A/N: Well, this has been sitting around collecting dust for a while… I was very reluctant to upload it at all, because A) this is not at all how I view Matt at all, B) this is not only depressing but rather sick, and C) it was written on a whim and really isn't good at all. However, I figured that someone might enjoy it, so… yeah. The only reason this is it's own story at all is because I didn't want to put it in "Much Ado" because it's just… not fitting, I guess. So yeah. Forgive me for this short, crappy, emo fic.

WARNING: Depressing, morbid themes, psychological abuse, cheating, suicide, and general cruelty.

Her name was Erin, and I didn't love her.

You might not know it by looking at us. We looked pretty happy, like one of those cute, high school-setting romantic comedies, her sitting on my lap and me with my arm around her waist, sharing a large strawberry smoothie. Her round, pale face and shoulder-length blonde hair making her look mildly cherubic, me looking like a devil in comparison, what with the red hair and all.I don't know If she loved me truly or not - I never bothered to find out. I certainly never loved her. I simply went through the actions of love, of a relationship. Asked her out, took her to a movie and made doe eyes at her from behind my goggles, had a "nervous" first kiss, continued with our dates with cuddling, kissing, fondling -the works. I even fucked her. Not made love to her, not even deserving the title of sex - it was just fucking. She enjoyed it, I'm sure - you could tell it in her blue eyes, the way she screamed my "name".

I didn't enjoy it. How could I? She was a girl, and I was a homosexual. No… that's not the reason, really. I knew the real reason, and no matter how much I denied it, I knew it was true.

She simply wasn't him.I guess you could call me an asshole for treating a girl - Erin - like this. Actually, you would be right to. That's exactly what I was. She was nothing important really, nothing special that I particularly liked about her personally. There was only one reason I picked her up at looked like really, she didn't, but at a glance yes. Shoulder length blonde hair - not quite the same stunning gold his was, but close enough. Blue eyes - not the breathtaking sapphire his were, more of a green- blue. Feminine curves but flat chested (more feminine than him, of course, but still). Same height almost. Wore black a of this, I had a stupid hope. Desperate, really. I was so lonely, so void of anything that could be mistaken for giving a damn that I questioned sometimes if I had a soul at all anymore. Maybe I didn't. Without him a part of me was empty; when he walked out on me two years ago, he mercilessly ripped out a part of me on his way out, look my heart and left the rest of me to rot. A gap left bleeding within Erica, seeing her and for a second mistaking her for the man I loved, jostled something in me. The tiniest whisper of caring, truly CARING, coming and giving me foolish hope. That maybe this girl, this look alike, could fill the void that he had left.

But alas, the resemblance she had with my ex-lover ended with her general appearance. Really, she was a nice girl, the kind that boys fawn over. She loved to cuddle and savored little things like brushing hands and smiles, yet was down for any kind of sex you wanted as long as you were there in the morning. She was beautiful, she cared. And she was forgiving - you could do anything, say anything, hurt anything, and she would forgive you. She was, in her essence, what a normal person would see as perfect. Who a normal person would love in a heartbeat.

I was not a normal person. I could not love could not heal the wound ripped inside of me, only succeeding in unknowingly pouring salt in it. Every time I looked at her, I could only see the differences to Mello - freckles he never had, breasts however slight, eyebrows you could see, a smile that was innocent and sweet. Every time we spoke, I willed her to be smart and argumentative - she was average and abiding. Every time we fought, I willed her to scream at me, to hit me, to kick me, to tell me I was worthless, to cuss me out, even to defile me - of course she never did. All I wanted was Mello.

I never got him.

One would think I would stop seeing her, since she proved useless in sealing my void, but no. I didn't. In failing to deliver me from my original pain she had festered a new meaning. She gave me a new guilty pleasure - breaking hearts.

There are few things I am truly skilled at in life, but of them I am the master: hacking, driving, video games, and more importantly, manipulating and lying. Not only am I skilled at these but I thrive on them, like a drug. It was a brilliant game, really.

I had Erin, the main one. She was ignorant of the entire go down, I believe. I let her stay intoxicated by me, because she was the main character to my game, hurting her over and over with things Mello would have killed me for, slowly letting her crumble away - every time I still willed her to hate me, but she never could. No matter how many times I screamed at her, how badly I insulted her. No matter how hard I slapped her, or shoved her down, or broke her things. Every time she forgave me... and secretly, I despised her for it.

Then there was Trista, a Hispanic woman in the next town, who I told sweet nothings to for a week. Who I convinced to break up with her boyfriend of four years, a man who she claimed bored her after meeting me. Promised her that I would be there that night to run away with her to who-knows-where. I made her fall head over heels - oh the despair, the deathly pain in her eyes when I did not show to catch her.

Then Amy, the petite blonde girl with a peppy attitude - and with her Angela, her twin sister. At the same time. Funny how two girls that are so close can be so ignorant of each others love lives until it was too late. Funny how something so simple as a boy can make two sisters turn against each other, two people who have been at each other's side all their lives suddenly hating each other when really the person they should hate was the very reason they were fighting.

Morgan was a fun one, creative too, I think. She was older than me, a married woman, a Couger if you will. Except that she was married. I seduced her easily, coming into her home as computer tech. I never planned to actually do anything with her in the beguining, but somehow she ended up naked on the couch. But it was worth it. Worth it to see the priceless expression of her husband and children as they came home from soccer practice, disbeliving and horiffied. I hadn't known she was married at the time, but even if I had it wouldn't have stopped me - it was even more amusing that way.

I even commited the most horrible act before, something I would have never thought of ever doing. She was young, too young to be at that adult club so late at night. I never even learned the girl's name, though she may have said it to me. I was too wasted to remember. But I remember how nieve she was. I remember how easy it was to lead her away into a back room, a VIP room - really cool! I had promised her. Lied to her. I remember how horrified she looked when I turned the latch on the door, locking it shut. I remember the screams she emitted when I threw her to the bed, how she begged and cried for help, for some saivor. But no savior could hear her - no one could hear her over the pounding of the music outside the locked doors. Nobody could hear as I tied her arms to the bed and tore away her clothes. Such slutty clothes they were, too - she had been asking for this. I remember how I felt no plesaure at all as I took her focibly, how she sobbed as I raped her from behind. Not even having the decency to prepare her. Most of all I remember how broken and pathedic she looked as I pulled my pants back on, finished with her. The way she looked at me with huge blue eyes that reminded me of Mello's, the very thing that had drawn me to her in the first place, as if she expected an explaination for what I had done to her. But I only left her there, not caring what happened to her after that.

Kate was the most fun and the most cruel, I think. She looked nothing like Mello, but she had the same tough exterior, the don't-fuck- with-me-vibe. I approached her like I would Mello - submissive yet mischievous, like a dog might. But with her I made no mistake of keeping this submissive attitude. As soon as I was inside, as soon as we had this secretly one-way bond, I knotted it. I shoved past her exterior without mercy and pulled out the squirming, crying child that was in all of us. I took her and broke her, rewrote her so that she was no longer herself, no longer bad and cold but submissive and desperate. I let her love me like I loved Mello. I promised her forever, told her that I would marry her as soon as I could afford a ring. I told her I loved her.

I was lying.

One Saturday afternoon I left and never came back, leaving the same nondescript note I had received. "Forget me". The most painful words in the world. I never saw her again, but the local news reported her death by suicide two months later. She had thrown herself off of her apartment building. I should have felt remorse, but I only smiled, and I wondered what Mello would think of this new killing method. Probably he would have cried while he thought I wasn't looking, curled in a corner, clutching that rosary. Wondering what happened to the Matty he knew. I wouldn't tell him that really, I was wondering the same thing.

I was sick. Addicted to this heartbreaking, loving the look in the girl's eyes as they realized I had tricked them, that I was lying. Anticipated with pleasure seeing how each girl would break down. Some cried, tears spilling down their face like a child. Some screamed and yelled profanity. Some went instead at the throats of other pawns in their "level" of the game. Some hit and punched, even sometimes managing to make me bleed - this was my favorite reaction. And some, like me, simply stared, uncomprehending. Not wanting to believe. And then, slowly, it would register in their minds and the pieces would fall into place, and they would whisper, "Why?" their voices broken, the view of their heart tearing apart visible clearly in their eyes - just like me. Watching these girls fall apart was just enough to distract myself from the fact that I was dying inside. I was a cruel, manipulative hypocrite. And with every girl I broke, I became crueler and crueler.

To tell you that I was sorry would be a lie. I wasn't sorry. I never apologized to them. I was too scared to consider that, to let myself look at these girls as people. I saw them as characters in a game, mine to manipulate and control as I pleased; I saw them as less, as not-my-problem. To me, they were only toys. If one of them broke, hey... they could easily be replaced.

I was thinking like Mello. And oh, god, did I loathe loving night that in was alone, without a girl and without any distraction, I would think of him. He still had that part of me, making it impossible to forget. I would feel my facade crumble and shatter at my feet, exposing the empty, defenseless Mail Jeevas beneith. I would cry, usually, scream and sob at the top of my lungs, muffled only by that pillow. The one that I'd brought with me from Whammy's, the one that used to smell like him but no longer did, for it had been far too long since he had laid his head on it for the scent to remain.

I would wonder if Mello was even alive, and if he wasn't, if he was watching. I wondered if he was like me, and he smiled inside as I shattered. I wondered if he knew that he started all of this. I wondered if he watched all the while as I convulsed, strangled by my own choking tears and re-shattering heart. I was completely broken inside, the little Mail that I suspected had once inhabited me scared off by none other than the person he had lived for. Every night I would cry, scream, even resort to cutting myself and smoking pack after pack of whatever I could get a hold of. Anything to get the horrible things out of my head.

I was truly a ruined man, torn at the seams and left in tatters on the floor, never to be peiced back together. Yet somehow I felt the dim comfort that somewhere out there, there were others just like me, heartbroken and lost. And for a few selfish moments breaking those hearts would be worth it, because for those moments, I didn't feel quite so alone anymore.

Misery loves company, I suppose, but I assure you - heartbreak loves it more.

A/N: Tch. Told you so. REVIEW if you wish, but don't bash me for making Matt like this… seriously, this isn't how I view him normally at all. XD ever.