The clock read 1 a.m.

As usual, all lights in the house were dark.

But one.

As usual, all but two beds were filled. One, the bed long cold, cloying scent of old alcohol finally beginning to fade just a bit. The other, a room of tumoil, mirroring a mind

slowly
breaking
apart.

Yet the bed in this last room is untouched, the sheets neatly folded as they had been this morning. The tall, lean occupant of this space paces back and forth across the room, a stormy expression on a tired face. Novel things were on his mind, however. Yava was gone, yes. The last he had seen of her was the stricken look on her face before his vision blurred and he was forced to turn his back. Just as he had done before, and just as she had done to him in the past. But what else was new?

It was another girl his mind turned to now. Yes, that dangerous phrase--another girl. Had it really been so long since he'd last performed the delicate process of flirting, for him not to recognize it when it came to him again? She was so new though, so refreshing, so right, yet horribly wrong.

She'd reminded him of life the way it had been. She'd reminded him of better times, before things fell apart and he was left standing with nothing but pieces of a dream.

She'd reminded him of Yava.

He'd seen her first in the park, ironically the same place he and Yava had had their first date. It was something about her smile as she read her book; something about the way she quirked her mouth as she turned the pages. He was inextricably enchanted.

Who had talked first? It didn't matter did it? They'd connected on nearly every point. Her laugh cured him, bandaged wounds that had been left to fester all too long. Then a few weeks later, before he knew it, things had gone too far.

It had happened in the kitchen, with no one else home. It was an easy thing. She'd leaned back against the fridge, eyes smiling, not seductively, but all the more so because of it's innocence.

"Kiss me," she said.

And how could he resist? Her word was law. Yava's word was law. Their lips had met, sweetly familiar, yet dangerously new. He caught himself just before it might have been too late to turn back, just as she'd reached for his hand to slip under her shirt. He had backed away slowly across the kitchen, leaving the both of them standing across from the other, each panting slightly. He watched her there, confusion written on her face.

"I-I'm sorry," he said softly.

"Did I do s-something?" she was unable to hold the faintest quaver from her voice, hand tugging unconsciously on her dark hair, questioning him with eyes so much like another's.

He shook his head, unable to look at her. The tears brimming on her eyes and threatening to slip down her cheeks were daggers to his heart. He was forced to turn his back. Again.

"Please...leave," the words came out harsher than he'd wanted as they forced themselves through his suddenly dry throat.

The slamming of the door was his only signal she had left. Another girl may have screamed, demanded an answer from him. But she'd been too much like Yava for that.

He had killed a part of her that had made her the Yava he'd loved.

The clock read 1:20 a.m.

Dese's fist clenched, short nails biting into his palm. "Bastard..." he hissed furiously under his breath. He stormed across the hallway to the evil-smelling room, eyes burning with mixed pain and anger. Drawers were ripped open, littering all sorts of junk on the floor.

Had Yava ever really loved him?

He tore through papers. Photos. He had been at it for several minutes before he realized that no one had ever taken a picture of them together. Ever. The more he searched, the more he found that there was no evidence, no marking, on the grave of their relationship.

Was there anything left then? Anything? Hopelessly his trembling hands sifted through the bottles, the useless receipts of money stolen, the matchbooks from bars he'd never heard of. He closed his eyes against the sight, only to find the searing image of the heartbroken girl burned into his mind, which slowly filtered into the same image of Yava. Was this to be his trap for eternity? To find Yava over and over again, yet have her remain lost to him forever?

The clock read 2:00, and his heart-sore body could support him no more.

The cold, cold fingers of dawn would reach through the cracked blinds of that dismal room, alighting upon the diminished frame that lay still in uneasy slumber. In his hand would be fiercely grasped the one lone picture of his love he had been able to find. It will be crinkled, outdated, tiny, and not very flattering for Yava, but it is enough.

This half of the relationship has his own addiction, you see.

And this is his withdrawal.