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I'd been a vulnerable wreck. Barely coherent through my exhaustion and desolation. And neither of us has brought it up since.

My anxiety is back now in full force, my heart twists painfully in my chest and my gut churns with bone crushing grief. With all of the issues I've had to learn to deal with—or
attempt
to deal with—I'm fully aware that I have yet to process Cam's death in any healthy, appropriate way. But how do I begin to process something that threatens to send me spiraling into a terrifying panic every time I so much as think about it?

Because the tragedy of what happened to Cam is distressing enough. The guilt that consumes me over being the cause of it—it's not something I'm likely to ever come to terms with. But it's the harrowing loss, the despair-shaped hole left in Cam's place, that threatens to send me plummeting past panic, back into the pit of depression in which I spent the months before I moved here. And I know if I find myself back there again, well, I may never find my way out.

I sit there silently, unable to reply to my mother's question about Cam, so I do nothing more than try to stay calm and force my eyes to remain dry, but my non-answer answers for me.

My mother sighs. It's a sad, resigned sigh, and it disheartens me even more.

"I spoke to Michelle yesterday."

Of course she did. She was on the phone when I got home from studying calculus with Sam yesterday and hastily ended her call and hung up as soon as I walked in. It's what she always does if I walk in on her on that call she makes religiously every week. She thinks overhearing the conversation might trigger me, and in truth, she may very well be right.

It's completely messed up, I know that. But Michelle just reminds me of Cam, and the pain is still too raw, too potent. I'm not strong enough. I don't know if I ever will be.

"She's sounding better lately. She asks about you, you know," my mom continues.

"I-" My breath catches in my throat. My heart beats too fast as Michelle-colored images swarm my mind—of my childhood, of my past. Each fragmented image leaves remnants of Cam in its wake. It's all too connected, and there's just no way for me to extricate Cam from memories of Michelle. He's there, ever present, inextricably entwined into every happy memory I'd ever had, and especially into those of his own mother.

Damn it
. I worry my lip between my teeth in an attempt not to allow my frustration to manifest into sobs.
Why is she bringing this up now?

"I don't want to talk about this," I mutter hoarsely. I take deep breaths, focusing intently on every inhale and exhale.

"I know that, Rory, honey. But you need to eventually, and you were able to talk to Sam Caplan about it, so maybe if you just try—"

I stand abruptly. I don't want to think about Cam and I don't want to think about Sam. All I feel is guilt and grief and I can't fucking bear it right now!

"I
do
try! I try every fucking day, Mom! I have to
try
to do things that you just
do
. I have to
try
to sleep, I have to
try
not
to sleep. I have to
try
to get up in the morning, to go to school. I have to
try
not to break down at any given moment. I have to
try
not to freak out when some random guy passes too close, looks at me too long. I have to try to stop worrying that he's going to find me again. To try and accept the fact that he's going to get away with ruining my fucking life!"

My rant is hysterical, and my awareness of this fact in no way helps me to change it. My tears run freely down my cheeks, and the horrified look on my mother's face only delivers a fresh wave of guilt.

Dr. Schall clears his throat, as if to remind us both that he is still present, but I don't break eye contact with my mother.

"Rory if you don't feel ready to discuss Cameron Foster then that is okay," he assures me. "I think what your mother is trying to understand is why you felt able to discuss him with Sam Caplan, but not her, or myself."

I open my mouth to respond. But I don't
have
a response. I don't know how to explain my connection with Sam, or how in that moment I just felt as if I could tell him anything. I don't know how to explain how conversely, I can't talk about Cam to my mom. She knew him. She loved him. How can I look her in the eye and witness her own grief when I know I am the cause of it?

"Cam's dead." My voice is low and toneless, like it's coming from someone else. "There's nothing to talk about. He's not coming back." I feel physically sick to my stomach. It's a hard truth for me to voice, one I'm reluctant to accept, but one I know to be true.

"Rory, why don't you have a seat," Dr. Schall suggests, but I can't. I'm jumping out of my own skin. I feel cornered. Like they planned this. Like they got me in this room and tried to trick me into talking about Cam.

"Honey, I know how hard you're trying. I do. And I'm so proud of you. I just think if you talked about him—"

"I don't want to fucking talk about him!" I wail.
Why won't she just get the fucking point?!
"I never should have talked about him to Sam! I never should have gotten close to Sam at all! All I do is fuck everything up!"

I'm practically blinded by my own tears as I dart out of the office, only vaguely aware of them both calling after me. I ignore the receptionist's startled look, and flee through the vestibule. Only when I'm outside can I take a deep breath. I feel for my purse strap, and realize that in my haste to get out of there, I left it behind.
Fucking great.

Now I don't have my car keys or my pills. In fact, I realize that it's probably the only reason my mother didn't come after me, since it's more than clear I shouldn't be driving right now.

Instead, I lean back against the brick facade of the medical office building and squeeze my eyes shut in an attempt to squelch my tears. I count backwards from ten, again and again, and breathe. I breathe in and out, in, and out.

It's long minutes before my breaths even out and my tears start to slow. I swipe at my cheeks with the sleeve of my leather jacket. It's then that I remember I left a lone cigarette in the pocket, bummed from Dave several days earlier.

I don't want to smoke. I know how unhealthy it is, and the last thing I want is to develop a nicotine addiction.

Well, no. That's not actually true. The
last
thing I want is to feel like this for another fucking moment. So I pull out the matchbook that I keep in that same pocket and light the cigarette. I inhale deeply, embracing the calming effects, all the while silently lamenting over how much I hate my life. And then I hate myself even more for my self-loathing. Because this isn't who I want to be.

"Rory?"

I'm startled by a girl's voice. I hastily drop my cigarette and stub it out with the sole of my boot and wipe my eyes again. I recognize her immediately.

"Hi Bits." I greet Sam's kid sister with a shaky voice. I've only met her a couple of times—once here at Dr. Schall's, of whom she's also a patient, and once at dinner at the Caplans' house.

I watch her expression grow concerned as she approaches, and I add mortification to my list of overwhelming emotions. I try hard to hide my distress, but I doubt I'm all that effective.

"Everything okay?" she asks.

It's a ridiculous question. It's obvious that everything's not okay.
Nothing's
okay. I don't even know what
okay
is anymore. But something in Bits's eyes expresses the sincerity of her concern, exuding an empathy reminiscent of her brother's. An exceptionally rare degree of understanding and an answering compassion.

Of course, Bits knows what it's like to feel like utter shit. When she'd intentionally overdosed on pills last summer, after what had once been described to me as a
bad breakup
, it had really shaken her older brother. And it was Sam who confided in me about it. But pain knows pain, and I recognized something kindred in Bits almost immediately.

"No," I whisper. It's the first time I've admitted it out loud, and there's something vaguely freeing about it. Bits just nods and, to my surprise, wraps me in a hug.

I lean into her, accepting her offer of friendship. We pull away at the same time, and though I hate that Bits went through what she went through, it helps to know someone has gone through hell and come out the other end okay. She certainly seems okay, anyway.

"I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you're going to get through this. And one day, maybe not as soon as you'd like, but one day down the road, you're going to look back at all this and see it differently," she says with a wisdom that is far beyond her sixteen years.

I don't know if it's true, of course. It doesn't seem likely. That there will be a time when I'll come to terms with being without Sam, when I'll accept the way I lost Cam. If I'll be able to move on from Robin. If he'll even let me go. Sam will move on eventually. If he hasn't already. He'll meet a girl, and if I want to stay in his life I'll have to be okay with it. How could any of that ever feel
okay?
It all feels so hopeless. I feel the ache in my chest and the emptiness in my gut as sharp as ever.

But it lifts my pitiful mood to hear that at least for Bits, her depression is in the past. To see her looking genuinely happy.

"Sure hope so," I mutter.

Bits smiles faintly in reassurance. And then I nearly panic again.

"Shit, Bits, please don't tell Sam about this. I don't want him to think-"

"Don't be ridiculous." She says a line her brother has dropped so many times. "Sammy only
thinks
I tell him everything," and she smiles wryly.

From absolutely nowhere, a small laugh makes its way up my throat, and in its wake a small, barely-there smile.

The door opens behind me and my mother emerges from the vestibule, holding my purse.

"Rory, I'm sorry—" she begins.

"It's fine." I cut her off. She's relieved, but she doesn't let it show long as she notices our company.

"This is my friend, Beth," I tell my mother. Really only her immediate family calls her
Bits
, and it's probably weird that I call her that, but it's the way Sam introduced her to me.

My mother would have recognized her if I'd called her
Bits
, but I don't want to embarrass her by explaining exactly who she is. We are at a therapists office, after all, and one who specializes in teen victims of abuse and depression at that. Though the hint of recognition in my mother's expression tells me the unmistakable midnight blue of Bits's eyes didn't get past her.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Sam Caplan's sister," she introduces herself. I guess she's not quite as ashamed of her issues as I am of mine.

Bits excuses herself so she can get to her appointment, and I spend the next several minutes convincing my mother that I'm now okay to drive.

When we meet up back at home, neither of us brings up Cam or our failure of a therapy session, and dinner is a quiet and somber event. We don't force conversation, there's no need. It's not our first dinner shrouded in silence and regret.

Chapter Three

I
speed walk around the perimeter of the school so that I don't keep my friends waiting for lunch. They all leave through the entrance near the gym since it's adjacent to the student lot, but I still can't bring myself to walk past the locker rooms. I see Carl and Tina in the distance standing by her car waiting on me, but I'm startled by the male figure huddled behind the steps leading to the lot.

"Dave?" I ask when I reach him and realize who it is. He spins to face me.

"Shh!" he replies, looking a bit panicked. I raise my eyebrows in question.
What the hell is he doing?
But then I follow his gaze to Chelsea's white BMW, where she and a couple of her friends, including Lily, are chatting.

"You are
not
hiding from Lily right now…"

His expression tells me that that is precisely what he is doing. I start cracking up, and I'm vaguely aware that it's probably the first time I've really laughed since Miami.

"Either get lost, or get back here and hide, Pine!" he loud-whispers.

I really have to get to Carl's car, but I join Dave for a minute and mimic his position crouched behind the concrete steps, still laughing.

"Did you see her? Was she looking this way?" Dave asks anxiously. It is incredibly comical.

"She's just standing around by Chelsea's car," I assure him. "What happened? You two were getting along so well over break." Actually they were hooking up over break, and I'm pretty sure Lily was hoping for it to continue.

Dave raises his eyebrows at me. I deflate. Of course, they're not the only ones who were getting along especially well in Miami. I almost hate it when Dave has these random moments of wisdom—I prefer his usual role as the comic relief in our group. Compassion marks his features, and maybe a little regret. I don't think he meant to wipe the amusement from my face so quickly and completely.

"She's fine, you know, but I'm not looking to marry the girl," he murmurs.

"I don't think—"

"Or have a relationship of any kind. Or hook up with her again either, for that matter," he clarifies.

I frown. I like Lily. And I know she really likes Dave. His rejection is going to sting.

"Don't look at me like that, Pine. It was just a hookup. I'm just not that into her, or whatever that line is. We can't all be Andy and Tina. Or Tuck and Carl now, apparently." Dave shrugs. I guess I can't blame him for not returning Lily's feelings. He's entitled to feel how he feels. Though it probably would've been better if he'd considered his lack of feelings prior to sleeping with her.

"Well that's all up to you, Dave, but you can't just hide from her every day. Just tell her the truth."

"Dude, I did. I totally told her I didn't wanna continue seeing her,
and
I fucked Lisa last week—"

"
Jesus,
Dave!" My laughter doesn't make me sound too serious though.

"Whatever, Pine, you're one of the guys, it's cool," he says dismissively, waving me off. How am I always
one of the guys?

But Dave really has become a friend. He was there that night Robin came after me in Miami, and he's one of the few people who knows my attacker wasn't a stranger. I knew that Carl, Tucker, Tina, and Andrew would keep it to themselves, but I did have doubts about Dave. I feel guilty about that now. Sam, on the other hand, was confident that Dave could be trusted, and time has proven him right. At least so far. I've come to realize that after Tuck, Dave is probably Sam's closest friend, and he has grown on me quite a bit. I trust Sam's judgment implicitly, and the more I get to know Dave, the more I warm to him.

"She wants me to take her to prom. I think she just wants a varsity shirt to wear on Senior Monday. But even asking her to prom wouldn't give her the right for that! It's not like we're a couple. She dropped hints about prom over break, but I ignored them, because, you know, I was just looking to get laid. But now she's enlisting her friends! Girls are fucking crazy, man!"

"Thanks," I say sarcastically, but he dismisses me again, like I'm not even a girl at all.

"She had Carl tell Tuck to get me to ask her, and had Tina push Andy about it, too. I never gave her a reason to think I wanted all that."

"Well—"

"Fucking crazy, I'm telling you."

"So your plan is what? To hide for a few weeks until she forgets about you? Out of sight, out of mind?" I tease.

Dave blinks at me. "Um, yeah. Kind of, actually," he deadpans, and I burst into another fit of laughter.

Dave smiles.

"You could just give in and ask her. You know, go as friends. People do that, don't they? If they're not in a relationship?" I ask. That was standard back home. No one stayed home from prom. You either went with the guy you were dating or went with a guy friend. Only a few ever went stag.

"I
could
, but she'd take it the wrong way. Anyway, that'd probably get in the way of my plan to get in Sara's pants," he admits, and my laughter returns. "You going with Cap?" he asks, and my brow furrows.

I shake my head. "I don't really do school dances… not that he asked me."

Dave looks confused. "You have to come to senior prom. I mean, it's senior fucking prom," he says matter-of-factly, but I just shrug. The truth is, I'm pretty sure a school dance, even prom, could be a real dangerous trigger for me.

But I've only been at this school since February, so it doesn't really feel like
my
senior prom anyway.

"Well I'd say you and I should go as friends, it'd probably get Lily off my back, but it would also get Cap to knock me the fuck out, so you're out of luck, Pine," Dave teases.

"Ha. ha." I reply humorlessly. "I told you, Sam didn't ask me. We're just friends. He wouldn't care if I went with someone else, especially as a friend. But like I said, I don't do school dances."

Dave eyes me dubiously and I wonder what he's not saying.

"Shit," he loud-whispers when we see Chelsea's car zoom past our hiding place and out of the student lot just as my phone buzzes with a text from Carl asking where I am. "Do you think they saw us?"

I shake my head. "You're ridiculous," I tell him, as I stand and begin to make my way to my friends. I glance back as Dave climbs cautiously from his spot, looking around to make sure the coast is clear, and I shake my head again. He is too funny.

We decide on frozen yogurt for lunch, so it's just Carl, Tina, and me. The boys are presumably at the diner, and I don't know if I'm more relieved to not have to fake
just friends
with Sam, or disappointed not to be near him.

I never knew you could miss someone while you're right next to them. But that's the phenomenon my situation with Sam has created. And it freaking hurts.

But not as bad as losing him would hurt.

Tina starts talking about some dress she saw in Bergdorf Goodman last weekend when she was shopping with her mom in Manhattan. It's ridiculously priced for a prom dress—or any dress in my opinion—but Tina is hell bent on convincing her parents to agree to let her buy it. Carl had already purchased a dress, but now that she and Tuck are a real couple, she wants to get something more special. I supply my cursory smiles and ignore their pushes to get me to agree to attend the stupid dance. It seems like its the only thing anyone can talk about these days.

"So, did Tuck give you his varsity shirt yet?" Tina asks teasingly.

Carl—completely out of character for her—actually blushes as she nods.

"I bet you never thought you'd be wearing a guy's varsity shirt on Senior Monday, huh, Ms. Independent?" Tina is enjoying this, whatever it is she's referring to. I can only assume Carl wasn't exactly the relationship type pre-Tuck. I only really know her as being in love with Tuck. Even before she would admit it. Of course, the last time I'd seen her before I moved back here this past February, we were both twelve.

"What… and what?" I remind them that I'm still fairly new here and have no idea what the hell they're talking about.

"Oh. Yeah. It's tradition. Senior Monday is the last Monday of school. There's an assembly and whatever, and it's like a proclamation. For couples. If a girl wears her guy's varsity shirt it's like saying they're not just a high school relationship—that they're staying together. Obviously it's only for varsity athlete's girlfriends. Back in the day girls used to wear their boyfriends' class ring. But no one gets those anymore," Tina explains. The tradition surprises me. It's the kind of thing that would be normal back home, but here… I'd expect people to be more progressive.

"So you wear your boyfriend's varsity tee shirt and it's some grand proclamation of commitment?" I ask.

"Pretty much," Carl replies, and we all three giggle at the ridiculousness of it.

"So if your guy doesn't give you his shirt, or if he does and you don't wear it that Monday, it's what? Just a big
fuck you?
" I ask.

"Pretty much," Carl says again. "Kind of a way to say 'you were good enough to date in high school, but I'm keeping my options open'."

"Well that's fair, isn't it? I mean, how often is it that people find their future husbands or wives in high school these days?" I ask casually, but Tina and Carl just blink at me.

I've hit a nerve. With myself, too, I realize. I'm not sure either of them could quite imagine a future without their guys. Certainly not any more than I could imagine wanting to be with anyone other than Sam. But I can't be with him. And I realize that means I end up alone.

But if it gets Sam the future he deserves, then I can handle that, I remind myself.

Thankfully, Tina changes the subject to some popular bar in the city that we're apparently all going out to Thursday night. Friday is another "senior activity"—Senior Sleep-In. At first I thought it must be some kind of Lock-In where the students all spend the night in the gymnasium, but it isn't.  

Apparently the last Friday of school before finals was traditionally Senior Ditch Day—where students cut class for the entire day. The faculty took issue with that a few years ago, the seniors complained, and thus a compromise was reached—Senior Sleep-In, where seniors can come in late, after fifth period and thus ditch half the day. Since we get to sleep until like eleven in the morning, new tradition apparently dictates that the night before, we have to go out and have a late—well, the word Dave used was
epic—
night out in the city.

I can't say I'm especially looking forward to it. The truth is, ever since Miami, I haven't really felt particularly comfortable going out at night at all. It's all just too familiar. The loud music, crowded bar or house, drunk people… all loud whispers of a memory I'd rather soon forget. But I've only been to one small get-together in these past weeks, and Carl made me promise not only to commit to going out the night before Senior Sleep-In, but to come to Andrew's tonight. Something I'm definitely not looking forward to.

But I agree, because becoming a depressed shut-in would mean Robin won. And I can't have that. Not after everything he's already taken from me.

****

I
ride with Carl and Tina to Andrew's for his regular Friday night party. Sometimes it's an all out rager, other times it's your average high school party, but usually, like tonight, it's more of a get-together. Thirty or so of their friends. Of my friends, I guess. Though there are only about six of them I actually consider friends.

I feel a strange, new kind of anxiety. Not the kind that threatens a panic attack—though that's never more than some random trigger away—but the Sam-induced kind. It's this elusive mixture of eager anticipation and dread. A hint of excitement, a whisper of fear. Because I am both desperate to see him, and terrified of the exact same thing.

I miss him. Terribly. But I hate the act. The show. Of pretending I
don't
miss him terribly. Of being right next to him and at the same time, in another way, so excruciatingly distant. Of acting like this is really all I want, and forget the
something more
.

I dread it. When I have to step into the facade and pretend this is all okay. That
I’m
okay.