Before I Forget

Midnights

"Are you kneeling, or not?"

That's when Sky broke down.

She brought a hand to her mouth, trying to suppress the tears and the sobs, but she couldn't. She stumbled back, away from the boy with the dark eyes, but she couldn't flee from the exhaustion and despair that washed over her.

"Shit—" Cody cursed, but Sky barely heard him.

Her knees gave in and she fell to the ground, sobbing so hard that her body was shaking as she buried her face in her arms. Tears soaked through the fabric of her hoodie.

She needed the pills, needed them desperately - but if this was the only way to get them—?

She couldn't.

No matter what Matt had said, what Hawk had said, that she was only good for the one thing, that it would be the only thing anyone would ever want from her—

And she knew she was flawed and broken and stupid, and she was a slut—

But this?

No, she couldn't do it. She wasn't dead yet, not dead enough to be used like that, like she was nothing more than a piece of meat—

"Sky, you're gonna wake up my whole family, you need to calm down—" Cody said, and Sky realized he had knelt down on the grass by her side. The money or the pills were nowhere to be seen, and he laid a hand on Sky's shoulder, trying to get her attention.

A sudden anger flashed through Sky's chest and she slapped away that hand, crawling further from him.

"Well— you— you should've tho— thought about that before you tried to—" the violent sobs that tore through her chest made speaking impossible and she quickly gave up. Tears kept flowing down her cheeks, all the way to her neck, hot and salty on her skin.

"Sorry, okay?" Cody muttered. "It was just a proposition, I wasn't gonna force you or anything—" he had red spots on his cheeks, and he looked embarrassed. "I just— you know, I heard you did that, so I assumed—"

"Jesus, you— you believe every ru— rumor some asshole tells you?" Sky sobbed. "It's not true! I'm no— not for sale."

"Well, shit—" Cody sighed and sat down on the grass next to Sky. "I'm sorry. That was... a dick move on my part, then."

Sky said nothing, just kept sobbing, and wiping away the tears with her hands.

Yeah, a dick move indeed. But could she really blame him? She knew what everyone was talking about in school - that she was a stupid slut who sold ass in the Janitor's closet.

That's what Hawk had told his friends about her.

That's what he really thought about her. Everything else had been a lie.

Why would anyone be with you? To get some pussy.

A ragged sob escaped Sky's lips as Hawk's words hit her with the force of a trainwreck. A new wave of tears fell to her cheeks. She couldn't take this pain, she needed the drugs, she needed the tiny little white wonders that cut away all this torture and filled the hole in her chest. She should have been high by now, she should be dying in the back seat of her car.

Would it really be so bad to suck off that dude? It would be over in minutes, and then—

—then her pain would be over too, and she wouldn't have to feel the desperate beat of her broken heart.

But just the thought made her sick, it made her stomach turn. She didn't want the last thing she did on this Earth to be sucking some random drug dealer's dick. It would be the worst thing she had ever done, it would make it all true, all the things Matt had said to her, and Hawk too, the things about her being a slut, her deserving it all.