The glass doors loomed over me like some monstrous creature of darkness, just waiting to plunge down on me and devour my tiny body in one gulp. Behind me, cars whizzed past on the busy street, billowing clouds of smog and smoke trailing in their wake. The sky above me was overcast, gray clouds hanging heavily overhead like a school of lethargic bloated fish, swimming through a murky pond. Not even a hint of sunlight peaked through the gray, leaving the cityscape around me cast in an eerie pattern of shadows and whites. The scent of exhaust lingered in the air, making me gag. I tucked my leather-clad hands into my jean pockets, and headed up the steps with a determined stride. A pretty pre-teen girl darted out of my way, holding the door for me. Maybe she was just unnaturally polite. Maybe my Goth appearance intimidated her. Maybe she was planning to use my turned back as an advantage and had a plan to stab me between the shoulder blades. Whatever her reasoning, I gave her a wan smile, and entered the lion's den, as it was.

The sterile smell of antiseptic and medicine was the first thing that struck me as I walked in. The walls were a sickening shade of green, the floor a scuffed and dirty white tile. It was scarily silent, and I suddenly felt as if I were in a badly written horror film. Now all I needed was some little kid's ghost to appear and show me the dark secrets of the building. Instead, I got a bored looking receptionist.

"Can I help you?" she asked, tucking her cell phone back into her jacket pocket.

"I'm just here waiting for a friend," I told her, shrugging.

Her eyes skimmed over me, taking in my tight black jeans, black tank top, leather jacket and gloves and dark makeup. Her eyes paused momentarily on the conspicuous bulge of my Cloves in my back pocket, and again at my leather choker with the cross on it. She frowned. "You can wait outside," she told me, not being obvious at all.

I smiled sweetly. “No, I'm good.” I walked away from the nice receptionist lady whom I did not stab, and flopped into a hard orange chair. Leaning my head back against the wall, I felt my eyelids growing heavy. Forcing myself back into wakefulness, I picked up a magazine from the table in front of me and wondered just where the hell Neil was.

I studied the pictures of perfect models in swimsuits, and of overdressed women in heavy jeweled necklaces that would make my grandma proud. Not that I spoke to my grandma, or any of my family, for that matter. I sighed, and tossed the magazine back on the plastic table. I think it was painted to look like wood, but the paint had chipped so badly over the years that it was hard to tell. Leaning back in the uncomfortable chair, I wrapped my jacket more tightly around my body. The air of the hospital was not only sickeningly scented with vile things that we only associate with illness and death; it was bloody cold. My jacket provided a small level of protection against the chill, and I huddled down further into it, nestling up against the back of the chair and the wall up against which one side of the chair was pressed.

I woke up to someone shaking me gently. Slowly blinking my sleep-encrusted eyes up at the person doing the shaking, all I could see was silky black hair and Asian features. A pair of dark almond eyes gazed upon me with quiet amusement. Lines creased the rich, smooth skin of his face, and I could tell that he hadn't slept in at least a couple of days.

"Hey, you're supposed to be my ride," Neil reminded me teasingly, gently pulling me to my feet.

I was still only half awake. "Mmm. When'd you….'s dark…What frickkin' time is it?" I made a valiant attempt to look at my watch but my efforts were impeded by the fact that I had foregone my watch this morning for silver wristbands that Kira told me reminded her of handcuffs.

"It's about 1:30. Didn't you get my call not to bother coming?" He steered me toward the door as he spoke. "Jessie went in for an emergency operation this afternoon, so I stayed with her all evening."

"Message?" I was still relatively incoherent.

"Yeah. I left one on your cell, telling you not to pick me up because I was staying late. I'm shocked you're still here."

"Oh…I left it at home."

He sighed, and gave me one of those looks. It was one of the looks that said 'we both know what a stupid thing that was to do, so I'm not going to bother telling you'. "Hey, you got your ride, didn't you?" I remarked, pushing open the doors onto the dark street illuminated only by the orangey glow of street lamps. People still made their way down the sidewalks, many of them drunk and or stoned and yelling to one another about topics only they could have a hope of understanding. The wind had a bitter chill to it, and I was glad when we reached my car. I gave him the keys with out much protest, deciding that I was probably too groggy to drive, anyway.

Climbing into the equally cold interior, I fastened my seatbelt and, shivering, flipped on the heater. I lit a vanilla Clove, and unrolled the window just a crack to let the smoke escape. The heater didn't do much to keep me warm, and I was not looking forward to the half hour drive back to either my apartment or Neil's townhouse. Settling back in the seat, I let my mind wander. It was not for a good fifteen minutes that I realized we weren't headed for home.

"Where we going?" I asked.

He didn't answer, just kept driving. Shrugging, I hoped it was somewhere warm, and returned to my daydreams. After a few more minutes of driving, with late night radio the only background, we arrived at a tiny little all night café, with a sign that might have once read 'Martyrdom', but was now graffitied out of existence.

"They make the best coffee this side of the country," he told me in response to my unasked question.

"Kay." I forced myself out of the car, and followed him inside. It was warm; thank whatever deity was watching over me that day. There were a grand total of four other people in the place, including the one girl behind the counter, whose nametag read 'Val'.

"Hey, Niel," she greeted him, lifting her head from her book.

"Hey, Val," he returned with a smile.

She gestured vaguely in the general direction of all the tables. "Just pick something over there…I really don't think it'll be that hard to find a table. How's Jessie, by the way?"

He shrugged. "She's doing ok, considering."

Val nodded. "When my mom had cancer, she was in the hospital for at least six months. We weren't sure if she was going to make it through."

I sighed silently. 'Wanna drive the nail a little deeper? Or maybe you'd like to check the handbook on tactlessness, Bluntness and stupidity?' I glared at her with as much venom as my tired brain could summon.

We made our way to a table off in the corner. The lighting was dim, and the booth, when I sat down, was surprisingly soft. I sank back into it, dropping my head back into the well-worn plastic. Neil sat across from me, his gaze fixed on some point above my head. The one singular waitress strolled over to our table, twisting the gold ring on her finger. "What can I get for you this evening?" she asked in a tone so sugar-coated I could feel it melting all over me, leaving my skin and clothes sticky with the sickeningly sweet syrup. I think I scared her.

"We'll both have coffee," Neil told her. "I have a feeling my friend could use the caffeine boost."

I merely nodded gratefully. "And some apple pie,” I told her. “Because I'm sure he hasn't eaten all day."

"Not hard considering the day is," he glanced at his watch, "exactly fifty-four minutes old."

I dropped my head back to the tabletop. “I'm going to kill you.” The wood was a welcome reminder of reality, my numb limbs not providing any assistance in the department of 'keep Carmin anchored to the real world'. The waitress, who reminded me strongly of Mary-Jane Watson, retreated, leaving us in silence. Well, relative silence. I could still hear the faint murmur of conversation from somewhere off in the other corner, and quiet music played over the radio on the front counter. I fiddled with a fork on the table, pressing the tines into my palm, pulling them away just before they drew blood, then repeating the process. I was still shivering, and my leather jacket didn't seem as warm and inviting as it had hours before in the hospital. A sort of fog had descended over my mind, making everything around me seem surreal and blurred.

"Here's your coffee," Mary Jane told us, setting down two cups with a soft click of china on wood. I lifted my head, sitting back in the booth long enough to take the steaming hot mug and drain the rich black contents in one long gulp. The liquid burned a fiery path down my throat making me feel as if my chest was being fried from the inside out.

"Would you like another cup?" she asked, flipping her long blond hair over one shoulder.

"Yeah, please," I told her. She poured another cup for me, and I noticed that her hands were shaking. She pasted on that Barby-doll smile again, and disappeared. I noticed that at some point she had left two large slices of soggy looking apple pie and half melted ice cream. Pulling mine towards me, I took an unenthusiastic bight.

Chewing slowly, I stared across the table at my silent friend. He was chewing methodically, his jaw moving rhythmically and his thoughts obviously a million miles away. I stirred sugar into my coffee, and leaned close to the cup to take in a long breath of the inviting scent. It reminded me of so many memories; the good and bad mixing together to form a constant, letting me slide for one moment, into some semblance of normalcy. But then I looked at the little restaurant with it's three other patrons, and I caught a glimpse of Mary-Jane crying back in the kitchens, and I rested my gaze on my best friend whose sister was slowly dying of cancer only twenty minutes away, and decided that my life would never be normal.