She sinks slowly onto the stairs. Confusion. Regret. Wistfulness. Denial. She needs a plan, something to follow, something to guide her through. She doesn't want to distance herself, but she doesn't know if there is any other way.

A small, smug part of her doesn't want there to be another way. This is exactly what you need, it speaks, whispering enticingly into her soul. No more distractions to hinder your success!

"But that would hurt them," she whispers through cold, numb lips. Distraught, she pulls her hair down, covering her face. She knows her eyes give away too many of her feelings, and ashamedly she tries to hide them.

Pain is the consequence of life, it hisses.

"No it's not," she argues feebly, her voice weak and tired from the emotional monster wrecking who she thought she was.

Look at yourself, it sneers. Crouched in fetal position on your stairs, wanting desperately for someone to save you. No one's coming, because no one cares.

She flinches, her face contorting for a moment. She's grotesquely shocked at all these thoughts that had been locked inside her, but she knows she shouldn't be. Bitterness breeds like mold in her heart.

Her thoughts bash against eachother in a hopeless race to be heard.

Confusion. Regret. Wistfulness. Denial.

She remembers when it began itching under her skin, like an ignored kitten begging for attention. She had let it tumble aimlessly in her heart, thinking that it was no more than a flitting fantasy.

But the feeling grew, and fed hungrily upon her jealous thoughts, and it intensified before she knew what was happening.

This scares her beyond anything else because her life is organized, and one of the categories is Untouchable. Her best friend's boyfriend is an Untouchable. She is falling in love with him, and her life is falling away because of him. She's been fighting these betraying thoughts, trying to keep them at bay, but it's too much for her.

Her life demands perfection, and she is not being perfect.

Exhausted from lying and fighting, she collapsed on the stairs today. The sun shines mockingly into her eyes, spreading light where darkness is needed. Angry tears spill down her cheeks, the first scars from this tormenting war.

"Why?" she asks the eternal question. "I did everything right. I never flirted with anyone's boyfriend, never even so much as looked at him with anything besides friendship as the intent. Why now?"

Her cries for answers are soaked in by the blank walls, forced to keep her secrets forever.

Confusion. Regret. Wistfulness. Denial.

She wants him all to herself, forever. She doesn't understand why, and no dusty tome can tell her. Knowledge only led her to a forked road, her ambition wanting to win out over her love for her friends.

Unable to cope with such a strong invisible force pulling on her, she stumbles up the stairs into the bathroom. Her hands shake as she gets out some pills and, struggling, pops them into her mouth. Dragging herself to her bed, she falls into a forced and uneasy sleep, shivering at winter's icy legacy.