Should go back.

Shouldn't have left, even for a second. Phone. Something. Anything.

There were days when she could barely stand to open her eyes, too afraid of what the moments of peace before she left what passed for a bed that day would turn into as the sun rose, the hours passed. She would huddle in the pile of blankets and pillows that had so conveniently tangled around her when she rolled out of bed - or so she'd tell anyone, if there were anyone to see, to ask - and try to find the strength to look up at the ceiling or over at the door.

She still finds mornings unpleasant, that certainty that when the sun rises the evening's respite will be gone. To be certain, it was often the evenings that were the worst, and yet it is the mornings she remembers, body stiff, aching, tender and raw, or far worse, the times when there were no bruises, no abrasions, only the memory of her own voice.

Or his.

Or Hers.

She can remember wind in her hair, fresh and clean, salt-tinged. She can remember sand against her skin, and rocks polished smooth by the waves and frequent storms. She can remember the taste of grass in her mouth, green staining her palms, her lips, a handful of the sweet stalks torn free from the ground and turned into a welcome gag.

She has forgotten a hundred thousand things, her body finally finding a way to erase memory, ruin her recollections, destroy the minutes even as she lives them. Too late, though. Too late to erase what she most wants to forget.

I'm going to write this quickly, post it, see... if I can find a moment's company, perhaps. Something to ease the sting.

I was fine, dammit. The numbness, I WANTED that, I haven't been able to find it in so long, and for a while, I had it.

She taught herself what others before her have learned a hundred times over. Simple lessons, knowledge gained through the cruelest and most perfect of teachers, experience. Practice. Pain. She learned trick after trick to block it out, turn it inward, or even better, to channel it outward, the agony she felt passed on and somehow eased in the process.

Sadism soon felt as right as masochism, or nearly so. She could rarely silence the voices, the oldest lessons, completely... but to hear another soul beg as she had, to cause pain as horrible, or even worse, than what she had felt, would turn them to little more than wordless whispers. Passion was found only with pain. Trust, earned only with suffering. Love, a source of misery and a fatal flaw.

She was emotional, confused, this desperate-to-forget girl who wore her heart, or a mockery of what a heart should be, on her sleeve. She loved frantically, trying to find proof that it was something more than the hell she had been taught it would always be. She touched only to hurt, asked only to be given pain. She was lost in this, the world shaped for her before she had grasped the thought that she could form her own, lost and unable to understand why she could feel so desperate to fight and so determined to triumph... and yet so weak, so needy, so easily taken.

And, slowly, she learned further. Learned to carve out the weaknesses and to take only the strengths. Learned to be always scheming, plotting, alert for ways to bind those around her to her will and make them harmless to her.

I don't know why you know, but you do. How it feels. I don't... no, now I do, somewhat. I know what hurt you, some of it.

And you know what hurts me. Who. How. You know the emotional scars, the physical pains, the frustrations and desires and addictions. You've come further into my world than most ever will.

Is it any wonder I was savoring peace? Enjoying the thought that perhaps tonight I would sleep, and wake without remembering what it's like to want nothing more than to never wake again... even blissful in a way, for a little while having... not forgotten, but burned out, those memories. Seared them away, my own will and strength enough to char the nerves touching my soul, burn them clear for a while... I did that.

And thought it would hold.

I should have refused to go with you, honestly. Kept my determination, gone to bed. Slept, for one night, without dreams.

I used to be able to do this constantly. Weeks, months, on end.

Since the forgetting, since the seizures, it's gotten harder and harder. The unwilling loss of memory unnerves me enough that I hadn't been able to bring myself to purposely shove any of it away.

And today... today I had an excuse, a way, I realized, to trick myself into finding that familiar strength. A REASON to stop...

...to stop feeling.

Worrying.

Caring.

Damn you.

And even saying that, I know you will inevitably be the one I turn to, to draw myself back out of this, if sleep fails and the electricity remains on.

You have offered yourself to me, over and over.

I have... need, now. Desire.

I'm sorry. I truly am.

Yet again, I will take what you give... and more. Much more.

Submit. Offer yourself, one more time. Maybe that will be enough. Maybe just knowing I could take, will satisfy the desire. Maybe not.