Disclaimer: I don't own So Weird. Obviously.

Fiona is a freak but Carey doesn't care.

He doesn't like Fiona because she's normal; her eccentricities are a part of what she is, and it seems like suicide to him to take everything you are and rip it to shreds.

Fiona probably thinks she's being self-sacrificing, but she's a fool, because Carey is selfish and he doesn't want her to change. Not one bit.

When she's gone, he misses her ideas; her delusions; her.

Annie is nice and sugary-sweet and perfect, but she cannot and will not ever be the girl she so unknowingly emulates.

That is the one thing Carey knows for sure.

He finds himself thinking about Fi at the strangest moments, the most intimate and inopportune times (which she'd never invaded before), like sometimes when they stop at anonymous, dingy rest stops, and he thinks of the way she'd sometimes lean into him without even realizing it, and then his hand moves fast and hard and he's choking back sounds.

In retrospect, he should have known that Fiona would change. That is a very normal thing to do, and that's what she was pretending she was—normal.

But somewhere along the line, pretending turned into an actuality, and nothing has ever scared Carey more.

He doesn't recognize the glittery, fashionable ditz that she's become by the time they see her next; she is not Fiona.

The day before they're due to leave again, he's finally alone with her and he doesn't know what to say.

He doesn't know how to say "I love you" and "I hate you" at exactly the same time.

And she's babbling, and it's not important because his Fiona never cared about trivialities; and the next thing he knows he's kissing her and her hands flutter on his arms.

And when they stop she looks up at him with silent questions and it's almost too much for him to bear, and he can feel his heart hammering against his chest.

"Freak," he tells her through the taste of smudged lip gloss, shaking her; clutching her hair; trying to make her come back to life.

It is a compliment; a plea.

"Freak," he repeats, but she still doesn't understand.

She used to be an oddity, and that was what he needed. He needs that.

But now she is a plastic Barbie-doll, too smooth and unanimated, and he whispers "why?" when he kisses away her tears.

But she doesn't hear because his hands are already underneath her shirt, and he's sliding her down the hall into her room.

Carey is selfish, and he will take what he can get, even if it's only a parody of what he really wants.

The door slams shut; the mattress squeaks; his hands are on her hips.

"Carey—Carey, why are you doing this?" she asks, arching while her manicured pink fingernails dig into his back and his lips lap up her dainty white neck.

"Maybe I'm possessed," he says. "Maybe this is a ghost."

But that's a lie, he knows, because the blame doesn't belong on anybody else but him.

"But I don't believe in ghosts," she gasps.

Carey closes his eyes and pretends he hasn't heard her; then the conversation is just lips and thighs and gasps and sighs and maybe magic, and it's only afterwards that he remembers that this Fiona refuses to know what magic is.

Freak, he thinks fiercely, zipping up his pants.

It means the exact opposite of what it is supposed to. Because now it is a curse.

Once, she might have demanded an explanation, but this girl is too aware of embarrassment and self-consciousness to ever dare. It is painful to know.

He would feel guilty, but this is just a stranger; he took advantage of the shell of what once was, but he still can't look her in the eye when he says goodbye.

Carey thinks he must be a freak, too. But he wishes he could be normal again.

It hurts less.