She's knows sleeping with him again is wrong. She knows it into the very marrow of her bones and yet, she still can't say no. Because she still wants it too.

She'd lied to herself and she'd told herself that she could handle it, the first time. The second time, she'd told herself that it didn't meant anything. It's just sex. But now, she knows in the same place where she knows it's wrong, that it's killing her.

Of course, she really doesn't care. Sometimes she relishes that fact that her metaphorical death will come fast and that this time, she is in control.

She isn't really.

In control.

She lies to herself about that, too. She tells herself that she is just living in the present, making to the best of the moment. Instead she is hiding, because she knows when he holds her the pain goes away, the tears don't fall, and the whole world just doesn't matter.

But then she comes and he comes and that's the end. Everything comes crashing back down around her head, except it's heavier again because of the added weight of more guilt.

Yes, she feels guilty too, because she knows she is using him to survive and that is wrong. A wrong past all her other wrongs. And what's worst is that he probably knows it, but loves her enough to give it to her again and again, because she asks and it does keep the tears from her eyes at least a little while longer. So with her added guilt she tries again to make it on her own.

Time passes and things seem ok. No one knows how much she cries herself to sleep. She doesn't want them to. For all her faults, she is proud and stubborn. Except with him. She would break herself for him and maybe she has a little.

Now though, it's all about her and her survival. She probably won't escape this battle unscathed but she'll fight like the devil until it's over. Towards what goal, she has no idea; she's lost sight of that a long time ago. But she was raised fighting, lived fighting, and so it's all she really knows. Defeat is failure and so she soldiers on, using tactics and devices that would make grown men flinch.

And when it is over, she knows that she will have left a bloody broken mess behind. Whether it will be his blood or hers, she hasn't decided yet. But she needs to soon, because she wants him again and eventually there won't be anything left to give.