Jeffrey slammed his door shut, his thoughts racing. "Damn it Sandy, why do you keep doing this to yourself? Don't you know that I love you? Don't you know that I would do anything to take back what I did that night? Don't you know that I regret that more than any other moment of my life?" He hated himself. If he would've just had a bit more self-control… Sandy had already been hurt so much in his life, and now he seemed to be hell-bent on destroying himself. "How can I make you understand? Sandy, you're always on my mind…"

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Sandy looked down from the cliff, careful not to get too close to the edge. "Jonathan!" He yelled. "Jonathan!" He couldn't see him. He was too far up. He had to get out of there. He knew that there was no possible way that Jonathan could've survived the fall. No way. He was too far up.

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Jonathan looked at the phone. He'd made up his mind. The woman was right. It would be a helluva lot easier to get this done with a partner. And besides, he had a feeling that this partnership would entail other benefits as well. "Oh yeah, I'll call you…" he muttered. "But not just yet… I want you to sweat it out for a bit longer…" He still wasn't sure exactly how much this woman knew about him, and the one thing that he didn't want was for her to have a complete upper hand…

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Sandy was running so fast that he didn't see the man walk up in front of him. He was running so fast that when he bumped into him they both fell to the ground.

Jeffrey moved off of Sandy as quickly as he could. He stood up and held out his hand to Sandy.

Sandy looked up at him awkwardly and stood, unwilling to take the hand of the stranger in front of him. "I'm sorry…" he mumbled, looking down at the ground. "I really should watch where I'm going…"

"Where were you off to in such a hurry?" Jeffrey asked.

"I was just… Umm…" Shit. What in the hell was he supposed to say?

"You were just…"

"Never mind, I… I gotta go…" Sandy said.

Jeffrey watched the kid run off into the distance and wondered why he was acting so nervous.

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Sandy slowly pushed the door open. He stepped into the house and looked around for his mother. He came across her in the living room. "Mom…" he said, seeing that she was watching Blues Clues on the television.

The woman sat in front of the TV as if she hadn't heard him. She had a bright smile on her face as she watched the small blue puppy bounce around on the screen.

"Sa… Sally…" Sandy said, half-hesitantly. He still felt weird calling his mother that.

The woman turned around to look at him. "I'm watchin' Blues Clues…" she said. "What's for dinner? I'm hungry."

Sandy inwardly winced. He needed to get away from her. He needed to get away from this place, but how could he just leave her to herself? He had sworn to himself that he would never leave her the way that his father had. Of course, he had been damn near ready to the other day. Mainly just because when Jonathan said to jump his response was always: How high? Of course now that he didn't have Jonathan, there was no possible way for him to rationalize leaving her. Then again, desperate times… Somebody was going to find Jonathan's body. And his DNA all over it… His epithelials on every part of him. His shoeprints. Fibers loosed from the denim thrown so carelessly onto the ground in a moment of passion. He went into the kitchen and looked into the near empty cupboards. He pulled out a bowl, some milk, and a box of cereal. "Sally…" he said. "What about some Lucky Charms for dinner?" he walked into the living room, holding everything, only then realizing that the TV had been turned off, and that his mother was smoking a cigarette.

She blew a puff of smoke into the air and raised an eyebrow at him. "It's all your fault you know… He left because of you… He knew what you were from the moment that you were born… I don't know how he knew, but he knew…" She took another drag of her cigarette and flicked the ashes in his direction.

Sandy watched as the ashes fell onto the aged green carpet. Luckily, he was too far away from her for them to hit him. "You know, that's not true…" Again, the hesitation in his voice evident at calling her anything other than Mom. "Lisa…"

She scowled at him. "I know it was because of you… That's why he waited until your little sister was born. So that he could take her with him, and your older brother too… All he left me with was you… You tell me, Sandy… What did I ever do to deserve that?"

Sandy moved back into the kitchen to set the stuff down onto the table, before he followed her voice back into the living room.

"Worthless bastard got my good children. I wish he would've taken you instead…"

"You want me gone, Lisa? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" He asked. Sometimes he wondered if Lisa wanted him dead.

The woman crushed her cigarette into the ashtray and lit up another. "I'm not trying to tell you… I am telling you…"

"Yeah… Well… I'll make you a deal…" Sandy said. "You get Alice to say the same thing and I'm gone… Forever… You'll never have to see me again…"

"You think that I give a damn what that bitch wants?" She snapped. "She won't say it! She loves you too much!"

"That's right, she does…" Sandy said. "And no matter how hard you try, you can't make her stop…"

The woman looked Sandy straight in the eye as she put the cigarette out on her own wrist without so much as flinching. "Maybe not…" she said, coolly. "But I can hurt her…"

"You hurt her… You hurt yourself…"

"Maybe…" she said. "But it's certainly worth it to make that bitch suffer… To make you suffer…"

"I'll be in my room…" Sandy said, turning away.

"She knows…"

Sandy turned back around as quickly as he could. "What?" He asked.

"She knows that you wrecked the car…"

Sandy swallowed nervously. "Oh…" he said. "Well, then let me talk to her about it…"

"She thinks it was an accident though… She doesn't know that you did it just to hurt her…"

"It was an accident…" Sandy said.

The woman lit up another cigarette. "You know I would kill you…" she said. "If I wasn't so sure that your boyfriend was well on his way to saving me the trouble…"

Sandy swallowed nervously again. "You're all talk, Lisa…" he finally managed.

"Oh, is that what you think?" She said. "I think that you should leave this place before you have to find out for certain…"