Disclaimer: I own it... trust me, I do... really... maybe... so not...

AN: I'm back! Sorry bout the wait, had a MAJOR case of writers block... but here's another chapter. It's a flashback again, just because I like writing them.

AN Part II: Here's a little part from a earlier chapter, something that sort of ties in with this... "I sigh, thinking about Karma's face when she saw me in the hospital. The fear and sadness in her eyes killed me. I guess she remembered the last time we had been in the hospital more than I thought."

ENJOY!

Flashback

Apartment of Rosangela Adessi
October 21, 2004
3:59 AM

I sit on the tiled floor in the bathroom, my head resting against my folded hands. I haven't been sleeping too well these days, not that it's any surprise. My friends tell me I look terrible, that I'm going to collapse from exhaustion if I don't start taking care of myself.

But every time I blink I see all the blood in my mind… I can't even fathom what I'd see if I closed my eyes for any longer than that. His body aching off the gurney as they shocked him, the knife laying by his unconscious form… the look on Karma's face when I told her that Chris went to live with Fishy… her fish she'd flushed down the toilet a year ago.

Or maybe it would be the faces of everyone at the funeral. Luke's stony, guarded face, the look he'd perfected over the years. Or Chris's mother, as she broke down when they put her baby into the ground. Maybe my parents, the look of something akin to relief in their eyes. Relief steaming from the fact that their daughter hadn't gotten a chance to mess up their lives more by marrying into a poor family.

I sigh, pushing myself up to stand in front of the mirror, my legs cramped from sitting on the uncomfortable aqua blue floor for over three hours, and my head pounds, from lack of sleep and too much crying. I reach up and open the medicine cabinet, pulling out the prescription sleeping pill my doctor had given me. I hold them up to my face, squinting to make out the words in the dim light that's seeping under the door.

Rosangela Z. Adessi. It would have been Rosangela Z. Tolbert if someone hadn't thought it necessary to kill my fiancé. The police still have no leads on whoever did it. No fingerprints, fibers, hair, footprints… anything. They figure the killer was wearing latex gloves, hence why he, or she, left the knife.

There was no forced entry, meaning Chris knew whoever killed him. This is kind of scary, because Chris and I hung with the same people. Meaning I could unknowingly let my fiancé's murderer into my house without even knowing it.

I shake my head, causing a flood of pain to rush through it, and jerkily open the pill bottle. I tip the bottle, trying to pour two of them into my hand, but I'm shaking so bad that I end up spilling half of them on the floor. I close my eyes, feeling a wave of unexplained panic wash over me, and slowly lower myself to the floor again.

I drop my hand to the floor, trying to keep my balance as I start to break down. I let go of the bottle, hearing it clatter lightly to the floor, and clasp my free hand over my mouth, trying to muffle my sobs. The last thing I need if for Luke or Karma to wake up and come in here. Which is what is going to happen if I don't get myself under control, because I am not quiet when I cry.

I sit there crying, wishing, not for the first time, that I'll wake up in bed and find that this was all just a really bad nightmare. Wishing that I could just let go and not be strong for once… that people didn't expect me to be strong. That it's not part of my reputation…

My hand starts slipping on the floor and knocks into the scattered pills. I open my eyes, staring at them, both loving and hating the thoughts running through my head at the sight of them. One side of my brain, the rebellious, selfish side, starts whispering. Saying that it would be so easy, I'd get to see him again. I'd get to be happy again. It whispers, seducing, because it knows that it wouldn't take much to get me to do it.

The other side, the mother, screams at me… reminding me of everything I have to live for. My beautiful daughter… screams, asking who's going to take care of her. Screaming, because it too knows how easy it would be. But the whisper is seducing for a reason, and soon my pounding heart drowns out the screams…

I reach out quickly, not giving myself any time to think, to second guess. I swallow the handful, somehow finding myself standing in front of the mirror again. It's not till after Karma's plastic cup falls out of my lifeless hand that my brain catches up with my body, realizing what I've done…

I want to move, to find some way to undo what I've just done, but my body is frozen. My mind is no longer connected to my body. It feels like hours, and it feels like only seconds, before gravity takes over my lifeless form, and I fall to the ground, the shower curtain an innocent victim in the fall.

My eyes burn from the still falling tears, and the aqua tiles swarm before my eyes right before I succumb to darkness.

End Flashback