a/n: Just a little piece of a story I'm writing. (Another part is chapter five of Phobic.) This will be deleted when I post the whole story. I just wanted to know what people thought. Review with some comments (or title ideas?) please, I'm trying to improve it.

"Do you have any scars?"

Cain looked up from his biology book to frown at Michael, who was lounging across his bed, looking at the posters on the ceiling over his bed: Black Sabbath. "Scars?"

Michael chewed on his lip ring like he did sometimes when he was nervous. "Yeah…" He rolled over onto his stomach and pushed the hair out of his eyes. "You know… Burns or anything?" His eyes flicked across Cain's body.

Cain closed his textbook slowly and shifted away uncomfortably. "Yeah," he told the other boy. "I have a scar. On my back."

He inhaled sharply. "What happened?" His eyes shown with eagerness.

When Cain was seven, he and one of his friends had been playing on the cliffs near the beach. He only remembered part of that day, the rest of his memories had gotten lost somewhere along the way in a sea of morphine.

He remembered taking the girl's hand and sneaking out the back door of the sanctuary while everyone else had their eyes closed for prayer. He remembered pulling her along as they ran because her Sunday shoes pinched her toes and slowed her down. He remembered her smile as they stood on the cliff, the ocean at their face and the sharp rocks at their feet. He remembered thinking that he might have been in love with the girl, if he knew what love really was.

A little black bird flew from a nearby tree as Cain yelled joyfully into the wind, happy to be free of the strict rules of the nuns and the church, if only for a stolen moment. The bird settled back down on a metal sign that read "Danger: Cliff Ahead" in red and white, and turned an inquisitive green eye to the two children, standing hand-in-hand looking down at the water.

The girl kicked off her shoes and stood there, watching the bird as it ruffled its feathers. "Why do birds fly?" she asked Cain.

He shrugged and dropped her hand to pick a sizeable rock up off the ground. "'Cos they have wings, I guess," he answered simply. "Wouldn't you fly if you had wings?" He turned the rock over and over in his hand before chucking it over the cliff, counting the seconds until he heard a splash as it hit the water: Twenty and a half Mississippi's.

She nodded thoughtfully, her brown curls bobbing in the breeze. "Do you really need wings to fly?"

Cain shrugged again. "Maybe not. Maybe it's like in Peter Pan. All you have to do is believe you can and…" he trailed off and looked at the girl sheepishly: He wasn't supposed to read fairy tales. The nuns said he needed to know the magic of Jesus, not of witches and godless heathens.

The girl didn't let on that she had even heard him slip up and Cain breathed a sigh of relief. He would already be in trouble for skipping morning mass; he didn't want the discovery of the children's books hidden under his mattress added to his list of sins to confess.

She turned to him, excitement burning in her blue eyes. "Fly with me." Her cold hand found his and she gave it a squeeze.

Cain looked up at her and smiled.

And together they had jumped off the cliff.

Cain watched her falling by his side, a smile on her face, her eyes closed, not realizing what happened when Cain's hand was wrenched from hers, his body hitting a jutting rock on the cliff face, while she continued to fall all the way to the unforgiving ocean below: Twenty and a half Mississippi's.

Maybe she hadn't believed hard enough to fly.

Cain shook his head and looked back at Michael, his head propped up on a pillow as he waited patiently for Cain to tell him the story.

"I fell."