When Dexter wakes up, we are in naked and in bed still, the morning light starting to wash through the curtains. Our bodies are touching in a way that exudes intimacy; I am twisted beneath his shoulder, my fingers brushing against his ribs so delicately, our legs tangled so wicked and wild. Yet it doesn't mean anything. I am the shell of the girl he loves and he is just an extension of my desire. I know this is true when he looks me in the eyes and immediately disentangles from me, stuttering excuses.

I tell him that it's okay and that I understand, even though it's not okay and I don't understand. It hurts that in the only things I've ever fought my sister (Grace, who not only looks like a pale and sickly creature, but acts like she had been wounded by the world because somewhere along the way, she believed she became Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. But she never understood that the world isn't so black and white, people aren't either a tragedy or a comedy, but can be both and everything and nothing all at the same time) for, she won. The only things that have ever mattered to me, Grave stole, and I have been granted the rights to these monstrous achievements which only be a memory one day, a thought upon a former golden day. I feel like I don't understand anything anymore, I know nothing.

I dress in the bathroom because, despite the fact that he just fucked me, I can't let him see me naked.

When I exit the bathroom, he's lying on the ground. His eyes are closed.

"Dexter?" I ask.

He says nothing.

I kneel down next to him and shake him. I slap his face. I scream his name into his ear and somewhere along the way tears have started falling down my cheeks and I love him. I love him too much and he can't leave me. Yet I can still feel his heart beat murmuring underneath my fingertips.

I can't give up. Bliss Riordan is a fighter.