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RAPID CYCLES AND RACING HEARTS

Lizzie

NOVEMBER 12, 2003

C ONFUSION SWEPT OVER ME RIGHT ALONG WITH EXHAUSTION.

I could hardly find the energy to walk.

My head .

Oh God, everything was spinning.

I couldn’t keep up with my thoughts.

They were moving too quickly in my head.

Too many thoughts.

Too many feelings.

I was so tired, but I couldn’t sleep because my mind wouldn’t stop tormenting me.

It wouldn’t slow down and let me breathe .

All the colors and shapes.

All the faces and smells.

Everything was hitting me at once, and I couldn’t regulate myself.

Meanwhile, Pierce O’Neill kept talking to me.

Why wouldn’t he stop talking to me?

“So, what do you think?”

I stared up at him, confused and annoyed he was still speaking to me. “About what?”

“Us making a go of it?”

He reached for my hand, and I was so startled that I didn’t stop him.

I was too goddamn stunned.

“A go of what?”

“Us, babe,” he chuckled, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “How do you feel about us making this official?”

“Official?” I strangled out, feeling physically sick. “Us?”

A group of boys walked past us then, and one of them shoved Pierce with his shoulder.

Thor, I noted.

Oh God, Hugh .

He was there, too.

But he wasn’t looking at me.

Instead, he was storming down the school hall with his two friends flanking him.

Yanking my hand free, I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to steady myself, but everything felt wrong, wrong, wrong .

But everything was wrong.

What the fuck was I doing?

What the hell was wrong with me?

Shoving away from Pierce, I bolted into the girls’ bathroom, barely making it inside one of the stalls in time.

Falling on my hands and knees, I heaved as my body rejected the contents of my stomach over and over until there was nothing left to throw up.

Sagging forward, I sucked in a ragged breath, chest heaving, while my mind offered me a rare glimpse of clarity.

Of reality .

All the good in the world was gone.

Erased and replaced with poison.

With sadness.

With unanswered questions and speculation.

All the thoughts.

All the memories.

All the regret I had for decisions I had no memory of making.

I made them, though.

That, I was sure of.

Grief—it swept me up in its cruel wave of suffocation before spitting me out on the beach of guilt and devastation.

I didn’t want to be this way anymore.

I wanted to get better.

To find the girl I used to be and become her once more.

But she wasn’t there anymore, and if, by some small miracle, I found her, the boy she loved with all her heart had been chased off by the demon that had taken on the form of her skin.

What was the point?

I’d already lost everything.

I was ruined .