((The song is "Jack's Lament" by Danny Elfman and I do not own it. Just in case this story wasn't messed up enough, this chapter gets pretty controversial and will probably offend someone. Hell, it offends me. The chapter contains some graphic sexuality, heavy language, and strong thematic elements. You have been warned.))

The rain went mad. It was four in the afternoon and the sky was black. The wind screamed angrily while the rain shifted rhythmically back and forth from hard and heavy to gentle and anxious. I sat quietly with the two Michalchuks in their kitchen, slowly making my way through a slice of cheese pizza. Dylan and Paige occasionally picked at one another, but for the most part there was no conversation. We listened to the storm and shared our meal in sleepy silence.

"You know what?" Paige announced suddenly. Dylan and I were still eating, but she had finished and was leaning contemplatively against the counter. "I think we should have a party. We deserve it, after that rip-off of a judging today. And there's no way I'm going to sit around all night and mope."

She seemed to think this was the thing on all of our minds, but in fact Dylan and I just stared at her with an utter lack of interest. "Ooh, great," Dylan said with a sarcastic smirk. "That's just how I wanted to spend my Saturday night. Chumming around with a bunch of high school kids."

Paige folded her arms and stared him down. "Well then, college boy, you can just go along your merry way. Manny and I don't need your help to throw a great party."

I laughed quietly and rolled my eyes, not really looking at either of them. "Um, yeah, we kinda do," I noted.

"Ugh. Whatever. I'm bored, the weather sucks, and we are throwing an effing party. So deal." She reached over to the wall and took the phone out of its cradle. She tossed it to me and I barely managed to catch it, as I was still holding a slice of pizza. "Manny, call Hazel and fire up a phone tree, pronto. Dylan, you call up whoever it is you need to call to work your instant-party magic. I'll go get us the essentials." She grabbed her keys off the table and scurried out of the kitchen.

Dylan and I just looked at each other and shrugged. He whipped out his cell phone, and I dialed Hazel's number. What was the use in fighting it? Paige was on a mission, and there was nothing we could do but become her humble servants. She was very good at getting her way.

You've got to hand it to the Michalchuks: they have mad skills. In only a few hours, Paige's half-baked, last-minute plan had come together masterfully. A cluster of Dylan's college buddies had arrived with more kegs than I'd ever seen in one place at one time. Hazel showed up with Jimmy and Spinner in tow, who were to help rearrange furniture and, when they're usefulness as strapping young boys was used to up, to head to The Dot and spread the word. Hazel and Paige grew giddy as they went through preparations, but I quickly lost interest. It was only another party, after all. Another opportunity for eyes and whispers and everyone hating Manny.

My presence was hardly missed when I decided to slip upstairs to Paige's room. I raided her M&M stash and flipped back and forth between The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Price is Right reruns on cable. When television began to bore me I silenced the idiot box and cranked up Pretty Girls Make Graves on Paige's stereo. I retrieved my sketchbook from my bag, which to my dismay was somewhat damp. I sat in Paige's window and tried sketching the way the rain drizzled against the glass. I focused so hard on the intricate details of the blacks and grays, the refraction of the water and glass, the perpendicular white window panes, but eventually it all turned to nothing but lines and curves.

I flipped to the next page with a heavy sigh and began sketching random doodles instead. This required no thought, no focus. I let the rumbling thunder and the music guide my hand across the white paper. It was soon cluttered with hearts, stars, Pretty Girls lyrics, dancing M&Ms, bleeding smiley faces, and a kitten named Charlie that wanted to be my best friend forever.

Glaring pairs of headlights began to shine through the rain and blackness outside. Even louder than my own music, I could hear the heavy bass of the stereo starting up downstairs, and I knew Paige's party had begun. I was surprised at how many cars I saw pulling up through the window. Maybe the rain had ruined everyone else's Saturday, too, and they were all just waiting for something like this to happen.

I knew that it would be stupid to try and stay hidden all night. I put away my sketch book and wandered over to Paige's closet. I untied her bathrobe and let it fall to the floor and for a moment I caught my nude reflection in the mirror inside her closet door. I turned my head quickly; it was too much for me too look at myself, especially naked. I tried to stay as far away from myself as possible. I was too scared to get to know that girl.

It's funny how even when there's no one I want to impress, I still try anyway. It's like, the one thing I have left. Oh, the other girls may have cleaner reputations than mine. They might be smarter than me. They might be more popular than me. They might have everything I've always wanted and will never have, but the one thing I can still claim is that I look better than all of them. I knew I was pathetic, but as I applied silver glitter to my eyelids, I found it hard to care.

I strolled downstairs awhile later, to where the party of dozens of high schoolers as well as college students had already gained tremendous momentum. I was wearing Paige's clothes, and I felt like I was wearing a new set of skin. The deadened exterior of Manny had been shed and made anew, at least in appearance. My filthy, geniune self still lingered beneath the surface, but I looked damn good on the outside, and that was really the most I could hope for any more.

As I weaved through the crowd I noticed the familiar turning of heads. I was a classic wreck-on-the-side-of-the-road. People knew they shouldn't look, but they just had to. I could always feel their eyes on me, the weight bearing down and suffocating me, but I pretended not to acknowledge any of them. This was the game I played, and I had learned to play it well.

I got myself a beer and planted myself on a wall, surveying the excitement around me. I spotted Paige with Spinner, laughing as they mumbled their ridiculous honey bee bull shit to one another. It just wasn't fair, that two people could be so happy and so in love with each other. If you had asked me when I was twelve, I would have told you it was beautiful. Ask me now, and I'll tell you it's just another piece of evidence as to how much God hates me. Paige is just as fucked up, if not more so, than I am. And somehow she has that picture-perfect, fairy-tale-ending, sugar-frosted life that I've dream of since the seventh grade. She has everything I want, and she fucking takes it all for granted.

I tried to shake away those thoughts, drown them in gulps of cheap beer. That's when I saw him, walking towards me, through the amber liquid in my plastic cup. But I pretended like I didn't.

"Hey, slow down there," he said, approaching me with his hands in his pockets. "You want to remember where you are when you wake up, don't you?"

Oh, haha. Craig's so funny. I didn't laugh. I didn't say anything.

He coughed. "Well, um, hey. Your car's still at my house."

"I know." I tried not looking directly at him.

"...So I guess you should come by and get it."

I nodded. Still fighting his eyes. "Okay. When?"

He shrugged and scratched his head. "Whenever. I guess you could just ride home with me after the party."

"Yeah, okay." I was as nonchalant as I could manage to be. I knew that I wasn't going home tonight, so whether it was at Paige's or Craig's house that I crashed made little difference. My eyes flitted toward his and the pain of last night hit me hard again. Why did I always lose my head when it came to Craig? And why we were STILL friends through all of this, even when shit continually spiraled out of control for us?

But that's just how it was between us. I hurt him, he hurt me, and we would forgive each other without saying a word. We kind of had to. Fuck-ups stick together, it can't be helped.

"Hey, Craig," greeted a darkly-clad redhead. I suddenly wanted to be somewhere else. She turned her head and spotted me, and I recognized the exact same feelings in her eyes. I knew she'd come over here by mistake; Ellie tried to avoid as much interaction with me as possible. She mumbled in greeting to me.

Craig shifted his weight, clearly feeling the awkwardness of the situation. "Um, hey, El. How's it going?"

Ellie shifted slightly so that her back was facing me as she began to engage Craig in some dull discussion about Ansel Adams. I rolled my eyes and took an angry sip of my beer. I had grown more than used to Ellie's immeasurable hatred of me. I mean, I got smashed and banged her boyfriend at Heather Sinclair's New Years Eve party. Oops, there goes another relationship, courtesy of Slut Santos. Who could blame her for hating me? She had just as much reason as everyone else.

It's not like I didn't feel bad about it. It's not like I just do these things because I want to. I just keep slipping up and losing control and the next thing I know it's raining shit all over everyone in my wake. But Ellie didn't care about that. She only saw Manny the Slut, the Boyfriend Stealer, the Heartless Bitch. And she's done everything she can over the past year to make sure I never forget it.

It only got worse, of course, when she and Craig started becoming good friends, bonding over photography or some shit. That put Craig in the awkward position of balancing his time between us, because it was obvious he couldn't be friends with both of us at the same time. It drove me crazy. Why couldn't she just fuck off and resent me from afar? Did she have to take one of the last things I had left? Did she honestly hate me that much, that it wasn't enough just to let me wallow in the misery that was my existence? No, she had to push me that much further. There were times when I wondered if she really was a witch, like people said she was, and had been casting shitluck spells over me the whole time. Sure, my life had been spiraling downward for sometime, but it was after the incident with Sean that things really fell apart and I came into my current state.

But beneath all that anger, I knew that none of it was really Ellie. It was me, always, my fault, everything. The mistake I made with Sean... that was my last chance. My last chance to be a good girl, now that I was medicated and taken care of, and I fucked it up. After that I gave up trying to be good, trying to be normal, trying to be someone people could love. I drank and I lied and I slept around because I was too tired to try and salvage the old Manny. Why not become that person everyone seemed to think I was?

I let out a loud sigh, slipping in front of Ellie to catch Craig's attention, flipping a wave of black silken curls in Ellie's face. "You know, I think I see Liberty over there. I'm gonna go swing by and say hey." I placed a soft hand on Craig's shoulder and put on a devilish grin as I slithered past him. "I guess I'll see you later tonight, right Craig?" I gave a flirtatious wink, in spite of Ellie's disgusted glare, before strutting away. If Ellie wanted to hate me for being a slut, then I at least had to live up to her expectations. It was all I knew how to do any more, live up to the reputation. And I was good at it.

Of course, I hadn't spotted Liberty, and even if I had, why the hell would she even want to talk to me? I made my way instead to the keg and topped off my plastic chalice. The next person to step up to the tap just happened to be Dylan, who stopped and turned to me with playfully accusing eyes.

"Manuela, how many beers have you had?" he asked in his best big brother voice.

"Numero dos," I said, holding my cup up proudly and hitting it against his. "Last one, promise. If there's one thing I don't want tonight, it's a scene. I think last night alone filled my drama quota for the weekend."

Dylan smiled warmly at me and pat my shoulder. "Yeah, well, don't be afraid to have at least a little fun. You deserve it."

I smiled in return and nodded as we parted ways. Underneath my smile I couldn't help but think, I don't deserve anything.

I drank as I walked through the crowd, watching all of them while trying to pretend like I wasn't being watched myself. It was all like some movie I'd seen one too many times before. There was no fun to be had here. Thrill and excitement had long been gone from my life. It wasn't about fun. At the most, I could aim for contentment. Survival. Not being in absolute despair. There was no point in wishing for more than that.

A potent wave of beer-breath was suddenly upon me, along with a pair of greedy, sweaty hands on my shoulders. "Manueeeeeeeeeela," the stumbling teenage boy hissed into my ear. "What's up, baby?"

I turned my head and wrinkled my nose at the sight of him. "Oh, Sully. You're drunk. And you're touching me. How wonderful."

My sarcasm went right over his head and he laughed as he placed an alcohol-laced kiss on my cheek. "Feel like dancing?"

If there's one guy I slept with one too many times, it was Sully. I mean, I guess I could have teased him with a dance or something, put on a good show for Ellie and the rest of the crowd, but something in me was just sick of it. I pried his hands off of me and less-than-gracefully shoved him aside. "I would, but you know... fuck no." I rolled my eyes and evaded him quickly. I swam through the heavy crowd until I reached the sliding glass door that led outside. I was greatly in need of a smoke and some fresh air; as if those two could ever actually go hand in hand.

I was surprised by how much the storm had intensified. Full-grown trees swayed like blades of grass in the heavy winds. Blaring thunder echoed through the black skies while rain pelted the earth at shifting angles. There were a few scattered people standing beneath the plastic awning over Paige's back porch, all of them chilling quietly in the shadows, obviously in need of a moment away from the chaos as well.

I savored the sound of plastic crackling as I tore open the fresh pack of cigarettes I'd begged Dylan to buy for me. Soon after I took my first nicotine hit, I realized the orange flicker of a flame from my lighter had attracted a visitor from the shadowy corner. He was tall, shaggy hair, baggy clothes, face still indistinguishable. "Can I bum a cigarette?" he said tiredly. His voice made me shudder. I knew I'd heard it before.

I leaned against the wall and took a puff. With a reluctant sigh, I held the pack out to him. I noticed the sickly yellow coloring collecting around his dirty fingernails. He put the cigarette to his lips and leaned in to let me light it.

The fluorescent light creeping outside through the window fell onto his face, lighting up those sharp gray eyes, and I felt my heart stop cold for a moment. "Holy fuck," I exhaled.

I recognized him, he recognized me, and the moment was somehow completely fitting. He smiled, and it was the same, twisted, "I don't give a fuck" smile I remembered. Funny how that smile had seemed charming before I knew the truth about him. But now that I saw his face so close to mine, I wondered how I could have bought it even for a second. There was such an obvious deviousness in his eyes, a burning dark quality to his smile.

"Are you going to give me a light or are you just going to stand there and torture me?" he asked.

I should have tortured him. I should have screamed profanities in his face and lit him on fire. Instead I flicked my lighter and held it gently to the tip of his cigarette. "You really are fucking something," I said emotionlessly. "You do realize Paige is going to, like, murder you if she finds out you're at her house, don't you?"

He shrugged smugly and took a puff of his cigarette. "What, you mean she's STILL hung up on that?"

The incredulousness of his words, of his mere presence, left me speechless. Any other person would have spun into a fit of rage at the sight of him. Any normal person would have been unable to control the anger I should have been feeling at that point. I wanted to, I tried to. But I just watched him, only vaguely discomforted. It was too hard to feel anything. I had seen and done too many unthinkable things for him to faze me. The drugs weighed me down with apathy and despair.

I watched him smoke and realized how completely different he looked since the last time I'd seen him. Long faded was the fresh and charmismatic Dean of high school. The athletic soccer build had withered away, and all that remained was pale, half-starved skin and bones hiding beneath his dirty clothes. A neglected garden of shitbrown hair fell unstrategically over his yellowed, sunken face. All life and color seemed to have been sucked dry from him. His eyes were heavy and buried in dark circles, and had the perpetually-wandering quality of a junkie vigilantly watching for the next high. He was, simply, destroyed. But not in a way that would evoke pity. He was a tactile portait of poetic justice, of karma working the way it should.

"What happened to you?" I asked conversationally.

He laughed soundlessly. "What happened to you?" He brought the cigarette to his mouth and I noticed the slight but constant shaking of his fingers. "You look real different when you're not shaking those pom poms, Manny."

Hearing his icy, serpentine voice hiss my name was somehow frightening. And intriguing. I raised my eyebrows. "You remembered my name. I'm impressed. I didn't think a stud like you would have time to keep track of all the girls you try to fuck over."

He laughed, and I shivered involuntarily. "Yeah, well, don't flatter yourself. You wouldn't even be on my radar if you didn't have such a hyped rep. I hear stories all the time. Shit, I hear stories about you from people I don't even know." He guffawed stupidly again, puffing and coughing at the same time. "For awhile I didn't think it was the same chick, but sure enough I come to find you're like some kind of fuck machine. Hard to imagine, coming from someone who didn't even know how to give good tongue when I first met you."

I chuckled icily. It must have been a real blow to Dean's ego, for my reputation to be so far-reaching that even people from other schools knew all about it. "I guess it must suck to be the only guy like, ever, not to get some ass from me. But you know, at the time I was saving myself for the world's biggest asshole, and you turned out to be a rapist. So I'm thinking I made the right decision, eh?" I blew a cloud of smoke into his face before turning on my heel to leave.

"Hey," he barked, grabbing my arm. His fingers clutched me so tightly I knew it would leave bruises. And yet I didn't try to stop him. "Accused rapist. They didn't prove shit."

"Oh, right, and I care? Everyone knows what you did. What the fuck are you even DOING here? Is it not enough that you got away with rape? What sick pleasure could you possibly get from terrorizing Paige any more?"

He shrugged and smirked, his face utterly absent of remorse. "What can I say? I went to my little cousin's cheerleading thing and I saw you guys there. I started walking down memory lane and the next thing I know, word on the street is Spirit's throwing a party. How could I resist?"

"You're unbelievable." Only, deep down, I knew that it was completely believable. It made perfect sense. He was a heartless, self-serving fuckface who used sex for personal gain and hurting people. And would he ever repent? No. He just kept digging his grave deeper. He reminded me too much of myself.

His response was a careless shrug. We drifted into comfortable silence and smoked, oblivious to the storm that roared angrily all around us. When he'd reached the end of his cigarette he tossed it aside, out into the rain, and turned to me. "So, listen," he said, bringing his voice down. He leaned in close to me, reeking of unwashed laundry. "A buddy of mine told me you've got like, the hook-up with a shitload of pills." He was near enough for me to feel the warmth of his body, for me to look inside his mouth and see his slowly rotting teeth. He was dirty and smelly and broken, and I so wanted to reach out and touch him.

"Who the hell told you that?" I asked. I racked my brain and tried to remember what wild weekend had involved me handing out pills to one of Dean's friends. Nothing came to mind. Who could honestly keep track anymore? I no longer questioned how people knew things about me. My sins were written all over my skin; they shone bright above my head like a neon sign.

He shrugged, and I began to notice his antsyness. He stared right into me, desperate, hungry, and I saw something remarkable there: weakness. There was just something so alluring about it. "So, hey, we're practically old friends, right? How about sharing the love? Hook me up."

I snorted. "Yeah, sure. And what's in it for me? Oh, right, nothing. Get lost, Dean. This is too pathetic to watch, even for me."

He grabbed me again, this time putting both hands on my shoulders, hurting me. I felt the rough brick of the house grazing my back. I suddenly began to understand the helplessness Paige must have felt when she was raped. Looking into his eyes, I saw that there was nothing in Dean's mind that said, "You've gone too far." He wanted what he wanted, and he would do what had to be done to get it. "Come on, little girl, just show me what you've got, and then I'll leave. I'll get the fuck out of here and I'll never bother your little friend Spirit again, okay?"

It was one of those moments in time that happened so quickly I had barely even registered it. In retrospect, I was able to look at that moment and realize the idiocy of my actions. I mean, couldn't I see that things wouldn't end well? Maybe I could. Maybe I saw all along the wreck at the end of the road I was speeding down. Maybe I tried to fuck up like I did. It seemed as though I always would, without fail, seek out the worst possible outcome of any scenario and dive right into it.

Whatever the reason, that stormy Saturday night proved to be no different. Stupidly, I snuck upstairs with Dean. Stupidly, I poured the contents of my bag all over Paige's bed. Stupidly I watched as he sifted through the bottles and prescription labels with my name on them. He asked me which ones would get him really fucked up, and stupidly I had no answer for him. He decided to take one of each, a pretty rainbow in his hand, and as he stupidly tried to suck on my neck I stupidly let him.

Kissing him was indescribably vile. I tasted his voice, his slimey words, all over the walls of his mouth. I tasted the familiar powdery consistency of my meds on his tongue. I tasted his rotting teeth. I didn't stop. He was so horribly, deliciously disgusting. Pants around his ankles, Paige's red skirt pushed up around my stomach, my perfect curls getting tangled up in sweat, gentle screams and hands roaming with no remorse. Careless, senseless fucking while Pretty Girls Make Graves kept playing on repeat. I was a lousy human being for giving him what he wanted. He got my drugs and my sex and I knew he didn't recognize the irony. I felt used and I hated it but I loved it because that's the way I loved to feel. I mean, I had to feel something.

I was so lost in him, in my pain, in our collective stupidity, that reality was merely an afterthought. It was when the door swung open and I saw Paige, her livid face illuminated by the yellow hall light, that I returned to my senses. I've never heard so many screaming voices at one time. I had no time to think at all, because before I knew it Paige was crying and barking obscenities and throwing heavy objects. I rolled off the bed and ducked for cover. I tried to explain, calm her down, but Paige was so deep inside her rage I don't think she even heard me. Her angry words were barely decipherable through her sobs.

Dylan and Spinner dashed into the room shortly after Paige, adding to the screaming and confusion. Spinner flew into a fury without missing a beat. He didn't even need to understand the situation; he saw Dean and immediately dove for him. Dylan tried to comfort Paige but she thrashed her way free of his arms and continued to rant violently. She looked so torn between who she wanted to hate more, me or Dean. I tried to sneak away into a corner, not be a part of this, but Paige was soon hovering over my face, screaming.

Bitch. Psycho. Slut. Cuntface. Have you lost your fucking mind? I hate you. Her words shredded me apart. I'd never heard her swear so much in her life. I'd never seen such pain in her eyes.

Dylan finally managed to grab hold of her and pull her away from me. She fought him off again but this time she just gave up. She collapsed to the floor, tears flooding her face, and leaned against the pink mattress of her bed. Spinner and Dean continued to kick the shit out of each other in the background, but Paige didn't even notice. She was in a different place.

"Manny," Dylan commanded firmly. He grabbed my shoulders firmly and looked me in the eye. I wished he wouldn't. The shame was overwhelming. "I think you'd better go now."

I opened my mouth to say something, but only guilty silence came out. I looked at him, then at Paige, then at Spinner and Dean. My heart crumbled. I hadn't meant for any of this. I hadn't meant to be such an awful friend, such an awful person. I would have given anything to go back in time, erase this entire mess, undo all the wrong that I did. But what was the point? I was just going to fuck it up again.

I looked into the clear blue of Dylan's eyes and I wanted so badly for him to know that I was sorry. That I'd change it if I could. That I was powerless to stop all the madness that seemed to happen when I was around. But again I had no words. Again my apology would be worthless. I simply nodded vaguely and slipped out of the room, leaving him to deal with the mess. Dylan would make things right again. He would take care of Paige. He knew how to be the person I could never be.

The walk of shame I made as left Paige's house was a long one. I tried to break through the crowd as quickly as possible, but the whispers and stares enveloped me like quicksand and made it hard to move. Sometimes I got so tired of being the one they looked at, the one they laughed at, the one they blamed. I so wanted to end the cycle.

I walked out of the Michalchuk house, leaving behind me the ruins of yet another Manny Santos disaster. The vibrations of the explosion seemed to echo into the sky and fall back down on me with the rain. It poured down so cold and heavy. I wondered if I could just drown in it.