I didn't stick around after that. I took off for the University, my cheeks flaming, my crotch damp and vaguely sore. Pain. I could handle that. That's what I was used to.

But it wasn't a physical pain that I could fight or control. For a few hours, I had hope. Hope that I actually meant something to somebody. That was what lay dying in my chest.

I didn't know how I was supposed to get over that. Just because it had happened to me before...didn't mean that I knew what to do.

When I returned to the dorm, the Resident Assistant glared at me because he had to unlock the doors for me. "You're late."

"Fuck you," I muttered under my breath.

"What was that?"

"Sorry. Lost track of the time," I said in an amazingly convincing imitation of apology.

"Well, don't do it again."

I nodded and slipped soundlessly up the stairs to my room. I stripped to the waist, grabbed a bunch of towels and headed for the shower. I might have a private room, but I still had to use the bathroom down the hall. Just like everyone else.

I turned on the water and stood under it, feeling the heat seep slowly back into my body. I tried damned hard not to think, but it was useless. My mind kept coming back to Mark Renton over and over. Like a mental toothache.

He didn't use me, I told myself. We used each other. There, does that make you feel better, stupid?

Not really.

I pushed wet hands through my long hair and wished I still believed in something. But then, that was the problem. Part of me did. Part of me still thought that love existed. Somewhere.

Only I wanted it to be wherever Mark was.

*****

I was high. Not only that, but my wallet was pleasantly full again. I'd been strangely self-indulgent, picking and choosing the ones I serviced with a great deal more care than usual. Even stranger still, I didn't fuck anyone. I gave head until my mouth was swollen, but I didn't let anyone touch me back.

I had enough money for a hotel room, if I wanted to stay someplace better than that rat trap I called home, but I found myself wandering in the direction of the University instead.

The grad student manning the desk behind the glass doors in Alan's dorm looked pissed. "You're the second one violating the fucking curfew, man. What's with you people?"

I managed to shake my head in some non-committal way that the RA accepted as appropriately deferential, and he opened the doors. "Think you can find your room, sunshine?"

"Yeah," I mumbled, avoiding eye contact with him.

By the time I made it upstairs, I was having second, third, and fourth thoughts. Alan wasn't going to let me in. Why should he? I'd probably mortally offended him. For good.

But that was okay. That was what I wanted. Right?

I knocked on the door before I gave myself a chance to back out.

"Who is it?" said a muffled voice.

Suddenly I couldn't say a word. I leaned my forehead on the cool wood of the door, praying for something to come out of my mouth. But nothing did.

"Mark?"

Christ, he knew it was me. How did he know that? Could he smell me? Feel me trying to absorb him through the goddamn door?

"Go away," he whispered, more firmly than he'd uttered my name.

I tried. I truly did. But I couldn't make myself move down the hall. All because it was away from him. I turned my back on the door and slid down to the floor, grasping my knees with both hands till they were flush with my chest.

Sometime during the night, I fell asleep like that, my head falling forward in what would have been an uncomfortable position. If I wasn't too drunk to notice.

*****

He was still out there. I knew he was. The dorm was so quiet at night, too quiet if you asked me, and I'd never heard him walk away.

I refused to crack open the door, even the little bit that it would take to see if he was really there. I still didn't want him to know that I gave a shit.

But I couldn't sleep knowing he was out there.

Knowing I wanted him in here with me.

*****

In the morning, he was gone. I don't know what I expected, but that hurt all over again. I grabbed my backpack and closed the door, intending to lock it. After all, I had a lot of stuff to keep safe. But that's all it was. Stuff.

Maybe if I left the door unlocked...

Well...I could pretend. Couldn't I?