Neither End Up Alive

Life Isn't Fair

Dash's POV

I've stayed at Sugarcube Corner for two nights now.

It's Saturday afternoon. Mena is in the bathroom. I'm on her bed, wearing the same clothes I was two nights ago.

We'd spent the night holding hands. When I'd taken her hand yesterday...I don't know what it was. I'd gotten a strange swooping in my stomach, and I felt almost sick, but in a good way. It was...weird.

I stare at the ceiling and listen to the ripping of excess wallpaper as Gummy claws his way up the window. Mena has been in the bathroom for a while. I wonder if she's cutting.

I shiver. God, I hope not. Every once in a while, she'll come out of the bathroom with fresh stains on her shirt from cutting up her stomach. She's completely comfortable with me knowing, because I don't 'act all weird' like the adults do. I'm not really sure what that means, since I've never had an adult to talk to, but I think I get it.

Finally, the bathroom door creaks open, and Mena steps out. I glance over and see that her shirt has five or six bright crimson stains blooming here and there.

I groan. "Mena. Stop."

Mena sighs and sinks into the bed. "I've already told you, Dashie. I can't. It's like an addiction."

Over the past night or so, Mena had taken to calling me 'Dashie'. I don't really mind it, so long as nobody else calls me that.

"Next time you do that, I'm throwing your razor blade in the fire," I grumble.

"No, you won't," Mena says lightly. It's not an order or a threat. It's just a fact.

"No, I won't," I agree. "But you have to try not to do it again."

Mena chews her lip. "I'll try," she says at last. "But I can't promise anything."

"If you can't stop on your own, I'll help you," I promise. "But I was get the feeling you don't want to stop."

"I don't," Mena confesses. "I really don't."

"Why not?" I demand.

Mena thinks. "I'm guessing you don't smoke?"

"Nope."

"Okay, well...have you ever had a crush on someone? Someone that you never dated?"

I blink, surprised at the analogy. "I guess so. But not for a while."

Mena wrings her hands, thinking. "You ever get that feeling that you know they'll never love you, so you should stop liking them?"

"But no matter how hard you try, you can't just not like them?" I close my eyes and fold my hands behind my head. "Yeah."

"It's like that," Mena says, "but stronger. I know I should stop, but I can't."

"I'm just going to have to make you, then," I murmur without opening my eyes.

Mena laughs humorlessly. "Sure."

~

After a few hours of small talk, holding hands, and lazing about, I suddenly remember something Mena had told me yesterday.

"Hey," I say.

Mena looks up from the diary thing she's writing in at her desk. "What's up?"

"You said that your family never showed up to the party," I remind her. "Why?"

Mena is quiet for a moment. She puts down her pencil and leans back in the chair.

Finally, she speaks.