Author's Note: I think I get requested to write using more descriptive language (which is really good feedback, to be honest, since that really helps with my general writing) and I tried my best with the language in this one :)

Day One-Hundred Seventy-Eight: Tired of Singing the Blues by Lana Del Rey

I lit another cigarette as I sat on the back stoop of my apartment building.

It was days like these that I felt like breaking down. I felt like God or some divine spirit was playing a little game. I was a little pawn that they liked to manipulate. He was looking down and laughing at me. He liked to watch me struggle and flail with every passing day.

Their amusement would soon run out; there wasn't much more I could really take. Nothing went my way anymore. I was just existing; I wasn't really living. I was like a zombie. I just walked around, did as I did every day, and struggled to wrap my head around it all.

That was what all the vices were for. They were to forget. Sex, cigarettes, drugs, alcohol…it was all to forget and continue to live. People met their poetic ends when they died of drug overdose or alcohol intoxication—or even more amusing was when they met death via sexual climax, which had actually happened before—but they were the only things to help me live. I was losing with everything else. It was almost funny how horrible my life was. To make it even better, my life was so mundane…it was like I relived the same day over and over and over. Was I supposed to be getting it right, or something? I sure didn't feel like it. It was just playing on some endless loop. And every passing day, I tried to make my life mean something and make something for myself, but nothing ever worked in my favor.

Life consisted of just biting my tongue and biding my time, just hoping something good would happen. But nothing good ever happened; it really never did. It was an uphill battle—a hopeless conflict, really—and I knew it.

I heard footsteps walk over to me. I continued to stare at the dirty brick wall that was looking me right in the face. It seemed to be mocking me, too. Hell, even that brick wall had a better life than I did; I was fucked.

I took another drag as the person sat down next to me. I already knew who it was, so I didn't bother to look.

"What're you doing here?" Swirls of smoke drifted in the air as I spoke. Something about that looked so pretty and so glamorous…if not for the wretched smell and the even more awful taste. Truthfully, I hated smoking, but it was relaxing, calming…peaceful.

I heard him shrug. "I just came to see you and see how you were doing."

I rolled my eyes before taking a long drag. I finally turned my head to look at him before blowing the smoke in his face. "Bullshit."

He grabbed the cigarette out of my hand. I was about to argue before I saw him put it in his own mouth. This was new. He hated cigarettes as much as I did, but he hated the act—and the feeling—of smoking, too (which I did not). He handed it back to me. I took it back slowly. This was so strange.

"Since when do you smoke?"

He took a deep breath. "Since when are you around at five in the afternoon? Shouldn't you be getting ready for…you know…"

I rolled my eyes as he trailed off. He just couldn't accept what I'd done with my life. He couldn't accept the fact that I had sold my body—and my soul, according to him—as a profession. The more I thought about it those days, the more I sort of began to understand it. After all, we'd been friends since we were just kids. How do you go from being the little girl with the pink dress and pigtails to stripping and getting undressed entirely (and on occasion, having sex for money) in someone's eyes? It wasn't easy. And if there was one thing about him, it's that he didn't know when it was time to let go. He just couldn't let go of that stupid, ignorant little girl from the third grade.

"I don't have to be there today until nine," I told him as I grabbed a brown paper bag and took a swig from the bottle inside.

"You drink now, too?" he inquired, his voice dripping with concern.

"Don't act so fucking surprised."

He didn't respond to that. I just took another drink. Even though I sort of drank on a daily basis (alright, not sort of), I still wasn't quite accustomed to the feeling of strong alcohol going down the esophagus.

Then, suddenly, as though it were in one swift motion, he took the bottle (and bag) out of my hand and threw it across the alley. It hit the brick wall and shattered into a billion pieces.

"What the fuck?!" I exclaimed.

"You already look sick."

I scoffed dramatically before getting up. I just dropped the cigarette on the ground and didn't bother to snuff it out. Goody-goody Cavanaugh (ugh, that name just made me sick) would most certainly snuff it out for me.

I decided not to sell myself that night. I just wasn't up for it. I put on all of my clothes again and walked out. It felt sort of like any other normal day, but something else was different…

I was tired. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to die just so I could sleep forever. But I was exhausted, too.

Still, I had to carry on and bide my time. I just had to do that. I had to appease God or the other divine power or whoever controlled my fate on the other side.

My feet clacked on the pavement and it sounded like I was alone. After I turned the corner and a few dozen paces later, I heard someone behind me. At first, I slowed down to think about it, but then, I decided, who really cared if this was my fate? I certainly wouldn't. My family definitely wouldn't. The only person who might've kind of cared was Cavanaugh, and even then…he just hung out with me because he felt obligated to. He didn't really want to be there, either. He just stuck around because that was the sort of guy he is.

I kept walking, forgetting about the mysterious person behind me. I wondered what I looked like to the average person. I probably just looked like some random girl on the street. Just another white girl who wore a ribbon in her hair and a beanie on her head when it got colder. I probably looked like some college girl who drank Starbucks more than she ate food and talked like a valley girl. Nobody would ever be able to guess my love for words like fuck and just what I did for a living. Nobody would have a clue. And nobody would ever guess just how much of an emotional wreck I was. Nobody would see that I was drowning in my own tears and sinking in a sea of lies. That sounded deep and emotional and shit, but really, all I was doing was living a double life. A sordid, ugly tale of two girls who happened to be one in the same. That was my life.

I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I didn't even remember the person following me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I jumped in spite of myself. I turned around and saw Toby standing there.

"What are you doing?" I inquired, almost mockingly.

"I just came to see you before I go to Rosewood."

Rosewood. The god-forsaken town in Pennsylvania. I loathed that place with a passion. A burning, raging passion. He liked going back. Unlike me, he sort of got along with his parents.

"Why don't you just take me with you to Rosewood? You know, we could act like a married couple. I could be like that girlfriend you're bringing home to meet the parents," I said teasingly as I put my arm flirtatiously on his shoulder. Maybe I was a little drunk.

He wriggled away from me. I'd never tell him, but that kind of hurt.

"I still don't understand why you keep turning me down. I know you like me," I answered. Vodka talking? Maybe.

"My parents would hate the person you are now—"

"Oh, please. Since when do you give a rat's ass what they think of your life? It's my image, isn't it? It's because I'm a whore. I mean, I don't blame you, but…ouch."

There was total silence except for some distant sound from the other side of the city.

"I can handle the truth. If you don't want to go out, just say so. I don't really want to hear all that bullshit about your parents and your family and how you don't want commitment—"

"Spencer, you have a boyfriend."

Oh. I did. I had a boyfriend. I almost forgot about him.

I'd been dating this guy named Tyler for several months now…maybe even a year. Who was counting? Certainly not me. Anyway, he was a photographer and an artist; real solid job, but then again, who was I to talk? Nobody. But he liked to tell me I had this old Hollywood-starlet kind of face. He said I was like film noir. Film noir. What did that even mean? Apparently, I was a noir film star. And what did I have on my resume? Struggling independent films. He said I was like the writer, producer, director, and one-woman cast all in one: I was a lonely soul. It was a wonder he even put up with me in the first place; I was, after all, a lonely soul. Maybe he was just lonely, too, and he just wanted us to be lonely together. I don't know. All I know is that he didn't really mean anything to me. He could walk out tomorrow and I could never hear from him again and I wouldn't feel particularly bad about it.

One thing was certain: he was right about the loneliness. It felt like a cancer and I had it. I hated it. I couldn't cut out that lonely feeling, or even that inclination to be lonely.

The thing was that I hated being lonely. That was why I had a boyfriend. That was why I had sex all the time. That was why I had a job where people were touching all over me all night. That was why I had Cavanaugh, too. I was desperate to be loved and accompanied.

I created a monster out of myself, though, I suppose. It was unfair of me to say I had anything to lose; I made myself this way. I sold my soul a long time ago…not that I felt I had the choice. It was prostitution or homelessness. I was used to being used, anyway.

"I really don't care about my boyfriend," I insisted as I went to kiss him. I wanted to be bad for once. I mean, I know I'm "naughty" on a rather regular basis, but I wanted to break the rules of morality for once.

He just blocked me. "What's on your mind?"

I didn't reply because I had remembered. I entered that awful, horrible headspace again. When I went there, there was no escaping it.

"Spencer, I know you're tired—"

I blocked out some words after that. I was tired. I was so tired of being miserable and lonely all the time, but I didn't know any other way to be. What was happiness? Was it that feeling you got on a grey day when you were finally allowed to stay in all day and not work? Was it that feeling you got whenever you took sweet, sugary pills? Was it the feeling you had when you were excited about something or anticipating it? I didn't know anymore. My whole life was just shades of grey and blue now. Grey because it was bland and colorless; blue was for all the sadness.

But Toby wouldn't care about those fruitless, incompetent, meaningless words of mine. He'd be happy to see me shut up about my life and quit moping. I think that's what everyone would like; I'm just a big, miserable waste of space. Maybe all my patrons didn't know that and I wasn't really who they thought I was. I smiled, but I wasn't happy. It was a fake, plastic smile I just put on my face to make more money.

And all these thoughts. All these thoughts were just wasted space on paper and in my brain. Why couldn't I do something useful with all this memory? I could do anything. I could learn how to be a doctor and save lives. I could learn to do so many things, but I didn't because I couldn't keep my damn thoughts still enough to make a proper, good decision. My mind was deteriorating and decaying so quickly…

"Spencer."

His voice was the only thing to shut off all my thoughts that that ticking time bomb that was my mind.

"Is the rape why you're like this?"

Rape.

Rape.

We never talked about it. It was just one of those things that went unsaid between us. I suppose I need to tell you now that I brought it up.

When I was sixteen, there was this kid up the block from me. He was a grade older—in Toby's grade, actually—and he had a crush on me. I never quite understood that, because he could probably have a lot of girls in his own grade if he wanted to have them. I was never exactly—and I'm still not quite—a looker. I just didn't.

And the truth was that even though he was cute, I didn't really like him back. He was kind of a jerk. So I rebuffed him. And I did it again. And again. And again. He just didn't want to give up.

And then, one day, when my parents were both out of town—and it was fairly obvious when they left for out of town—he came over. I still had to put up with him because I helped with his Calculus homework. One day, he got a little too touchy for me and I kicked him out of my house.

But he didn't leave. I still remember how he pushed me up against the wall and the exact scent of his breath (cinnamint toothpaste with coffee mixed in) and his aftershave. The strong scent of aftershave still makes me nauseous to this day.

Even though I was athletic back then, I was no match for him: he was on basketball, soccer, lacrosse, baseball, tennis…name a sport and he played it. He was extremely fit and very strong. I just couldn't defend myself against him. It lasted for…at least about forty minutes to an hour. After that, Toby walked in. When he saw the kid—David was his name—on top of me, he saw red and threw him out of the house. He held me for a while and brought me to the police station. But after the first week, we didn't talk about it. I never mentioned it to my parents; since my eighteenth birthday had already passed, there was no need for them to know.

But there was no cure for that. There was no remedy or way of healing that vivid, sordid memory. Maybe he was right and it was the epicenter of everything.

I shrugged. Yes.

He just pulled me in for a hug. His hugs always made me feel better. They felt the best on days like today. A life like mine became so mundane and repetitive; I just went around the same old town as I always had, making bad decisions (as per usual)…but there was no place else to go for miles. And I wasn't strong enough to make it on my own.

To put it simply, I was fucked.

"Spencer, I'll stay with you tonight."

It wasn't a question; it was a statement. And I didn't argue. I wasn't happy, really. I was just content with that declaration. I don't really know if I'll ever really be happy. But still, this was a start, right?

Sarah: I don't even want to TALK about this because a) I am not a dancer, b) you've ALSO never seen my body, so you can't say I'm "muscular" or skinny, c) I'm pretty much positive I am bigger than you d) athletic? LOLOLOLOLOLOL no, and e) I really don't want to talk about this. STOP using me as a tool to make yourself feel worse/degrade yourself because I don't like it (both that you're using me and mostly because you're degrading yourself). I sort of ignored everything, pretty much, and whenever there were names, I substituted the name I was really thinking of for Spencer's. Js. I'm a little ball of nerves.

MilaMizz: I like chemistry better already because bio was just taking notes all the time (so dumb). It's not that weird. The lyric was from Florida Kilos (AKA the Cocaine song). Oh, honey, please. If you think 9th grade is hard, 10th grade is going to FRY you. No; it's gonna nuke you. No lie. I'm so confused with how your school works, but I think if you try explaining it, I'll be more confused, so I'll just bite my tongue.

Broadway Sarah- I'll respond to your reviews tomorrow (?) when I can lump all your reviews in one huge response.

Tomorrow's one-shot is going to be Something To Believe In from Newsies. When I started writing it, it began as one thing and turned into something totally different so idk what to tell you about it. -Kayson