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that it would never
wipe or clean my memory or mind. I drank more ice cold beer and thought of
Anne. After my mother had killed herself, I had lived with Anne and her mother
for a while before striking out on my own. Her mother had been a quiet woman
who barely left the house and acted like she was scared of her own shadow. She
didn’t go to the rituals any longer, but no one from the Circle ever came
searching for her. It was like they knew that part of her sanity was gone, and
they didn’t wish to be tainted by her. Besides, she had born a child to
continue her line. She had done her duty.
    If her mother was like a mouse, then
Anne did everything the opposite way. She made friends. She laughed and smiled
as if trying to prove that her destiny could go fuck itself.
    But she lost in the end.
    We would always lose.
    A fat white candle sat on the edge of
the bath. It had been accompanied by Penzance’s bright pink candles, but I had
hidden those away in the cupboard and scraped off the wax that they had left
behind. I tried not to think of Anne or Abbey, or Michael or Lake. I tried to
think of nothing but that candle and its wick. Concentrating hard, my mind
reached out to it, and I could almost feel the wick as if physically touching
it.
    And then I saw the wisp of smoke and I
sat up abruptly, letting out a laugh. Nearly, I nearly had it. I’d never been
this close before. Sinking back down in the bath, I drank my beer, smiling for
the first time that day.
    I was drunk by the time Penzance cracked
opened the bathroom door. “Are you still alive in there?” She poked her head
in, making sure that I was hidden by the water and steam before entering.
    “Yeah. We need to buy more beer though.
We’re all out now.” I let my empty bottle fall from my hand, and it landed on the
bath mat with a dull thud.
    She bent down to scoop it up and
grinned. “There’s this new club that we’re all going to on Friday. You have to come. They’re having half price cocktails.”
    “Sure.” I agreed, my head clouded by the
alcohol running through me. Would I be alive by Friday? I mused drunkenly.
Everything in me was dulled, and the idea didn’t strike as much fear in me as
it normally did.
    “Great!” She lingered by the door as if
she wanted to say something else.
    “What?”
    “I saw Lake today,” she said hesitantly.
“I ran into him outside my work.” She thought that Lake had dumped me and
broken my heart…only the heart part was true though. He had betrayed me.
    I became still. “Oh?”
    “He asked about you. I think he still
likes you.” She kicked at the vinyl on the floor.
    “He doesn’t, Penzance,” I managed to
say. He never did, he just used me. It hurt to even think those words,
and I sure as hell wasn’t going to say them out loud.
    She cleared her throat. “Okay. Well,
anyway, I’m cooking dinner. It’ll be ready soon.”
    “Thanks.”
    She closed the door, leaving me enclosed
in the steamy room once more. But now I didn’t have to think about Anne or fire;
I had Lake to think about instead. He had sucked me in. He had said all the
right things and treated me so well, I had finally thought that maybe I could
have a normal life with someone who I couldn’t read. I was so stupid. The
realization of how naïve I had been was like a humiliating slap in the face.
     Finally, after so many hot and steamy
make out sessions where I had thought he was being a gentleman and truly in
love with me each time he stopped us from going further, we had sex. It was
romantic, in a hotel with rose petals and champagne. The sex was beautiful and
sensual. It was everything that I had ever hoped for.
    But then it happened.
    As I lay there, recovering from my orgasm,
the visions poured from me as he began to ask the questions, just like at the
rituals, and I couldn’t stop myself. Tears ran down my cheeks as I gave him the
information that he used me for.  The words came uncontrollably from my mouth
as if I were