/

It's day before she will make eye contact.

Almost two weeks, to be exact. It's her behaviour at your circle meetings that has you drawn to her even more. You can see her taunting you silently, mocking you, and at the same time, taunting herself.

As winter comes closer and closer to an end, even though with the weather in Washington, it's pretty much always cold, your plate is full. Well, a more correct term would be 'over-flowing'. Your grandmother had come to town. You have the relationship with her as Faye did with Henry. Cassie is currently sharing your bed because her own grandmother is out of town.

Your grandmother, the closest thing you have to a mother figure, tried to kill her and you don't want to believe it. You father lets her stay on a more permanent basis, and you fix a fake smile to your face as exhaustion began to nibble at your mind.

So far your sophomore year in high school was going just the way you had planned. You cringed at the thought of everything that had happened. Three dead, several failed assassination attempts, break ups, hook ups, and everything in between.

And it was barely February.

Your nights are once again sleepless, but not for the same reason; you don't want Cassie to find out because you accidently mumbled something in your sleep. It's usually a cold shower that shocks the fatigue out of you in the mornings, and knocks webs of Faye from your mind.

It isn't hard for you to tell that she's falling further off the edge of the cliff she's standing on, and Melissa is getting dragged with her. Only at the school dance, is it when you realise just how far she's fallen, when the school it set on fire because of her craving for power. That was her drug, the same way she was yours.

You felt disappointed that you weren't her drug of choice, and guilty when Adam snapped at her and called her out on everything. You didn't speak up to defend her, but he did have a point.

That's why after you've all been checked out and escorted home by parents, you sneak out which is something you've never been very good at and you're sure that your father knows.

You knock on her bedroom window twice, twenty minutes later.

When the curtain is snapped back, her face is scrubbed of makeup and silhouetted against the window by the small bedside lamp. You silently beg her to open the window; you don't know how long you can hold onto the lattice and you don't know how much longer it will support your weight. Reluctantly she slides the pane up, but blocks your entry.

"Here to yell at me some more? Or maybe you're here to seduce me?" The way she says her words, makes it seem like she's challenging you to make the first move. It's only when you say no that she moves aside, yet makes no attempt to help you in. "What do you want?"

"To see if you're okay."

She glares at you, or maybe it's just your own words, and you hold your hands up in surrender. You make a move to grasp her hand and she shakes you off. There are a few long beats of silence between you, and brown eyes haven't broken away from hazel until she snaps.

"It was a mistake."

Your heart breaks. "No, it wasn't."

She looks at you disbelievingly, and you can read the self-doubt on her face. She may have a facade of confidence and a lack of doubt and worry hidden behind sarcasm and cockiness, but in this point in time, all you could see the cracks in the walls she had built around herself.

"Get out." She warns you to the point where her voice is basically a low growl. You make to protest, but when her next warning comes, you wonder if her mother is awake and knows that your here. "Get out."

"It wasn't a mistake." The doubt flashes across her face before disappearing behind a wall of cold steel. "You know it wasn't, Faye."

Even as she practically forces you out of her second story window and all but slams the pane down behind you, barely missing your finger tips, you don't stop your words. You can't stop you verbal diarrhoea.

"It wasn't a mistake."

You just need to convince her.

"It wasn't a mistake."

And yourself.

/