Chapter 2

It's been a little under a week. A part of me is thinking maybe news of this has died down in the 6 days that it has been circling around the internet friend groups of our school. I know better than that though.

My body isn't sure what it wants. One moment I'm having a pleasant dream about my life after this. Maybe a nice vacation to Greece. Next my body is betraying me once again and plastering her face on every last thing I see.

I haven't heard from her. A part of me is thankful, but even now after all this time when the rain hits my windows a certain way a part of me thinks it's her. Tapping on my window to apologize and tell me everything's okay, The hopeful part of me tends to be the incorrect one.

It all doesn't seem real to me. Just a week ago everything was normal. A week ago I was sliding underneath her covers the night before her big party, laptop in hand a huge smile on my face. A week ago I was reassuring her that she was finally getting the popularity she deserves.

A week ago, I was propped up on my arm and watching her sit at her little corner desk, chewing on her bottom lip and crossing her arms. I remember getting up and reluctantly pausing my Netflix Original, crossing over the room and ducking my head a bit to try to catch her eyes. I remember getting over to her and kneeling down at her feet. I raised a finger up to her chin to get her to look at me and almost instantly I could see her shoulders fall. Her mood changed so quickly that I made a smart comment about the effect I had on her. The next thing I know it's happening again. She has her hands draped over my shoulders. She's breathing into my neck that she loves me.

Less than 24 hours after that I was suddenly a stranger, and she never wanted me.

I try not to think about it, but it's hard. I guess this whole thing is hard.

I've been laying here all day flat on my back watching my fan spin. My thoughts are going about as fast as the blades, flicking in and out of my mind like the frames of a vintage film. They created a complete picture but the sensation is nearly gone. I can't feel her anymore, or smell her, or hear her. I used to be able to squeeze my eyes hard enough and still feel the ghosts of her hands on me, or her lips.

Quickly it turns into guilt, or a bubbling anger in my gut. It makes me cry and sob into my pillow.

I feel pathetic like this, it's like when she kicked me out that day that my entire world stopped. Everything in my life was put on hold because she left me. The longer I sit here and think about it the more upset it makes me.

I have only been talking to one person consistently through my 6-day hiatus. Her name is Quinn.

She is hard to describe. Everything about her is soft. The features on her face are even intrinsically soft in their nature, her nose has this button-esque quality to it and her smile is always kind and warm no matter who she's talking to. Her eyes are a different story though, at times they seem very dark and unmotivated. In the right situations they hold so much deep sadness. It's like looking into a never-ending void of emotions you are never going to be able to truly understand. She's quite kept to herself about her own problems but will fight to the ends of the Earth to help her friends conquer their fears and overcome emotional obstacles. Sometimes I wonder if it's a burden holding all that grief and hurt inside of you and not being able to release your own. Maybe that's why her eyes look so sad at the end of the day when we part. She has nothing else to distract her from the gaping hole she has in her chest.

I would say I know more about her than most, and I like to say that I understand Quinn more than most people do, but I think the reality of it is no one gets her. No one's going to, and you have to be a stubborn fool to try.

She's a girl of many contrasts, but more than anything she has been loyal to me and welcomed anything I have to say to her with open arms. I can't say that for everyone I know. A part of me thinks how different my summer would have turned out if I would've spent the school year focusing on my relationship with Quinn. I probably wouldn't be in this mess.

Tonight is the first night in a while that I am going out. Quinn has invited me to go to what she describes as a small get together at her cousins condo in the city. I say that with a grain of salt, because Quinns version of "small " is twenty people.. Mine is around six.

It's six o'clock now, and instead of getting ready like I should have, I've been thinking per usual. I don't know how others would describe me, but if I had to guess then I would probably say that I am a deep thinker. Or maybe that I think a little bit too much.

I've always found myself deeply interested in other people's perceptions of me. How people view you is one of the things in life that we won't ever truly know. Sure you can ask questions relentlessly and try to piece together the truth from someone's words but I have this feeling that even the person who's observing you has a hard time looking upon your features objectively. Or maybe there are some things that people are too afraid to say. They're worried about hurting your feelings and obscuring your self image. The truth is hard to come by and even though in theory I yearn for it I don't think when confronted I would be able to really handle the truth. Maybe there are some things about ourselves that we aren't meant to know. It might hurt too much.

I hear footsteps approaching my door, so I push myself up on my palms and press my back to the wall my bed sits on. My door opens quietly, and a little meek voice shivers it's way through the crack. It reminds me of a little old witch in a Disney movie that's tempting me to take a bite of a suspiciously bright red apple.

Quinn peaks her head through a bit, only enough until her eyes show before taking a full step in. My shoulders relax a little bit, and I feel a bit of a smile creep onto my face.

Her hair reaches down to about her shoulders, it's a deep brown and you'll catch it curling at the tips if she leaves it alone for long enough. She pushes most of it behind her ears a lot of the time and her bangs (which she messily cut on the phone with me a few weeks ago) are growing to be a bit too long. She parts them slightly down the middle and I'm assuming she does so to maintain her eyesight.

She's pretty. That's kind of the least I can say. The type of pretty that makes you feel welcome, like you're looking at a photograph maybe. But I don't think she realizes it and in some ways that makes it better, makes it untainted and pure. Naive.

She frowns a bit when she gets a good look at me. "I swear I said be ready by 6:30. "

She's trying to act annoyed but there's a sweetness in her and it makes it impossible to take her completely seriously. She crosses over to the foot of my bed and climbs over, sitting criss cross and giving me a poorly delivered scold.

"You know what I figured you'd be a bit tardy so I told you to get ready an hour before you needed to. "

"That was smart. "I say, giving her a smile and pulling my knees up close under my chin.

"Have you been out of bed today? "She sounds more concerned now, and her smile is gone. It makes me sad how worried about me she is. But I guess I have given her good reason to be worried.

I don't answer her, I just lean my chin into my knees and look over my left

shoulder out my bedroom window. I'm pretty good at not answering and turning my face. That's kind of what got me into this whole thing in the first place.

"Well… "She pauses a bit, "are you excited about going out tonight? "Her smile returns brightly. "I think you'll love it. Her place is really nice and there's gonna be a lot of people there an- "

"I thought you said it was a small get together. "I try to hide the smile on my face. She stops right in her tracks like she just got caught and I suppose she did.

" You're gonna love it. But first you have to actually get ready. "