Ellie moving in had surprisingly little impact on the routine. There were only a few subtle details that made her permanence obvious to me. Thin strands of red hair on the couch. A cannister of pink shaving gel in the shower. Tampons under the bathroom sink. The house being just a little neater than usual. And after my brief experience of being married, even those things barely fazed me at all. After a few weeks I actually started thinking having Ellie around was a good thing. She stayed out of my way, she kept the house clean, and she kept Sean from being mopey and annoying all the time. Couldn't complain about any of that.

There were moments, though, when I would have done anything to get rid of her. Sometimes it happened when she was doing something completely normal, like brushing her teeth or washing the dishes. I didn't know quite what it was, but I would just see her and be overwhelmed by her. She seemed so faraway, hiding behind the quiet and mundane, and for some reason that pissed me off. It pissed me off that she was such a mystery. And then those moments collided, of course, with the moments that made me hate her even more: the times I'd catch her fucking up. I'd see her on the phone, smiling and saying things in hushed tones, like she was keeping a secret. Or I'd see her tracing her finger along her arm, eyeing it with longing. Once I came home from work around five in the morning, and I found her sitting against the bathroom wall, holding the lighter to the soft flesh of her wrist and watching in silence as the skin turned raw pink.

"No callouses there, eh?" I said quietly.

There was a cryptic tear easing down her cheek as she shook her head. I didn't ask her what was wrong, or try to find out why she was doing this. I didn't even yell or tell her to get the fuck out of my house. I just shook my head and walked away, shutting the door behind me. From then on we had a kind of silent agreement to pretend that the "other Ellie" didn't exist.

"For the love of fuck, Ellie, open the God damn door," I groaned. I'd been locked out of my own bathroom all morning, while Ellie did God knows what inside. I stood there yelling and banging on the door for half an hour, but Ellie had continued to nonchalantly refuse my entrance. Fucking girl. Thought she owned the God damn house.

"Patience is a virtue, Tracker," she called teasingly from within. "I'm almost finished, you big baby."

I muttered words of defeat under my breath as I hit my head against the door. "You've been in there for two hours for Christ's sake. I don't know what you've been doing in there, but you damn sure better flush..."

The door swung open and she stood in front of me, grinning like a little girl who's been playing dress-up. She held out a strand of raven black hair, one of many streaks now scattered throughout her red mane. "What do you think?" she asked. "I was going for edgy."

If you asked me, it was about damn time the girl took a few steps back from edgy. But I didn't have time to tease her, however. I was too busy looking past her at my shower, which was now soiled with puddles of inky black goo. "Aw, fuck," I muttered, scratching the back of my neck. I shook my head. "You do realize that's where I bathe, don't you?"

Ellie smirked. "You bathe? Oh, my bad. I didn't think this thing had been used in awhile." I gazed at her with dull, tired eyes, hoping to show that I was not amused. She rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, I'll clean it up. Don't I always clean up after myself? You're a real downer, you know that? You need to lighten up and have a little fun." She reached for the counter and wiped up a stray glob of dye with her fingers. "Maybe you could use a new hairstyle too, eh?" She stood on her toes to reach my hair and rubbed in the dye with a laugh.

I was fucking speechless. I clenched my teeth and fists, eyeing her with shock and fury. "You. Are. DEAD," I warned her. She saw the look in my eyes and let out a girlish scream, running past me and into the living room. I glanced around the bathroom and grabbed the plastic bottle of black dye from the counter. I chased after her into the kitchen, trying not to laugh as she darted around in playful fear.

"No! No, Tracker, I'm sorry!" she squealed, maneuvering around the island. She ducked behind the red cardbord box of Lucky Charms in an attempt to hide her face.

I smiled sinisterly and shrugged. "Should have thought of that before you trashed my bathroom and fucked up my hair, kiddo." She made a dash for the living room and I cut her off. I jumped at her and she let out another squeal as I pinned her to the couch. She whined pathetically as she tried to writhe her way out from under me. I hovered over her with a cocky smile. "Any last words?"

"Aw, don't do it! Pleeease..." She curled her lower lip into a heavy puppy-dog pout.

I laughed. "Yeah, nice try. So not gonna work."

I took the bottle and aimed. She turn slightly red in the face with a mixture of screams and giggles as I squirted the black goo all over her shirt. She reached out with her thin arms and grabbed hold of the bottle, turning it towards me instead. I shielded my face and eyes against the spray of hair dye, laughing as I tried to fight back. When we were both sufficiently winded and covered in black grossness, I gave up and chucked the bottle to the corner of the living room. Our laughter subsided and we panted to catch our breaths. I realized with surreal discomfort that Ellie was far too close to me; I could feel her breath on my neck. She noticed it, too, but didn't try to hide it. She reached forward with her soft fingers and wiped a drop of dye from my face.

"Don't want to, uh, get it in your eye," she said softly. "It might burn."

Her hand was still on my face and I wasn't sure what to think of that. Luckily, I didn't have to. I heard Sean's key wriggling in the door and crawled off her just as he walked into the house with a bag full of groceries. I had to collect myself for a moment, and shake off the feeling of her warm body beneath me. I was unnerved. I was still breathing hard as Sean stood there watching me with curiosity. I'd been caught.

Caught doing what? I had to ask myself. Nothing happened. I didn't do anything. I didn't think anything I shouldn't have been thinking. Nothing happened.

"What the hell happened to you?" Sean asked, eyeing my black-stained clothes. He walked into the kitchen plopped the groceries down on the island.

"Ask the beautician," I said, pulling out my pack of cigarettes.

As I brought my lighter to the tip of the cigarette, I heard someone knocking at the door. Ellie had scurried back to the bathroom, and Sean was putting away groceries, so I went to answer it. As soon as I opened the door, a strung-out mess of Phil tumbled into my arms, moaning in disoriented pain. "Jesus fuck," I breathed, trying to balance my cigarette in my mouth and keep Phil from dropping to the floor. He was shaking, sweating like a pig.

"What's going on?" Sean asked, watching the disruption from the kitchen with concern.

I didn't answer him. I carried Phil over to the couch and helped him sit down. "Phil," I asked, scared out of my mind. "Are you all right, man?"

Phil looked over at me with glazed eyes, seemingly trying as hard as he could to focus on me. "Hey, man," he croaked dazedly. He almost didn't know where he was. "I gotta stay here, man. I gotta stay here. I got nowhere else to go. My baby sister is looking for me, I gotta stay here."

"Okay, okay, man," I said, holding his shoulders. The shaking was about to drive me insane. I didn't know what the hell he was fucked up on, and part of me didn't even want to know. I jumped up to get him a glass of water, feeling an odd sense of deja vu from the night I'd had to take care of Ellie.

As I walked into the kitchen I met Sean, who stood in front of me with a stone glare. "No fucking way," he said, shaking his head furiously. "That deadbeat cannot stay here, Tracker."

I rolled my eyes and walked past him, straight to the sink to get a glass of water.

"I'm serious, man. This isn't a God damn half-way house, we're not taking in junkies off the street. I'm not gonna let you do that, especially not with my girlfriend in the house."

I almost chuckled. It was hard to resist. I mean, if there was one person I wasn't worried about protecting, it was Sean's mother fucking girlfriend. "Sean, just shut up, all right? I know it's hard for you to wrap your brain around, but I'm still the adult here. Step off." I filled the glass and carried it back to Phil. I held the glass to his lips, but half of its contents didn't even get into his mouth. The water dribbled down his stained gray t-shirt as he stared into nothingness. It killed me to see him like that.

"I can't believe this. I can't believe you're actually going to let this freak stay here. You're fucking ridiculous, Tracker."

I slammed the unsuccesful glass of water on the coffee table. Phil jumped. I sighed heavily and ran my hands tiredly through my hair before reaching out to try and calm him down. I glared at Sean. "Look, Phil's my friend and he's staying, God damn it. If I have to deal with walking in on your psycho-masochist girlfriend fucking herself up, then you can deal with my psycho-junkie friend crashing here for a few days. Got it?"

Sean immediately fell into cold silence. Phil started convulsing out of nowhere, slipping out of the couch. Ellie was now standing in the bathroom doorway, her face white as snow. Someone was pounding on the front door again. My head was beginning to spin. I struggled to pull Phil off the floor; he started muttering nonsense and I tried to soothe him. The front door kept throbbing, unanswered.

"Sean, get the door." He was still frozen, staring across the room at Ellie. I groaned and spoke louder. "SEAN, get the God damn door."

With slight reluctance, he moved at last to the front door and answered it. I heard him talking to someone. A few minutes later, an angry, trembling teenage girl had marched into my apartment and was hovering over me as I held my shaking friend.

"Shit," said Phil through his daze. "Don't let her in, Tracker. Don't let her in."

"I already AM in, Philip!" the girl snapped. Streams of black mascara were running down her pretty face. She stared at him with a bitter mixture of loathing and solemn concern. "God, look at you. We've been looking for you for three days, Philip. Three days, and nobody knew where the hell you were! And now you're strung-out again! I can't believe this." She began to break down in gentle sobs.

"Manuela, I'm not high, I promise!" Phil lied. He attempted to stand up and embrace her. She pushed him away harshly and he collided into the couch once more. I folded my arms as I watched her, crying as she gazed at her wasted brother. She was torn in two, not knowing if she wanted to love him or hate him. I swallowed hard. I suddenly wished Sean hadn't seen me drunk that night.

"Don't feed me your bull shit!" she screamed. "You hawked my boyfriend's drum set to buy crank, you asshole! I can't keep doing this, Philly. None of us can! Mommy's been crying for three days straight. What the hell is WRONG with you? Why can't you just pull yourself together?" Her black curls began to flop wildly around her head as she choked on her tears. In a fit of rage, she slid the pink purse off her shoulder and began slamming Phil with it over and over again. Though considerably wasted, Phil attempted to fight back, shoving and slapping his sister across the face. The next thing I knew they were beating the shit out of each other, and I realized it was a good thing Phil was high; had he been straight, he probably could have seriously hurt her. From some kind of trailer park instinct, Sean and I intervened at the same time. He pulled the girl away and took her into his arms, where she buried her face and cried. I held down Phil, pinning his arms behind him and trying to keep him from wailing on himself or me.

"Sean," I commanded with urgency, pointing to my keys on the table. "Take my bike and get her home. Tell her I'm taking care of Phil."

I could see in Sean's eyes that he desperately wanted to argue, but he seemed willing to bite his tongue and accept that the situation was too intense for his intervention. He nodded slowly and picked up my keys as he led Phil's hysterical sister out of the house. I sat with Phil for a few more minutes, convincing him that his sister was gone and that he was going to be all right now. I didn't actually believe for a second that he was going to be all right; the mother fucker was so stoned he could barely remember yesterday. But the meaningless lies seemed to work well enough to calm him down.

When Phil seemed to no longer be a violent threat, Ellie slipped back into the living room and sat across from us in the arm chair. She sat quietly and watched me for awhile as I tried to get Phil to drink more water and explain what the hell he'd been doing for the past three days. I hoped she was paying close attention and realizing that I'd had to go through the same ordeal with her only a few weeks ago. I didn't have the malice, however, to bring that little encounter up out loud.

"Why did you tell Sean I still cut?" she said at last, breaking the quiet that had come.

I glanced over at Phil, who had finally stopped freaking out as he watched a rerun of The Price is Right. I turned back to Ellie, who was looking at me with geniune hurt in her eyes. How could she ever wear a face like that, like she was the victim? Just when I thought she didn't have a single true emotion, she'd do something to surprise me. There was so much of her I had yet to unravel.

"Why do you lie to Sean?" was my answer.

She looked down at her knees. "I don't want to hurt him. He doesn't deserve to have to deal with my problems. Weren't you the one that told me I shouldn't bring Sean down with me?"

I laughed soundlessly, suddenly feeling so very tired. It had been a hell of an afternoon. "Yeah, I guess I did. But you know, if he loves you like I think he does, he'd find a way to take care of you. He'd make it work out. And if you really love him like you claim you do, you'd want him to know the truth." I retrieved a much-needed cigarette from my crumpled pack and lit it. I took a slow first drag and blew the smoke towards the ceiling. I watched the blades of the creaking fan cut through it and spread it across the room.

"That's a pretty idealist observation coming from someone so cynical."

I shrugged. "I'm only cynical because I speak from experience. Life's rough. Shit happens. Stuff you can't even control, you know? Bad shit happens to good people, and there's nothing you can do about it. But one thing I know is that lying only makes everything worse. Lying... man, I can't even tell you. Lying is like, hiding from all that bad shit. Pushing it under the rug or whatever. But it's still there. It's not going to go away. If you just face it with honesty, you know, accept it, it makes life that much easier."

Ellie smiled crookedly, her eyes full of a sadness that hit me hard. I almost forgot that she was a psycho, conniving little whore, and remembered that she was a young girl who had alot of problems. "We can't all be that strong," she said.

I had to breathe for a minute as I soaked that in. I smoked my cigarette and contemplated the concept. I had never thought of myself as being strong. If I was a stronger man, I wouldn't have been scraping the bottom like I was. "It's not about being strong. It's just... I don't know." I exhaled a heavy wave of cigarette smoke and looked over at Phil, drooling and completely unaware of where he was. The mother fucker was hopeless, but that didn't mean I could turn on my back on him. I rubbed my temples and realized I was in desperate need of a drink. "It's just about doing what you've got to do." I picked up the glass of water from the coffee table and brought it to Phil's mouth once more, gently easing the cool liquid down his throat.

Ellie's eyes were heavy, like she was crying without tears. "But that is strength, Tracker. Look at you. You're so strong. You can't help but take care of the ones you love."

I laughed and took a puff of my cigarette. "Yeah? Try telling that to my ex-wife."

"I mean it." She stood up and tucked a few stray locks of red and black behind her ear. She came towards me and placed a hand on my back as she bent to speak to me. I could feel her breath on my neck once more, cold and warm at the same time. "I'd give anything to have your strength."

She walked away and went into her room. The click of the door as it shut rang loudly in my head. I exhaled. Maybe she was in there burning herself again, or cutting, if she was feeling dangerous. Maybe she was calling up one of her secret lovers, the ones she claimed were a thing of the past. Maybe she was just sitting there, crying or sleeping or touching herself. And that's when I had to stop myself from thinking. I was scaring myself. I shook just a little as I brought the cigarette to my lips again. I inhaled, and exhaled, and watched the smoke rise. I concentrated hard on keeping my mind from going to places it shouldn't be.