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I knew I had known him, I knew I had. I didn’t want to think about it, but I knew him.

I rushed back to my dorm, bumping into people in my haste, something that almost never happened, but I needed to get back to my dorm. Now.

I could feel my breathing quicken in panic and I hurried even faster. I would not break down in public.

I managed to get back before I lost my composure, slamming the door shut and leaning against it. I slowly slid down to the floor, curling up into a ball as a flashback hit me like a train.

-----

It was just another night. I had to go over to his house otherwise he would raise holy hell on me. I personally did not want to have to deal with his rage.

I knew what he was doing was illegal, but I couldn’t do anything about it. He would literally kill me.

I had at least some measure of self preservation, even though my sense of justice was screaming that he was guilty.

I walked into his house, which by the fact that my cane kept hitting things and by the smell, it was trashed like always. I walked upstairs into his room, where he welcomed me with open arms. I smelled the bottle of rum and the pipe in his hands before he even got to me. He crushed me in a hug that was too tight, and I thanked the godless sky that he wasn’t sober.
Maybe I would get out of here without any new bruises or having to limp. My cane wasn’t designed to support weight, it was designed to make sure I didn’t run into anything or trip on something.

I knew the routine by now. I sat on his bed, he set down his intoxicants (which was still highly illegal and I despised him for it), and he walked over, pushing me onto my back and kissing my neck.

I was glad I was blind, that way I didn’t have to see his disgusting face as he did what he wanted, violating me in the worst ways. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, it was either I let him do what he wanted, or he would either give me so much shit about it I’d have to let him to get him to shut up, or he would just beat me. Either way, it hurt more than just letting him do what he wished with me.

I felt bad for Karkat. I knew he had had a crush on me at the beginning of this school year, almost seven months ago, and I had had a small crush on him. This was until I was hanging out with Gamzee one day, and he convinced me to date him. I didn’t have much interest in him, and I really didn’t like his drug use and while he promised he would stop, he never did. It made my inside twist in disgust.

I felt the guilt, the disgust, and the pain as Gamzee did away with me. Did he always take this long? I just wanted to go home.

My mom could never know about this. If she knew, she’d have the police on him immediately, but it would be too late. He has his way of knowing things and would have me hanging from a tree like one of my scalemates in my front yard before they even found him.
He finished with me, and I got up to try and dress myself. I felt disgusting, violated, and like a fraction of myself was missing.

He was furious that I got dressed without his permission of course, and he beat me unconscious, which was nothing new but I was hoping to avoid it.

I woke up in the hospital, another thing that wasn’t new. Gamzee was running his thumb over my hand and he was talking to the nurse. Had this been a few months prior, before shit hit the whirling device, it would have been comforting that he was showing affection after beating the hell out of me.

“Good to see you awake!” the nurse said cheerfully. “You took quite a fall there Miss Pyrope! Mr. Makara here says that you fell down the stairs?”

It would be no use to tell the truth, “Yeah, something like that.”

Because not matter what I did, no matter how much I told myself I hated him, I couldn’t put him in prison. I couldn’t hurt him. I couldn’t put my life in danger. I couldn’t tell the truth of the matter.

Because of the things he used to tell me, I loved him, and that’s what I hated myself most for.

-------

I was sobbing by the end of the flashback, which seemed to have taken a half hour at least, and I curled tighter into a ball. After a few more minutes, I heard a knock on the door.

“Go away whoever the fuck you are!” I yelled hoarsely, my voice cracking pathetically.
“Is that how you treat people who try to come help you? Sheesh I know I’m not usually nice to people but goddamn.”

I lifted my head, why the hell was Vriska at my door? I didn’t even know how she found me in the first place let alone why she was knocking on my door.

“What do you want?”

She scoffed, “I can hear you from my room two doors down.”

“Well I’d be sorry to inconvenience you but I’m really not.”

She sighed, “I came over here to see why the fuck you’re crying so loud everyone on the floor can hear it.”

“Why do you care?”

“Humor me.”

“No!”

She groaned, “Okay, how about a mutual exchange of information then? You tell me what’s up and I’ll tell you why Tavros is wheelchair-bound.”

I thought about it. I wondered why he was stuck in a wheelchair, yes, and I sensed that there was a guilty party in the matter, but was that really worth telling someone that I’ve known for a day what happened? I didn’t get these flashbacks often, and I could lie, but I’m pretty sure she could figure out that I was lying. She seemed sharp like that.

“Fine,” I groaned. Standing up, I dried my face with the towel that hung on the hook next to the door, and opened the door. Without any warning I spun on one heel and walked back over to my bed and sat down on it.

I heard Serket walk in, shut the door, and plop down at the foot of the bed, maybe half a foot from me.

“Care to explain why you care what’s wrong with me?”

“I don’t, I’m just curious. Now about that mutual exchange of information…” she surely sounded curious, so she’s telling the truth there.

I sighed, fidgeting with the cord that was attached to my cane. I really didn’t want to tell her, but I had already let her in, “You know that friend of Karkat’s that he was mentioning?”

“Yeah? What about him?”

“Well, he’s my ex-boyfriend… and he was incredibly abusive. Beat me, made me sleep with him, manipulated me, threatened to kill me, the whole figurative nine yards. I am still reeling from it. I transferred here to get out of Prospit and away from him.”

“Well shit,” she said with disbelief.

“Yeah. Your turn.”

She sighed, her voice lowering, “Okay, me and Tavros were a thing for awhile in high school. I teased him and messed with him a lot yada, yada, yada. One day I was shoving him around and I shoved him off the sidewalk and into the parking lot. He got hit by a car.”

Her voice got even lower as she continued, “Paralyzed from the waist down because the fucker was speeding, Tavros almost died too. He left me of course, but didn’t press charges. Honestly I still feel really bad about it.”

I would have stared at her, but ya know, I can’t see so it would have been pointless. So instead, I nodded. She was the guilty party in this case, but she got away with it. She got away with paralyzing her boyfriend?

“To be honest with you, if I were him I would have pressed charges,” I said plainly. “But he didn’t, so your guilt is the only price you pay. You’re lucky it’s the only price you pay.”

She shrugged, her robotic arm clinking, “Yeah yeah, at least he isn’t mad about it anymore. I still tease him relentlessly, but I still feel bad for almost killing him.”

I nodded, “You better.”

Sighing, I finally lifted my head and turned to face her, which was polite in most conversations I have noticed even though it was pointless for me to be looking at someone without eyes that function, “Since we’re being incredibly honest with each other right now, when Karkat told us that Gamzee intends to attend to unfinished business, I think he means to follow through with his last threat.”

She inhaled like she had an idea of what I meant, “What threat?”

“His threat to, and I quote, ‘To motherfucking end me.’”