Amazing, Because It Is.

"When you live for others' opinions, you are dead. I don't want to live thinking about how I'll be remembered." - Carlos Slim Helu.

It was losing Jeremy all over again.

It was my parents abandoning me and each other.

It was hating school and everyone in it.

There was a breaking point, and Alex leaving me had pushed me well past it. Beyond it so far that I stayed curled up on my bedroom floor, crying, the entire night. It was terribly uncomfortable, and my bed was a mere foot away, but I was catatonic. I listened to my alarm clock ring in the morning, and didn't move an inch. Every tear I hadn't cried after Jeremy's death, I cried then. It made me feel human for once, to finally show my emotions, even if no one was there to see or hear.

I wasn't just crying for Alex. I was crying for my best friend, my confidant, the boy I loved, leaving me all alone in this world. I was crying for my brother, who never got a chance to live, who was only seventeen and never got a chance to feel love, or have children, or go follow a band's UK tour, like we always promised we would do together. I was crying for my parents thinking it was perfectly fine to get a divorce, with no respect to the fact that I couldn't handle it all at once. I was crying because I didn't know where to go from there, or if there even was anywhere to go. I stayed on the floor because I couldn't get up, and because if I did get up, I wouldn't know where to go from there.

"Brooklyn, you're going to be late for school!"

It was the first time I'd heard my mother's voice in weeks. And I ignored it. I couldn't have heeded her warning if I wanted to. Couldn't have.

"Brooklyn, did you hear me?"

Her voice was closer now, but I didn't want to open my eyes. Maybe they were swollen shut. My eyelids felt heavy like lead weights. I didn't need to see if Alex's perfect face wasn't there to admire.

"I'm not going," I croaked, my voice barely audible, soft to the point that I really didn't know for sure that she had heard me until I felt her presence, crouched down next to me. I cracked an eyelid far enough to see a pair of black spiked heels and knew she was on her way to work. Forever working, just to stay sane. So opposite of the way most people felt about work, wasn't it?

"Are you sick?" She quizzed, laying a cold hand along the length of my forehead. I didn't flinch.

"Yes."

Sick of life being so damn difficult for me. Sick of things going wrong at every turn. Sick of waking up and realizing that there wasn't much of anything keeping me alive besides technicality. I didn't have the guts to quit breathing altogether.

"Well get into bed, Brooklyn. There's no sense in laying on the floor," she sighed, smoothing back my bangs from my forehead. They fell right back into place.

There was no sense in laying on the bed, either. I wouldn't sleep. I wouldn't be comfortable.

But I got up to please her, found my eyes to be bleary, my head to be throbbing. A head rush as I stood sent me stumbling into bed.

"Feel better," my mother whispered, pressing a precise kiss into the center of my forehead.

It wasn't likely. I saved myself disappointment by not hoping at all.

"Brooklyn, your friend is here."

Was I still asleep? I didn't have friends. If the Mayhems were here, I was going to lose it all over again. I didn't have the patience to deal with them.

I sat up with much difficulty and rubbed my eyes. It wasn't Dallas or Sanchez. It was Jack.

"What are you...doing here?" I questioned, throwing all manners aside.

Jack cautiously picked his way across my floor, stepping over the clothes I had been wearing and tossed askew. He sat down on the edge of my bed, and stared at me, long and hard. I fidgeted, beyond uncomfortable.

"You weren't at school today," he commented, his eyes not leaving mine. How could he make continual eye contact like that and not squirm? Maybe normal people had that ability.

I shook my head, leaning back against my headboard, grabbing a throw pillow and hugging it to my chest.

"Alex wasn't there either," he said softly, watching my reaction intently. I couldn't not flinch. Hearing his name hurt - like someone was punching me right in the chest. "I thought he might be here, but I guess not."

Again, I shook my head, feeling a lump forming in my throat. I wouldn't be able to talk past it without being reduced to tears. Why was the phrase "reduced" to tears? Didn't that insinuate that crying made you somehow less of a person?

"Where is he?" Jack pressed, apparently thinking I should've come forth with it by now.

"I don't know," I whined pathetically, burying my face in my hands. I was going to cry. I was going to cry in front of Jack and it didn't make me any less of a person.

"Don't cry, Brooklyn," Jack encouraged, as stand-offish about girls crying as any guy would be. He already sounded more awkward than a thirteen year old getting a stiffy during history class. "Sometimes Alex...needs to be alone."

But it didn't matter where he was. It didn't matter where he was or where I was or what I did. He wasn't here. I wasn't here. It didn't matter who was in the room; I was alone.

"What if he moved on?" I crowed, my voice straining. It was the first time I had voiced my worst fear, and I really wanted to take it back, in fear that saying it out loud would somehow make it true.

"Well that's not possible. He'd have to have you first," Jack said offhandedly, his voice much more sure and nonchalant than mine. He slapped a hand down over his mouth. "I wasn't supposed to say that."

It was something I would've smiled at, I think. It was still so surreal that Alex had wanted me in the way I wanted him. "Had wanted me"? A tear down my clammy cheek. I was already thinking like he was never returning. Why couldn't I be positive? Why?

Because life hadn't given me anything to be positive about.

"Listen, he'll come back," Jack assured me. He sounded unwaveringly sure of himself. "Probably later tonight. And if not, then tomorrow."

I wasn't much in the mood for pleasant conversation, and the silence got too thick after a while. He stood to leave and turned at the door, pausing with his hand on the knob.

"You might want to...um...read this," he returned to my side and handed me his phone.

The display read: Wanna know why Brooklyn Knight transferred to Dulaney? She's coming straight from rehab.

And right underneath was a picture that could've been anyone. It was someone from the chest down, shooting up. There was no face to the body, so it very well could've been me. Except the fact that I wasn't a drug addict straight from rehab.

Thank you, Dallas and Sanchez.

Like I wasn't already enough of a pariah.

Life just loved messing with me. I had a distinct feeling it wasn't going to leave me alone until I finally broke and gave up.

I was getting closer and closer with each breath I took.