Princess and the Popstar

You made me hate this city

He was sobbing on the floor of his bedroom.

His heart sat in his hands, broken, and his body shook with feelings he shouldn't have been feeling. He knew she thought he was a liar, he shouldn't have been so harmed by the inevitable coming after only a day.

This... whatever they'd had, their day and a half of love, of living, of smiles and perfection and lazy kisses and gentle touches that had made his mind short-circuit, had never been a good idea. It had always been a problem. Always something dangerous, something he knew he had to do because otherwise he'd regret it, but his body ached.

His mother was watching him cry. She leaned against the door, a silent presence, waiting for him to get ahold of himself. Like she always had, whenever she walked in on him crying. He never had expected her to comfort him, and she had never tried.

Tam was the one who would hug him while he cried. Linh was the one who would dry his tears.

His mother was the one who glared at him until he could get a hold of his shaky breathing.

But not today.

She let him cry for a moment, and then swooped in, snapping, "Stop that, what are you, a baby? Crying is for stupid babies, and little girls. Are you a little girl, Keefe?"

Keefe shook his head, fiercely, like he always had, whenever she asked him that question. He wasn't a girl, he wasn't small, he wasn't a baby, he was a boy, and he was an adult, and he was falling apart on the floor, falling to pieces, he was crumbling into pieces.

His eyes were burning, dripping, and water was streaking down his face, he needed to stop this, he needed to get a handle on the screaming feeling arcing through his chest.

"Honestly," his mother said, "It's like you didn't see this coming."

Keefe had seen this coming. He knew he had. That was why it hurt so much. It's one thing to imagine it, distantly, and know that it was coming, and it's another to have it jabbed like a knife straight through your chest.

It was like the knife that was supposed to slowly sink into him, slowly kill him, had killed him instantly and hard, much quicker and much faster than he'd expected.

He shoved his hand over his mouth, the pain in his body invented by his brain, he knew, but damn, it still hurt.

"It's like you never learn," she said, and Keefe would have stood up if he'd been able to do anything but cry and feel awful, terrible, horrible emotions. "It's like you forgot who you are, and how no one can ever trust you."

Something cracked inside his soul. "Owch, Mom," his voice was shaking, "It's like you forgot that you're supposed to love me."

His mother pulled him up, off the floor, that he'd collapsed into, her grip ice-cold and tight around his arm. "Get a hold of yourself," she snapped. "You know that I love you, you know that I tell you these things because I love you, you have no right to question me. You have no right to talk back. You are an idiot, going after that princess, just like you're an idiot, looking for love anywhere. You're not worth being loved like that, you little soulmate-less freak. You know that, unless it somehow slipped out of your stupid brain. You know that you made a big mistake, you made your mistake and now you will deal with the consequences."

Keefe couldn't breathe around the snot in his nose and the lump in his throat. He was being an idiot, he was an idiot.

"After all, what would you ever get out of that situation? No one could love you, not really. No one can care about you, not really. No one ever has, except me, right, little one? No one ever stays, they can't, it's all your fault that they don't. It's a miracle you were even born, I considered getting rid of you, you know. I took a chance on you, and all you've ever done is make my life a hellscape."