Prologue

I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

“Numb” – Linkin Park

Numb. If I had to describe myself in one word, that would be it. Completely fucking numb. I used to be an emotional person. I wore my heart on my sleeve and I even loved. But all of that was gone. Catatonic is how the professionals had described it—motionless, apathetic, unresponsive, and oblivious to the outside world.

Charlie was naive, living in his own bubble, and refused to accept that there was seriously something wrong with me. He figured I was being an over-dramatic teenage girl for the first time in my life and that I’d put on my big girl panties and get over it eventually.

Jake declared I was simply channeling my inner zombie and felt that all I needed was a little cheer and joking in my life to snap me out of it. He had made it his personal mission to get me through it, to make me better. The rest of my friends ignored me, pretended I wasn’t even there. I was invisible to them, which I guess was only fair considering they were invisible to me. I had seen them every day at school, but I never truly saw them. They were fuzzy shapes in the background, their voices simply buzzing noises filtering around me. But with Jake it was different. Jake wouldn’t allow me to overlook him. He made himself seen and heard.

I humored him eventually. I’d smile and pretend to be interested in the things he said. I owed him that much at least, considering he was the only one who even bothered with me. His persistence paid off, and he got me to go out and “live” as he called it. I still wasn’t really living; I was just going through the motions out of obligation. I knew he felt like he’d accomplished something, like he succeeded in helping me get over it. I hated to burst his bubble or put a damper on his pride, so I kept my mouth shut. But the fact of the matter was, I was getting worse. The numbness was wearing off and the pain was seeping through.

And to make it worse, when the numbness subsided and the pain took hold, I sought refuge. I sought anything to make the pain go away. I started using Jake for adrenaline rushes. I roped him into doing dangerous things with me, because when danger was involved, I remembered him better. I could almost see him, and hear him at those times. And I needed that; I craved his beautiful face and his velvet voice. It made the pain go away and made me feel almost whole again—even if it were only for a moment.

But Jake never knew that. Jake thought I was better… and I couldn’t break his heart by telling him the truth.

Charlie was nearly gloating, having come to the conclusion that he was right. I was just being dramatic about it all and that I’d gotten over it. He had these ridiculous notions that I’d even moved on from him… and I let him think what he wanted, because I was able to keep up my routine that way. Charlie wouldn’t question anything about when I was with Jake, and Jake never questioned why I was such an adrenaline junkie.

But of course it couldn’t last. One night it all changed. Jake grew hostile and stopped speaking to me… he even started throwing him in my face. My Jake, the one who was a daredevil and rode motorcycles with me, would never have thrown him in my face. My Jake never even spoke of him, because he knew what it did to me.

I figured out eventually what it was that changed Jake, but the damage was already done by that time. He couldn’t be what I needed. I sought adrenaline rushes on my own, and for a time it worked. I’d see his face and hear his voice whispering in the wind. But eventually, like all good things, it came to an end.

The memory of him dulled in my mind, until it turned into another blurred imagine and his voice another simple buzz. Finally it stopped coming all together. And that’s when I panicked.

I’d never forget him. There was a gaping hole in my chest that screamed he was real, that he had existed and that I’d never be able to forget him because I’d never be whole again. But I couldn’t make out the details anymore. I couldn’t remember the exact shade of bronze his hair had been, or how sharp his jaw line was. I couldn’t recall the temperature of his skin or the way he pronounced certain words.

Those things mattered. I needed those things. And I swore I’d do anything to get them back, to remember them once again.

And that’s when I went off the deep end.