A/N: "Vindicated" is copyright Dashboard Confessional and BJ and such belongs to Tim Burton. This story works better if you listen to the track on loop while reading.

"Beetlejuice? …Can you hear me?" she asks of the darkness. The light isn't off, it's broken. Broken by a figurine she threw wildly through the room an hour ago in her rage.

The shattered pieces lie on the carpet; the porcelain mixing with the glass of the light fixture and the silvery shards of mirror, dyed in places with the red of her blood.

Hope dangles on a string
Like slow spinning redemption
Winding in and winding out
The shine of it has caught my eye…

"Is it wrong? Is it wrong to miss you…so much? Why can't I call you or talk to you? What…went…wrong?" she wants to know. She's cried so much, there's nothing wet left in her. Now she's dry and can't go on.

The tears have all dried from the carpet. The wet spots are gone and nothing's left but darkened flooring.

And roped me in
So mesmerizing, so hypnotizing
I am captivated, I am…

"Son of a bitch!" she swears, punching the wood backing behind what used to be the mirror. Another dent added to the last hour's worth of attacks. She hasn't gotten up from where she fell.

"It's not my fault! Whatever you think is wrong, it isn't because of me! I haven't done anything to you! If I have, then I'm sorry, you selfish son of a bitch! I'm sorry!" she screams, repeatedly punching the mirror.

"If you were a man, you'd tell me why you're doing this! Is it a test? Is it some sick, twisted form of humor? God damn it, come out and tell me!"

Vindicated
I am selfish
I am wrong
I am right
I swear I'm right
I swear I knew it all along
And I am flawed
But I am cleaning up so well
I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself…

She collapses again, her fervor ebbed, on the floor. She tries in vain to piece together the mirror on the floor, thinking in her haze that maybe, just maybe, if she can make it whole again, she could go through and see him.

Go through and find what she thought was him.

So clear
Like the diamond in your ring
Cut to mirror your intention
Oversized and overwhelmed
The shine of which has caught my eye
And rendered me
So isolated, so motivated
I am certain now that I am…

The pieces slowly go together, one by one, starting to resemble what they once were. She's encouraged by the reflection of her room starting to emerge from what once were fractured visions of her distorted reality.

As she goes along, she starts disliking the spider-web of cracks in between each pair of pieces that have been pushed together. When she's finally finished, she can't even look at it for the hatred of the thin, almost nonexistent lines breaking up the perfect picture.

In a wave of new emotions and new tears, she sweeps the mirror away into its broken pieces with a pass of her hand as she cries again.

Vindicated
I am selfish
I am wrong
I am right
I swear I'm right
I swear I knew it all along
And I am flawed
But I am cleaning up so well
I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself…

With a wince, she realizes she cut her palm on a jagged piece of mirror. As she lifts her hand to her eyes, a strange sort of light begins playing in her pupils, and she starts to smile in a relieved way.



So turn
Up the corners of your lips
Part them and feel my finger tips
Trace the moment, fall forever

She watches the blood trickle down over her hand and wrist and arm and sighs with a contented breath. Her epiphany won't go ignored.

She picks up a large piece of glass and examines all its sides. She selects the sharpest and touches it lightly to her exposed wrist.

She sucks in a breath and cries a single tear. It traces its way along her cheek and dies on her lips, which speak a single phrase.

"If you won't come to me…then I'll come to you."

Defense is paper thin
Just one touch and I'd be in
Too deep now to ever swim against the current
So let me slip away
So let me slip against the current
So let me slip away…

She makes a quick cut and gasps. It burned with the fury of a thousand suns! She had never imagined it would pain so much!

Her eyes screw up and she tries to keep her breath. As the crimson bubble turns into a small stream of blood flowing down her arm, she slumps against her table and almost falls to the floor.

Her vision swims with color, abounding with hues of purple and blue and black and green, all swirling together in a brilliant kaleidoscope that tints her bedroom with night colors. The crescent moon shining in through her window spills its light over her, and she focuses on it, weeping at its beauty.

Vindicated
I am selfish
I am wrong
I am right
I swear I'm right
I swear I knew it all along
And I am flawed
But I am cleaning up so well
I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself…

As her breath slows, she tries to keep her gaze on the moon, not wanting to see the earthly things around her as she slips away. But inevitably, her head nods and her eyes fall to the bloodstained piece of glass in her hand. She wants to throw it away in disgust, but she finds she hasn't the strength.

Finally, her eyes weakening and her heart slowing, she looks in a daze to the shattered mirror that lay around her. She slowly collapses to the floor and lays on a few pieces of glass.

Her breath mists them over and over again…

Then the mist fades away.



My hope
dangles on a string
Like slow spinning redemption...