He traced my scars with his fingers, slowly moving over the word cut into my stomach, softly trailing over the tracks on my arms. He never said anything about them; just let his fingers find the crude outlines. Our clothes were piled on the floor, the sheets twisted between our bodies, the soft silk caressing my legs. It smelled like sweat and sex. It felt safe.

The alarm whined through the calm of the morning, breaking that moment of peace between being awake and asleep. Axel groaned and slammed it off with a heavy fist. He pulled me towards him, wrapping his legs, his arms tight around me. I felt myself melt into him. He was safe and strong and protective. His strong forearms wrapped held me close, I felt his steady heartbeat, his warmth nearly too much and at the same time not enough. I trailed my fingers across his arms, his skin prickling at my touch.

Axel lipped my ear and nibbled on my neck, moving his hands tighter around my body, grazing my hip bone, trailing up my back. Then the alarm went off for a second time. Axel sighed heavily, pressed hard into me, and kissed me. Grumbling he crawled from under the blankets and walked across the soft carpet to the bathroom.

I listened to the powerful showerhead turn on, heard him step into the shower. The soft steady beat of water falling was familiar. It felt like home.

Fuck. Axel's apartment felt like home. He felt like home.

The sheets were warm from his body, they smelled like him. I took a deep breath, inhaling his scent, inhaling the night. It had been a calm night, no painful memories, nothing to block out and nothing to work through. A rare night. I kept seeing things that I knew couldn't be real, but at the same time they felt so real I wasn't all the way sure anymore. The soft skin at my elbow joint was pocketed with tiny scabs, bruised purple, almost yellowing. But we hadn't found another way to stop them. The drugs helped. I could function the next day falling into a medicated sleep, but I was more and more scared of them happening.

Steam was slowly escaping the open bathroom door, a calm morning mist. The shower turned off and Axel came back into the room, a towel wrapped low on his waist.

His skin was tight over relaxed muscles, defined lines of tissue only marred by heavy streaks of scar tissue. Tattoos ran up his forearms, across his shoulders, left side. The wolf's eyes from his forearm seemed to stare at me, rippling over his skin. A deep scar ran across his stomach, a knife fight from years ago. He had barely survived, the other guy hadn't. Other scars and tattoos intertwined across his back and shoulders, my favorite one wrapped around his left shoulder to his elbow. It was an intricate work of art, a black ink angel weeping over the skeleton of a wolf intertwined with a quote. A ghost shape in white ink of the wolf rose out of the black skeleton, snarling and snapping at the angel who he had no pity for.

I had once asked him what it meant. I have fallen, but I am free. He had said it was about rising up when everyone else was dragging you down. He said his mother told him to keep standing up no matter how many times you fall. Axel had said the wolf was rising against everything, snapping at the angel because she pitied him and the wolf was above that. He didn't want her pity or sadness. At first, I didn't get it, but it made sense now.

He caught me staring and smiled.

"Like what you see?"

I threw the sheets off my body, the chill of the room, not the only thing to send a shiver across my skin.

Axel dropped the towel from his waist and met me on the bed in a quick smooth motion, pressing his lips to mine.

We unraveled ourselves from the sheets for the second time that morning. Axel started pulling on jeans. I went to the bathroom and turned on the water in the walk-in shower. The glass-walled shower was almost as large as my old bedroom, the black tile meticulously cleaned by Axel's cleaning lady once a week. The showerhead came from above, the sides, and had a temperature control touch screen unit in the shower. It had taken me a few tried to figure it out the first time. I let the water run down my face, and back and legs, enjoying the lingering scent from Axel's body wash.

The bathroom was filled with steam when I turned off the water and stepped onto the warm tiles. Axel had turned on the floor heat leaving the large white tiles warm to the touch. The giant mirror over the double sinks was fogged up except for a large square built to be resistant to the condensation. I looked in it for a minute, my wet hair clinging to my shoulders. I sighed and closed my eyes, wondered what it would be like to be as pretty as the girls on TV, and opened them.

And screamed.

"Fuck." He was there behind me.

I was alone in the bathroom. Shaking and breathing hard, but alone. He had been there. Not tall enough to get his full face in the mirror, but he had been there.

"Hey, you okay in there?" Axel's calm worried voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

He was bloodied and bruised. He couldn't have been there. He wasn't real. I steadied myself on the cool marble vanity top.

"You sure?"

"I'm fine," I snapped, "Okay."

I focused on breathing, taking shallow, shaky breaths at first, but they got deeper and steadier with each intake. Made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror again.

The girl in the mirror was scared, matching the one out of it. Her eyes were red and tired, dark circles underlining them. She looked older than she was, too thin, too tired. The scar on her face was more than just a nasty reminder, a dead, scarred piece of flesh. She was thin, scared of herself, and didn't know how to stop.

"Hey, come on," Axel knocked on the door, "You can tell me."

"I'm fine," I tore away from the mirror and opened the bathroom door, "I promise, I'm fine."

Axel looked at me, studying my body, all the wounds, and pain and injured flesh. His face went through a range of emotions, settling on sadness.

"You're too thin, Annie."

I started getting dressed.

"You sure you're okay?" He grabbed at my shirt, holding on to it. I knew he wanted me to tell him everything, he just wanted to protect me and save me and make sure I was okay.

"Yeah, I'm fine, stop asking," I ripped the shirt back from him and slid into it. It was too big like everything else I owned.

He watched me pull on jeans and sighed again. I wanted to tell him, wanted to give him everything, but I couldn't. I didn't want to be weak or dependent.

"I'll start some coffee and make you something," he squeezed my shoulder, "Please, please eat it."

He headed to the kitchen. I sat down on the floor, leaned against the bed. Listened to him start the coffee machine and move around the room opening cabinets and drawers. He made great meals, but more than a few bites and I'd start to feel sick like I overate or the food would become tasteless and chalky. I'd try to eat everything for him today.

The carpet was soft under my legs, cushioned, inviting. I couldn't get up, couldn't move. Couldn't do anything. Stared at the floor, at the nearly white carpet, felt the king-sized bed at my back. I looked over to the floor to ceiling windows, gazed out at the awakening skyline, jagged with buildings glinting in the sun. Axel's home was full of a richness I never had, full of opulence and warmth. Felt something bite inside me, something telling me I did not deserve this. I was nothing, have done nothing to deserve such comfort. I was a bottom feeder who had landed among kings. Soon they would find out. Soon all of this would be gone and I would be ground under their heels again.