My life has been a nightmare,

My soul is fractured to the bone.

So if I must be lonely,

I think I'd rather be alone.

- Stabbing Westward, "Save Yourself"

The night after the dance, Paige showed up at my door, shoebox in hands, nervous smile on her face. Like an angel in blue jeans, she was. I motioned her in with one hand and used the other to put the incense back in its holder on the table. She gave me an odd look, then shrugged her thoughts away and shifted the box uneasily from one hip to the other.

"How're your cuts?"

I made the universally understood 'so-so' gesture and she nodded in response. The next thing I knew, she was kneeling in front of me. It's a bad sign that I was too distracted to even think of the dozen or so filthy thoughts that should've crossed my mind.

"I thought this might help," she announced, taking the top off the box. I caught a glimpse of flash cards inside and looked away, refusing to lose the one scrap of dignity to which I'd been so desperately clinging. Paige knew I was a very proud person beneath the self-hatred, and that's why she gave me that look that would have stolen my breath in another life. "I used to volunteer at King's Daughters," she continued, unwrapping a rubber band from a stack of cards. "In the mutant section, actually, and once there was this deaf girl. It was a long time ago, though, so I'm a little rusty."

I grabbed the pen and paper I resentfully kept at my side. And what happened to the girl?

I'd heard Paige's story about Nicole before and knew the question would get to her, and I wanted it to. Call me an evil bastard, but I wanted to cause as much pain as possible on anything I could. It wasn't worth it, though, to see Paige's eyes fill with tears as she fumbled blindly with the cards.

"She. . .she died."

Nicole was fourteen when her secondary telepathic ability surfaced, so sudden and fierce it fried every synapse in her brain. She, like me, had had no voice to scream.

So I became Paige's personal redemption, a small way to make up for something she thought was somehow her fault. I made her feel like trash for ever bringing up the idea, too, and I feel unbelievably guilty for lashing out at her when she didn't remotely deserve it. I do not, however, feel guilty enough to apologize.

Here it is a year later, three days after my nineteenth birthday, and I'm still without my telepathy, without my voice. By day I struggle with the music I want to play but can't seem to grasp, by night I let Paige try to teach me to sign. It's not as degrading as it used to be, and we can communicate fairly well now. Somewhere along the line, she worked her way off the floor and into my lap, and her hands stop signing now and then to explore. I don't fight her. We're, ironically, more of a couple now than ever. It's incredibly hard to properly hold up your end of an argument in sign language.

Then we have times when we sit in the basement on my couch, her in my lap with her head on my shoulder, and I let myself start to think I'll ever be anything less than a freak and we'll ever be truly happy together. Those times are few and becoming fewer.

I put the guitar away and head slowly upstairs to her room. She's moved from the one shared with Jubilee for a multitude of reasons. I can't begin to pick one. Nonetheless, I knock on her door and she lets me in a minute later, wearing a robe and wet hair clinging to her face. Guess I caught her in an awkward moment.

She smiles brightly anyway and shuts the door behind me. "Hi. Kinda bad timing."

She's gorgeous and I don't want to do this but I can't go on forever this way, forced into masochism just to feel human again.

Without thinking, I start signing. I love you.

She blinks in surprise. I clamp down on the urge to do the same. "I . . . uh. . .what brought this on?"

Life. I hesitate. Death.

If I hadn't confused her, she would've rolled her eyes. "Don't get cryptic, Jono."

Tell me you love me. Mean it.

She's not sure what to say to that, so she thinks about it for a long, agonizing time. "I love you. Honestly, I do. I thought you knew that. But why -"

That's all I needed. I pull her closer, tug at her soft blue robe. It comes open between manipulative fingers, and not surprisingly reveals a naked Paige beneath. She blushes but doesn't try to get away, and I use the untied straps to pull her tight against me, run hands along her flesh, feeling places only I've ever known about her, and it's deeply flattering. My hands are normally nonstop around her, forming words, but now they're silent because I don't have anything to say to her.

"Jono," she whispers even as a moan threatens to escape when my right hand slips between her thighs, searching for places that will make her do that again. She trembles against me when I find one, and I tease her for a moment before pulling both hands away.

Please.

"We c-can't do this. Not now," she protests meekly, biting down harshly on her lower lip to keep from moaning again when I slide my hands up higher, guitar callouses brushing against creamy soft skin.

Please.

She's chewing her lip now, obviously torn between options, but I can feel the heat pouring in waves off her and I'm tempted to press on anyway. I wait because this is our last night together and I want her to be happy. Finally she nods and all but yanks me to her, whispering meaningless seductions in my ear as she pulls me down on top of her. I don't want to hurt her, but I have to.

Oh God, Sunshine, oh God, please, please forgive me. I love you.