Dwayne allowed Melanie to take him in the front door of her house, up the stairs, and into her bathroom. She told Dwayne to sit on the edge of the bath tub, which he did, while she wet a wash cloth and poured some liquid soap onto it. "Ok, I won't lie to you; this is really going to hurt." Dwayne just looked at the floor as she took his hand. He was regretting ever letting her being him here.

"HOLY FUCK!" He yelled and jumped up, pulling his hand away from her as she touched the wash cloth to it.

"I told you it was going to hurt. You really busted your knuckles open; I've never seen anything quite like it. Now give me back your hand, trust me. This is a lot better then letting them get infected, now that would really hurt." Gingerly, Dwayne let her take his hand again, and she started to clean it gently. He winced, but tried to keep his mouth shut. "What happened anyway?" she asked him.

"Nothing, I just got angry."

"You did this to yourself?" Melanie sounded shocked.

"Sort of, yeah, I guess technically I was driven to it."

"Wow, what's going on that caused you to do something this painful to yourself?" Melanie finished cleaning the blood off of his left hand and moved on to his right.

"I wrote a letter to my dad in Florida saying that I was unhappy with my living situation here, and he is taking my mom to court for custody. My mom wants me to stay here though, and I told her that I don't want to, and she got upset, and played my little sister as her card. I blew a fuse and you know the rest…" Even though it was the truth, he didn't feel like telling Melanie, but she was helping him, and he felt it his duty.

"Ouch, that's rough. So do you like, well do you have to go to court with them?" she asked.

"Yeah, I suppose I do, but I'm hoping that my mom will just have enough sense to let me go and to avoid the court thing. She can't win. My dad has a lot of money and a great lawyer lined up, so she's just going to lose anyway." Dwayne sighed. He didn't understand his mother's logic on not just giving him up right away.

"I'm really sorry that things have to be like this for you right now. If there's anything that I can do to help, you will let me know, right?" Melanie looked at him meaningfully.

"Uh, why the fuck would I do that?" Dwayne was really confused by this girl, and decided that he just didn't care about her at all, no matter how much she liked him.

"Perhaps because it's clear that you don't have anyone to talk to about this? If you had any friends, then you would be there right now, talking to them, instead of here with me." She finished cleaning his hands, and tossed the bloody wash cloth into her bath tub. Then she went to the cover and took out a first aid kit. Melanie poured antiseptic onto the bandages, and then wrapped his knuckles for him. It stung, but he just bit down on his lip and ignored it. "Is that better?" she asked.

"Yeah, I guess so. Thanks?" Dwayne started to head towards the door; he didn't know where he was going to go, but it wasn't going to be home. This is where friends would come in handy, and then I would have a place to go.

"Wait, are you going home? It's getting late." Dwayne checked his watch and saw that she was right, it was almost 9.

"No, I dunno where I'm going. Just somewhere I guess. Why the fuck should you care?" Dwayne turned and looked at her, wondering why she cared about where he was going in the first place.

"Well, did you ever think that maybe I want to be your friend?" asked Melanie.

"Why would anyone want to be my friend? I don't do anything to make people like me." Dwayne was quite confused.

"I don't know, I just like you, I guess that I like the fact that you noticed my problems and pointed them out to me. For the first time I felt like someone cared about me enough to try and help me out." Melanie smiled at him.

"Then you were, and are, sadly mistaken. I don't care about you enough to help you. In fact, I really don't care about you at all. I'm sure that you are used to being adored, but it just doesn't work that way for me. Sorry." He turned and kept walking.

"Wait. What if I were to tell you that maybe I care about you as more then just a potential friend. What if I were to tell you that I think I'm in love with you?" Melanie looked at him seductively, and he whirled around, speechless. She walked up to him, and kissed him.

"What the fuck was that?" he pulled away from her, looking at her in both a shocked and disgusted manner. Melanie just pulled him to her and kissed him again. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he wrapped his around her lower waist. Together they went through the door adjoining her bathroom to her bedroom. "Wait, what about your parents?" Dwayne asked as Melanie started to take his shirt off.

"They aren't coming home until tomorrow night."

"Ok, good." This was the first time in almost a year where there had been anything other than getting straight down to business. But if that's how Melanie worked, then that's how she worked.

"Wow. Well, that was interesting, coming from someone who doesn't care about me." Melanie leaned over to Dwayne and placed her hand on his chest, smiling.

"Get the fuck away from me." He pushed her away.

"What? What do you mean?" Melanie was shocked at his reaction to her.

"You don't understand, I'm sick, really, really sick." He stood up and started pulling his clothes back on.

"What are you talking about?" Melanie rose to Dwayne's level and started putting on her pajamas.

"I, oh god, just believe that I don't like you, ok? I don't care about you. I have a problem, and I just don't want to talk about it. I don't see how you could care though, I mean, you don't even know my name!" Dwayne practically shouted at her.

"Well if you would tell me then I would."

"God, I'm Dwayne, does that help anything? I'm still sick, and I still don't give a fuck about you." Melanie looked hurt.

"How could you have sex with me if you don't care about me?"

"How could you let me have sex with you before you found out anything about me? It doesn't seem much like you care either!"

"Oh my god, I let you have your way with me because I care about you, and you are just a perverted boy. You are NOT the man that I thought you were."

"GOOD! Now you don't have to worry about me! I told you, I'm sick. There's nothing that I can do about it, ok?"

"Are you, oh my god, you aren't addicted are you?" Melanie's jaw dropped what seemed to be a couple of feet.

"Yes, I am, alright? Happy now?"

"I really cared about you, I really did."

"Well you know what? I think you only liked me because you wanted what you couldn't have. You wanted someone who didn't want you for the first time in your life, which made you want it even more. I am un-capable of loving someone, I'm sorry." Dwayne walked out angrily, now positive of where he was going.