I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I haven't updated in quite awhile but I've had writers block, SAT preparations, and school stuff I had to do. Since the end of my Junior year is coming the updates might be a little spaced out because I have to start doing a ton of college stuff so I'm just letting you know. Anyway read on :-)

Much love for my reviewers, especially Abbie Carmichael and Tany.

Events of the past few days have caught up with me, I can feel it in my entire being.

Cammie is tucked safely, peacefully, under the huge new comforter I bought her when we went on a little shopping expedition last week after her second session with George.

She's doing so much better and I think she'll have a better handle on her past now.

For me that's uncertain.

I exiled my feelings to a place in the farthest corner of my mind and rarely paid attention to them unless a particular case beckoned their return.

The past few days that has occurred.

I know I helped Cammie, I know she's getting the help she finally deserves. True to my word I will not abandon her, but where do I stand here? That's the question I'm compelled to ask myself.

Elliot told me that it's not all genes. I'm still not sure I believe him.

Sometimes to help yourself you gotta help someone else first. Well, I'm doing that but how have I helped me? I'm thinking that helping myself was the point of this.

I'm not sure who I am or what demons possess me.

My mother never leaves my thoughts, always I smell that stale alcohol when she comes to torture me. It doesn't matter if I did or do love her she's still my demon ghost, the force that I cannot seem to shake.

Anger, that's what I feel when she haunts me.

Vaguely I feel the presence of whoever my father is. I feel his vulgarity, his anger and disrespect for women, for my mother.

It makes me hot with rage and darkness.

And then, in private, I sob because I feel that rage. That rage scares the hell out of me, I know Elliot feels like he's drowning because Kathy left him and took the kids and I know he has anger. Now I really know what that rage feels like. It's terror-inducing.

Sitting cross-legged on the couch in my living room with darkness devouring me I get the sensation that tears are making their way down my face.

I don't try to stop them.

Soon, after my body can't seem to produce anymore tears and my body cannot seem to withstand the strain of my shaking sobs, I lay down on my side.

I lick my lips and sniffle for a little while, a stray sob escaping every now and then.

Suddenly I feel lost and abandoned myself. All of this has rushed at me in such a short span of time and now I feel like I am suffocating.

My past has caught up with my present and I realize that after so long I've allowed the wounds of my childhood turn in to scars with no way of erasing them. All of the hurt and the anger and the confusion hasn't gone away and I'm barely treading water.

Cammie has been able to open herself up to me and let me in and help her. So why the hell can't I learn from her? She's ten times stronger than I am because she let me see her weakness, she let me bandage some of her open sores. I don't let anyone in, not even Elliot who is my best friend. George was only allowed to see the pieces of me that I let him...

That's how it is though, right? People only see what I let them and nothing more.

As I crawl through who I could be my fear grows. My breathing quickens and I feel as though I'm losing my grip with reality.

Panic sets in and I have to sit up, my eyes begin to close following my airway.

I can't stop it...

"Liv?"

Oh no, I gulp gasping for air. Elliot cannot, will not see me like this. Wait, what's he doing here anyway?

"Olivia, come on let me in. I know you're home because your car is here and you haven't called me. I'm worried about you OK, I know you need me", his voice is persistent.

He has a key, why the hell doesn't he use it?

Why does he assume I'm upset? Probably because I am and he senses it, a sort of sixth sense you develop after working so closely with someonefor so many years.

The locks and deadbolts click one after the other and the door creaks as Elliot slowly opens it. I can hear his footsteps coming toward the couch and he is in front of me.

"Liv?" he whispers.

I can't speak, I still can't breath, and the panic is still evident.

"Open your eyes and look at me, focus on me, and take slow deep breaths in through your mouth out through your nose."

Concentrating on someone other than myself alleviates a portion of the crushing weight on my chest. Gradually my breathing returns to a safe, normal level and I can see clearly without feeling as though I'm going to be sick.

"Liv now talk to me. What is going on with you?" Elliot moves from the coffee table to sit next to me on the couch.

I know he means what's going on inside of my head, not what activities I've been up to.

Surprising myself I let everything I've locked in my internal safe out, with the knowledge that Elliot won't rob me or harm me.

He listens, every now and then an almost comprehensible sigh escapes with a sad sound.

When I don't speak for awhile Elliot takes my hands in one of his and with the other he touches my chin tenderly, not as a father or divorcee, but as a best friend who wouldn't ever try to throw this bullshit back in my face.

"Liv," his voice is a pitch above a murmur, "because this concern's you so much, because you're so afraid of the terrors and because you recognize the feelings, I can reassure you that you are nothing, and I repeat, nothing, like the man who raped your mother."

He pulls me to him, my body limp and worn. "You have an identity and you know what it is."

"How do you know? How can you be sure?", my voice is hoarse from the sobbing and the panic.

"Because I know you, after six years of working so closely with you I know you. You've heard me say it before, that he hurts, you help. Sometimes helping someone means using force to stop whoever is hurting them."

Inhaling deeply I try to relax my spine and my neck. I tell myself to become like a raggedy anne doll and turn my limbs and my mind to jelly. Elliot sits with my head on his shoulder and an arm around my back. I begin to relax and succumb to the darkness with a last fleeting thought that we help each other, living in an un-named cycle...

Do I still have it or should I nix this? Lemme know :-) Thankies - love ya guys - Jill