I won't tempt... not fate, certainly. I won't tempt ~you~. I learned from the best, although in some ways I think I've surpassed the lessons you taught me, knowingly or otherwise. Yes, far more of my behavior than I'd like to admit has developed out of the days spent watching you. You weren't a good influence, but you weren't a bad one either.

I watched you, you were in some ways the center of my world.

Even then, there were things I didn't see. Even then, I kept myself blind to this... or thought I was, despite the mirror of it within myself.

Cheap jewelry, the marks of relationships past. If I'd known it was that... no, I don't think I would have touched it. I'd have found something else to hold, to break, even if it meant breaking bones. Someone did this to me once.

Once.

*shrugs* ...and now that I've learned, I won't hold out temptation, nor will I bend my knee and bare my throat as I would have five years ago, a year ago... see, that part of me froze and shattered around 3:00 in the morning, when I couldn't keep my eyes open thanks to the pills I'd taken before the fight, when I was terrified that I'd be left unconscious on the street, on the sidewalk, even on your doorstep, when a stranger cared more than one of the few people I still trusted.

One more little piece chipped away. *shrug*

My k'adin thinks he spoke with a part of me that is... no longer a part. She doesn't exist separately, no longer. Then again, it might be more accurate to say that she is now part of everything, everyone, locked inside my head.

Either way, it doesn't matter.

Either way, there's only one song that keeps playing in my head.

It's not like you didn't know that
I said I love you and I swear I still do
It must have been so bad
Cause living with me must have damn near killed you
And this is how you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
For handing you a heart worth breakin'
I've been wrong
I've been down
Been to the bottom of every bottle
These five words in my head
Scream
Are we having fun yet?

So yeah. I'm gonna miss you.

Maybe in five years we'll bump into each other again. Maybe not. Whatever.

...this is how you remind me...

What I am is proud and unashamed. I'm never going to change that.