I Don't Have Much In Life But Take It - It's Yours.

I run.

I do the cowardly thing, but I'm a coward, so it's just what comes naturally to me. I don't face up to my troubles; I just try and leave them all behind me, because facing up to trouble often leads to getting hurt.

And I've had more hurt in the past few years than most people ever experience in an entire lifetime.

And most of it has happened in the last hour.

I run faster than I have ever run in my life, I run until the breath is catching my throat and tearing in my lungs and until my legs are sore and my feet feel like they're on fire, but I don't stop, even then, I just keep going in a direction that I don't know where will end up.

It's when I stop that I double over in pain, and my stomach contracts. The bile forces itself up my throat and spills out of my mouth, and I fall onto my knees and put my hands down so I'm on all fours while I'm vomiting with significant force.

It's partly from running so hard for so long, but it's also because of the hurt, the emotions I'm full of, the intense pain that's hurt so much so far that's it's beginning to numb my whole body. The vomit is stinging my throat and making my eyes water and when I stop I wipe my mouth on my hand and then my hand on the grass.

It's then that I curl up into the foetal position on the grass and begin to sob - crying until the sky is stained crimson and the black clouds are a shade of pink, and my face is stiff with salt and my whole body is shaking violently - almost convulsing.

There's one word that's pounding through my mind - blocking everything else out and twisting my thoughts so that the word seems to echo louder and louder I think it, repeating it with each thud of my heart that pounds the red hot blood through my veins.

Loved.

Loved.

Loved.

Loved.

Loved.

Loved.

Loved.

I choke on my own breath and make a noise that sounds very stupid as I force my lungs to start working again, but I couldn't care less about that. There's no one for me to impress anymore now that Jay hates me, and I know that I'm never going to find anyone that I'll fall in love with like that again. I know that he's the first person I ever loved, and he'll be the last person too because I've never physically or emotionally felt lust and love towards anyone else and I won't again - not ever.

I'm going to love him right up until the day my breathing stops and my heart gives out but even after death it won't stop, although I won't be there to say it or show it, I know I'll feel it.

There's a stinging pain all over my body and I know it's nothing to do with running or throwing up too much or even the rock I landed on when I fell - it's the pain of unrequited love and it's never going to go away, and it's going to leave deep scars across my heart and imprinted on my mind and they won't ever fade away.

"Forever."

How could what was meant to last all eternity be over in a few too-short days?

But then again, it's supposed to take a while to fall in love but we did that in the course of a few too short days and over some new clothes and a film.

It was the way I went cold every time he touched me, but it was a nice cold, the way it brought goose bumps out across my skin and made my breath stick in my throat. It was the way my legs would start to shake as his long fingers would rest on my belt buckle. It was the way he could make me feel safe every time he linked his fingers with mine and every time his arms would snake around my waist.

It was the way I thought it all would last forever.

It was the way I thought he meant it when he said he loved me.

He can't have meant it, no matter what he'd said so many times. You don't fall out of love in a few short hours, and that must mean he's never loved me. How could anyone? I'm a hobo, an ex-smackhead, I'm ugly and I'm awkward, I'm far too skinny and my hipbones jut out too far. I'm paranoid and unhealthy.

Why would he love me?

He's a rich kid, he's got everything he could ever want or need, he's gorgeous and he's comfortable in any situation, he's got the perfect figure and the perfect face. He's just perfect - the seven letters of so-called impossible but it's obviously that Jay's the exception to that rule because he doesn't have a single flaw.

I open my bag, to get out something - anything - that will make me feel better, like that photo-booth strip, but the first thing I see is those grey jeans, screwed up and shoved in the bag, the ones Jay like the best, the ones he said he loved.

I feel bile rise in my throat again, although I thought I'd already emptied my stomach, and I swallow it down and snatch up those jeans, staggering over to the river nearby. I stand on the concrete ledge above the sheer drop, and throw the jeans as hard as I can. They land about halfway out, which is pretty bad, as it's a very narrow river.

"LIAR!" I yell, screaming so loud my throat hurts more and the sound echoes in my ears. I stumble slightly and fall backwards, hitting the back of my head on concrete and crying out.

I lie there for a long time, and when I sit up, my head spins, and as I touch the back of my head I can feel it's sticky - with blood. I gulp down the feeling in my throat that's stopping everything else and blink to get rid of the tears collecting in the corners of my eyes.

"I hate you," I whisper, holding my hand to the wound on the back of my skull, whimpering in pain as blood oozes between my fingers. I feel dizzy and realise that falling has probably done a lot of damage to me, but I don't care anymore. I don't care about anything anymore.

I never really understood when people used to say that their life was over when they broke off from a relationship - because more often than not, I'd see them kissing someone else within a week. But this time, I know how a few of them, the ones who walk around for nearly months in a zombie-like state, I know how they feel, because without Jay, there's nothing for me. There's nothing in a possessive sense, as he was the source of my belongings, but I mean, there's nothing. There's a void, a hole, a huge space in my life now, something that I don't think will ever be filled, something that Jay's got that he's taken and it won't be returned.

My life isn't over, because my heart's still beating and my lungs are still working, but my life is - to say the cliches - like a black and white film. It's not literally in two tones, but the colours are dulled, like someone's adjusted the settings on a colour television and made everything look simpler, and less real. Because that's how everything looks, simple, easy to forget, boring, dull.

"I hate you," I repeat, gasping the words out, rocking backwards and forwards slowly, feeling the blood begin to get thicker and stickier, as if it's slowing down and starting to clot. I can feel the pain all over my body, the metal pain, the physical pain, and I can't think of anything that could numb it.

Apart from one thing.

I stand up, still holding the back of my head, and swing my bag on my back. I look around the area where I am, trying to place the scene in with the places I already know, and I realise that I'm quite close to Ebury - which is just the place I need to go to.

I walk slowly, my body wincing with each step, as it sends a shard of pain through me each time. I have to concentrate on everything - on moving my feet, on staying upright, on breathing, on holding my hand to my head.

As I walk, I notice things I haven't seen before. Like the girl I know vaguely, who's sitting on an old bench, drinking alone from a bottle of vodka, has 'FUCK UP' carved into her arm. Like the fact that someone's written 'Fear is your only God' in marker on the stone monument.

They're all little things, but they make the place seem different, more real, more dark.

I have to pass the park, the park where I showed Jay what it was like to be a kid, on the day that was first had sex, and I feel something rise in my throat as I walk past. A lot of people I know are in there, but they're all drinking and not paying attention, and I don't let my eyes linger on them for too long as a few of them are kissing and it's making me miss what I had even more.

I finally get to the right street and I have to look at the cramped, terraced houses for a few minutes as I can't remember which one it is. They all look so similar and I haven't been here for such a long time, that it's hard to recall all the places I thought I knew.

I see the right house and then I walk towards it, hissing at the increasing pain and deciding to take my hand away from my head, and the blood is almost dry. I push the old metal gate forwards and walk the four steps up to the door, and press the buzzer.

I hear footsteps for a few moments, before the door is yanked open and I see the familiar face of my old dealer - his face flecked with golden stubble and a gold bar through his eyebrow, wearing a pair of black jeans and a blue and white striped shirt. His face breaks into a smile when he sees me, and he reaches for something on the shelves that I can just see through the door.

"Same as you used to, Fynn?" he asks, and I nod, taking the packet from him and digging in my pocket for the money that Jay threw at me earlier. I don't think that this was how he wanted me to use it, but I don't care anymore.

We exchange goods and goodbyes, and I find myself walking to the trees behind the children's park with fifty quid's worth of heroin in my hands and looking through my old backpack for a syringe.

I find one, and sit down in the drying mud. I stare at the marks on my arms and decide that this time I'll stay safe - I'll fight the addiction, and just one hit will sort everything else out. I'll be strong, I'll be clean, and I'll just take it occasionally, to make me forget.

This is one of those times.

A few minutes later, I'm clenching my teeth in pain as I try to find a vein in my arm.

"I hate you."