I awoke to the ringing of my own telephone, and I flashed back to the hotel for a moment before I remembered that I had come home. My eyes flickered open to meet the dim light of evening. I had been out for the better part of the day.

From my position on the floor, all I could see was the sheets trailing off my bed. I managed to drag myself to a kneeling sort of pose so I could get at the phone on the nightstand. I fumbled the reciever off the hook and held it awkwardly to my ear.

"Hello?"

"Darren? It's David."

//God, why this? Why *now*?//

My tongue stumbled in protest as I attempted to talk. "What do you want, Dave?"

"I want to know where my star attraction was on Friday night."

Damn. "You make me sound like a circus freak. Everyone come see the singing hooker, right?" I winced as my own raised voice made my head throb. Rather than argue with a brick wall, I issued my final statement. "I'm quitting, David. I'm not going to sing for you any more."

I hung up the phone before he could say anything else to me, and crawled onto the bed.

The sun set and the sky outside my open curtains turned black. I lay on my messy bed for hours, just staring at the wall and wondering how Fate could have chosen to be so cruel to me. Wasn't my life hellish enough as it was? Apparently not, if my current situation was any indication.

For just a little while, long enough to begin lulling me into a false sense of security, I had been perfectly happy with my lot in life. I had found someone that I could love. Someone who might have been able to love me back.

But, no.

Fate, that fucking bitch, had decided that I wasn't to be happy. She had spun her web and the threads cast me away from Daniel again. I should have known that if I fell in love that it would be someone who wouldn't want me.

Daniel was Savage. He couldn't want me. Not some poor boy hooker he picked up off the sidewalk.

The thought propelled me from the mattress, and I began pulling his pictures off the walls violently. I couldn't take Daniel's made-up, stylised face mocking me from every side. Gone were the magazine photos, the publicity glossies, the articles, the posters. The sounds of ripping paper, pushpins clattering to the hardwood, my own wordless screams filled the flat.

I ran across the shirt that I had accidentally taken when I fled. It still smelt like him, but it only sustained my anger. The shirt went the way of the photos, ripped to shreds on the floor.

Panting heavily, I surveyed the destruction I had wrought, but I felt no satisfaction, just...

//Alone.//