Disclaimer: I still own nothing but my own mind.

A.N: Well, opps it's been a long time since I updated. Sorry not sorry. I spent the entire summer working in the woods, then promptly started University. I make no promises about further updates, but I always appreciate all of the support and excitement.

Necessity Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I bang into the kitchen, tears streaming down my face. I turn and lock both the door to the rest of the house, and the door to the backyard before letting myself slide onto the floor. My shoulders heave as I press my face into the strangely sticky floor. He doesn't understand, he doesn't know the way he's making me feel.

He doesn't know that I can't sleep, because the dreams are worse than the memories that torment me every second of every day. He doesn't understand that I know no peace, that my entire being is consumed by what happened in that jail, and that I have no way of breaking free.

I find myself looking over my shoulder constantly, half expecting some kind of horror to jump out at me from around the corner at the grocery store.

I ache for the past, the hole that's been created by this trauma consumes me.

Slowly I rise off the floor and look around the kitchen. My eyes instantly go to the wooden block that contains the knives. Fear flashes through my mind, but I push past it and get my knees under me and become eye level with the counter. I stare at the knives.

I think about how easy it would be. It would make all the pain and emptiness go away, besides Tamlin doesn't even notice what's been happening to me, so why would he care?

I grasp the edge of the counter and use it to hoist myself the rest of the way to my feet. I take one of the larger knives in my hand, pull it free of its wooden prison, and stare at the gleaming metal. In it I can see the reflection of my own face; the wet, red face of a little girl drowning in pain.

I look down at where the denim of my shorts end. The yellow light of the summer sunset makes my skin look deep tan, like it's not even mine. I place the flat side of the cold blade against my leg and flinch at the contrast to the sweltering heat oozing through the entire house.

I stare at the silver object. I then take a deep breath, shift the knife so the sharp side is against my skin, and draw it across my thigh. A thin red line appears on my skin. I swallow, reposition, and do it again, putting more force behind it. I am greeted by the redness of my blood, and the pain of the cut.

I focus on the pain, I allow it to pull me away from the ache of the emptiness of my life. I allow it to pull me away from the loss of my freedom, the loss of my entire personality. But I find that once the cut is made, the pain fades, and the ache returns.

So, I do it again. And again. I do it until there are five neat lines down the top of my thigh. My knife is now covered in blood and the crimson liquid has begun to pool beneath my foot.

I drop the knife into the sink and lean against the counter. I close my eyes and let myself focus on the feeling of the blood, and the recall the sting of the cuts. It pulls me away from reality.

I stand in silence until time no longer has meaning. But I am ripped out of my reviver by a bang at the interior door.

I look over at my knife, down at my leg and the pool of blood, then shrug and step over to the door. Deciding in that instant that I truly do not care if Tamlin sees what his abuse has done to me. I unlock the door and pull it open before returning to my previous position.

Lucien steps into the room and looks at me. He looks at me, then down to the floor where my blood is, then back up to me. He then walks over to the refrigerator, opens the door, and pulls out two bottles of Keystone Light, twists the tops off both of them, then hands me one.

I just nod and takes a swig. He nods back and starts chugging.

I cringe as I feel Rhys freeze. I know what my new boyfriend has just discovered and based on the way that Rhys has started to shake, I'm guessing that he's none too happy about it.

Rhys sits up on his knees, not moving his hands from their place on my thighs. Rhys swallows and takes a slow breath before opening his eyes and fixing me with a searing gaze. "Tell me these aren't what I think they are." I can hear Rhys' struggle with emotion as he gets the words out.

"What do you think they are?" My voice sounds thin and weak to my ears.

Rhys retracts his hands as if my skin has burned him. "Damn it Feyre." Rhys then climbs off me. The instant he takes his hands away, I feel my skin call out for his warmth. I am suddenly struck with how alone I feel without him touching me. "Did he do this to you?"

I shake my head. "No, he didn't. I did."

When his eyes meet mine, the pain and panic that I see there shocks me.

"Why?" His voice cracks, and my heart breaks at the sound.

"I don't know why."

He runs his hands over his face and through his hair. "Feyre."

"I don't know Rhys. It took me away from the pain and the trauma that I didn't know how to deal with."

"Took?"

"What?"

"You just said took. As in past tense. As in you're not doing this anymore."

"I'm not."

"You swear?"

I nod.

I watch as the relief washes over him. He comes back to me and falls to his knees in front of where I am now sitting. He takes my hands in his and places kisses on each of my singular fingertips, then both the front and back of my palm. He does this for first my right hand, then my left. As he does this, tears start working their way down my face. It's such a simple gesture, but it means more than he can ever know to me.

Once he's done he untangles his hands from mine and cups my face. He wipes away my tears with his thumbs.

"I was alone and hurting. And I just wanted to stop thinking about what happened with Amarantha for just a few minutes." He nods, rises slightly and places a kiss on my forehead.

"I know love, I know. I went through a similar experience."

"You were trying to forget about Amarantha?"

"I was trying to forget about the fact that you were with Tamlin and not me." I blink in surprise. I have no idea what to say after this confession of his. "Only my solution was to binge drink with Cassian until I had to go to the hospital."

"You were hospitalized?"

"Four times. Would've been five, but then at the wedding, I saw you and I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to get you out of there."

"You went to the wedding to get drunk?"

He leans back slightly and looks into my eyes. "I went to the wedding to let you go. Getting drunk was just part of the process."

A.N.: Hey so R&R! And, as usual A.J. I've got a question for all of you lovely readers! Okay, so first context: I kind of want to write about how Elain and Azriel got together and their lives in this AU, and I'm toying with the idea of a spin-off fanfic. So here's the question, would you want me to create another story so that those chapters are separate from this story, or would you like it if I just kind of started sticking them inside of this one every so often?