Her chair is a swivel chair. She remembered the day she got it, and opened up the giant box just to watch all the little pieces fall out. She'd put it together herself, despite the natural urge to head into the labs and flash some leg in order to get a life technician to do it for her. She'd sat there in her room, door closed and locked and hidden away from the rest of the world so they could never watch her put together anything with her own hands. She screwed in chair legs. She adjusted the seating position. And when it was done, she sat in it, and it didn't fall apart.

She swiveled in that chair all day long, now. She sat in it, lounged backward until her eyes faced the ceiling, and swiveled slowly back, and forth. Back, and forth. Her fingers found something to idle with; an eyebrow pencil, perhaps. Or a nail file. But most of the time it was her hair brush that bounced lazily in her hands, and sometimes was pulled through her hair.

You have always disgusted and disappointed me as much as it is possible to do so.

Its a shame about the not being able to stand you thing because we just about deserve each other.

No. You ARE trouble.

They were the voices swimming around in her head as she swiveled back and forth on her chair, the only thing she considered hers anymore. She heard them, each condemning her in their own way, one by one. They never overlapped, and they never melded together. She always heard exactly whose voice belonged to each message, and exactly how they would have said it.

The punisher, reminding her of what she really was. The martyr, comparing her to himself in ways that meant nothing but the worst intentions. And the angel fallen from grace. Her angel.

Not hers, anymore.

The swivel chair stopped moving, but her eyes remained on the unpainted white ceiling, unfocused and unseeing. Her hands stilled on the hairbrush, and she felt a tightening within, as everything she knew to be her self withdrew. She felt like her very soul, if she'd ever had one to begin with, was collapsing into itself. Into the black hole she'd created.

Cami should have been enough to save her. Maebe was not completely unloved; Cami hadn't abandoned her, or stopped loving her. Her girlfriend was beautiful, and loving, and held the promise that she felt disintegrating within her. But if Cami had been enough to keep Maebe from dying, she wouldn't have needed them both in her life in the first place. She'd always been special, and needed more. Like an unsteady table, Otto had taken a leg with him, and she couldn't stand anymore.

Everything went slipping to the ground.

She couldn't look in the mirror anymore. She knew what they would say, if she looked. She combed her hair with long, careful strokes, and imagined exactly where the curl of her strands was. Her movement was autonomous, because life no longer existed inside.

If she looked in the mirror, she feared she wouldn't see anything at all.