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5:02 p.m.

Begin Days are bullshit, nothing but a lie Alano told me all night and a lie I told myself all day.

I should’ve known better, to be honest. Promises are bigger lies than Begin Days. My dad vowed he would love my mom through

sickness and in health and then he tried killing her. Orion claimed he would back me up with his producers but didn’t put

up a fight. And Alano had me sign a contract on his bandage that I knew wouldn’t be legally binding, but I still thought he

would keep his word anyway.

Except Alano hasn’t given me any words since his first text.

To beginnings , he had texted at 5:02 a.m.

Exactly twelve hours ago.

I don’t get it, did I do something? Say something? Not say something? I wondered if my messages weren’t going through, so

I texted Mom and Rolando pictures of them lounging in the backyard and they received them immediately.

I came up with other excuses for why Alano hasn’t reached out. Maybe he’s still sleeping since we were out late and he was jet-lagged. Maybe he lost his phone and didn’t memorize my number like he thought he did. Maybe he got in trouble for sneaking out or for saving a lost cause like me. Or maybe Alano is dead.

I hope I’m wrong about Alano being dead, almost as much as my other heartbreaking theory that Alano isn’t ghosting me but

has actually been a ghost all along.

These spirals got me reading up on borderline personality disorder while curled up under my weighted blanket, and my fear

has been confirmed: people with BPD experience hallucinations. It can be brought on by stress (check) or social isolation

(check) or medication (check) or trauma (check) or physical injuries (brought on myself, but check). Ghost Alano said it himself,

the timing for his appearance on top of the Hollywood Sign was a huge coincidence. He called it fate. I’m calling it a breakdown.

A last-ditch effort from my body or brain or soul to survive.

I relive the night in my head—the Hollywood Sign, Hollywood Boulevard, Present-Time, the Hollywood DIEner, Echo Park—and I

try to fill in the blanks on who I was talking to if not Alano and how I got around the city if not because of Alano and whose

hand I held when running from danger if not Alano’s.

Then I throw the weighted blanket off me and rush to my closet to check something.

My gun isn’t in my chest. I didn’t imagine throwing it out, but I do regret it.

No, I don’t regret throwing away the gun. I regret not pulling the trigger.