings. I try to get over you by sleeping with any brainless bimbo that happens to be around and willing for a quick fling. It never works.

Before I let this go completely, I have to ask - what was it that fascinated you about me? The thought you could change me? You hide it well, but you have a pretty wild streak buried somewhere inside you. Maybe it scared you getting so close to someone like me, someone who, as Monet put it once, "walks the very thin line between sanity and poetic beauty and often stumbles into one side or the other." Maybe it scared you getting involved with someone so dark and so unlike you. Or maybe it was a hobby to pass the time. Whatever it was, you made me think you were true, and maybe at one point you really were.

I gave you everything I had, Paige, and then some. Poured what was left of my heart and soul into any sort of relationship we may have been able to have. You didn't see it, obviously. You thought I was trying to stay distant from you, keep myself aloof. You didn't see that it killed me every time I let my emotions go and gave you even the slightest glimpse into what I really am. See, this disfigurement runs far deeper than flesh. It goes all the way through to the core, affects everything about me and everything that ever was about me. It's made me ugly inside. Angry. Cold.

You made me bitter.

I never used to be good at writing songs, no matter what anyone else would try to convince you of. My mates used to tell me everything I wrote had no soul because I hadn't lived what I wrote. Sure, I wrote about your normal metal band topics - suicide, lost love, broken hearts, social injustices. I've lived all of it since. It's made me better as a writer, at least, if not a person. Most of all, I'm better now because I was so worried about hurting you that it never occurred to me that you could turn the tables. It took everything I had to try to hold us together, and in the end, it still wasn't enough.

I'm sorry I didn't try harder.

If I've learned nothing else from this failed experiment, it's that sometimes you can't even trust the one you love, even though your heart bleeds every time you see them and think of what you had. You can't trust the person you give yourself to, no matter how much you think you can. You can't trust who you love.

And I don't trust you.