Pieces of Me

The Piece That Died

It was early the next morning.

We had just gotten out of bed, afraid of what the day would bring. Marcos was still on edge, but more relaxed than when I found him yesterday.

A piece of me believes that it is over for us, that Russo will and can find us, and when he does I will belong to him and Marcos will be dead.

Marcos will fight to the end to save me, just as he is doing now. He was willing to send all of his girls away just to protect them; to protect me, but I fear for him. I fear to live in a world without him, even if I never end up with him.

And then there's a piece of me that wants to continue this fight. In so many ways, in the last few weeks, I have considered myself to be somewhat of a strong person. I have conquered many things that I thought were not possible in my life, and I continue to do that day by day. With this newfound strength I refuse to let someone like Stefano Russo try and break me or hurt the people that I love.

I refuse.

"You look good." Marcos complimented me, rinsing the toothpaste from his mouth. He looked me up and down through the mirror, I had just finished rinsing off my toothbrush. "You look healthy and loved."

I shrugged, looking down. "I don't know about loved."

He nodded his head, turning off the sink water before wiping his face with a face towel. "I doubt that very seriously." Marcos turned to face me, no longer looking at me through the mirror, making me look up at him. "This is how you should have been all along. I wrapped you into this life by preying on your weaknesses and your loneliness."

I shook my head, but I knew that he was right. He completely took advantage of my state of mind back then, and turned me into something that I wasn't. But the drugs, the drugs were my fault, I started them without him, he had no part in that. The only thing that he did after finding out that I was on drugs used them against me.

I was crippled, and he knew that. He knew that he could get me to do almost anything at the sight heroin. It was and will forever be my kryptonite.

"I'm tainted." I whispered, feeling the stinging in the back of my eyes. "No one will love me past this life."

I thought that Matty could love me, but he wanted me to choose him even though he was choosing Jennifer. That isn't love, he would never have done any of what he did to me if he loved me. He strung me on and made me want him even more than I ever did in these past few years.

"You will find someone, I promise." Marcos said, strongly. He grabbed my face in between his hands, looking into my watery eyes. "You are not tainted. Your past does not define you, make your future worth it." Kissing my forehead, he pulled me into a hug. "I'm sorry for every wrong thing I did to you, it was my way of trying to hold on to you. I didn't want to let you go."

Pulling back out of the hug, I looked up at him as my first tear fell. "Why have you never told me that?"

"I didn't want you to know how much power you had over me." He answered, wiping away my fallen tears. "Male pride and all." This was all news to me, Marcos never mentioned anything like this before. I feel like he always played with my feelings and made it seem like he could toss me away at any given moment. "And I knew that you were better than this life, you could up leave whenever you wanted to. You are better than all of us; you're smart. You're so smart. I just knew that one day you would get the help that you needed to make it out of the streets. And you did."

"I barely made it out, and even now I still struggle." I pouted.

Marcos shook his head. "That's okay, your body is being deprived of getting something that it has grown accustom to over the last few years. That is normal, but you're strong Lynn, you'll make it through. I promise." He continued. "I did not break you, after everything I did to you, I did not break you. It was wrong of me to pull you out on the streets, but somewhere along the way, I fell in love with you and it was almost impossible to give you up."