Is it any wonder why I'm scared? If I was a little younger, would I care? Feeling like the walls around me are growing stronger, I don't know if this cage can hold me any longer.

I'm not sure when life started getting overly complicated.

I'm hearing the whispers around me. Everyone knows. Everyone knows what happened. They know about the ravine, they know about the van, they know about the bracelets.

They know about Jay. Maybe that's the part that scares me the most.

I look at him from across the hallway and it's the strangest thing. He fascinates me. I feel the deepest contempt and loating for him, and yet, I couldn't get enough. I still can't. I wouldn't let him know that though. Not that it would matter. Not now.

He became a different person the last few days we were together. Why am I calling it that? That's the farthest thing from what we were. I still don't know what it was. We were two lost people going in the same direction, drifting and drifting. I felt so utterly alone and just having the presence of someone who I felt remotely cared was enough for me.

I didn't even know he was capable of caring. But, when I looked at him from behind the curtain and he said those things to me, I knew that he did.

I walked away from him. I couldn't take what my life had become. If only these people who now talked about me knew, if only they knew. I want to share the outrage with them and tell them the real story. Not that there's that much to tell. He's Jay, he's what everyone thinks he is. He's more. He's got shades of kindness that trickle out like light rain and it always leaves you surprised as it hits your face and it leaves just as quickly as it came. His eyes tell a story. They're mad, sometimes. A lot of the time. That night backstage, they were grey. Grey with a lost light in them.

You never dreamed you'd live your life so guarded, because they'll find a way to make you feel discarded. I'm not afraid of tomorrow, I'm only scared of myself. It feels like my insides are on fire, and I'm looking through the eyes of someone else.

I couldn't help but watch him. He was like a trainwreck or a car crash, I knew what I was getting myself into but I went along for the ride anyway because I had nothing left. It began to overtake me, though. He began to overtake me. I watched him all the time. When he walked into a room, I had to know exactly where he was or what he was doing. He had this power over me that was so real and overwhelming that what else could I do but walk away? Everything I had left had been torn to pieces and all I could think of was escaping.

He looks at me often now, waiting for a chance to say something, waiting for me to say something. I won't though. He won't either, he's too scared. He'd never admit that, but I know. I know him better than he thinks I do.

That's why when he walked up to me, I was surprised.

Things have changed, you've become a complication. You can make it through another day's humiliation.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, hard and strongly, like his demeanor. He didn't say anything, he just looked at me with that same lost look like he missed me. That's not possible, though. There's nothing left to miss. I hate this silence. I've gotten a little more used to it, Jay and I never really talked that much. We would talk for little moments before retreating into what became the symbolism for my lost innocence and then, talking didn't even matter anymore. Talking messed things up, and that's why we are where we are. Nothing good ever comes from talking. But, silence is terrible as well. I wish I could find the perfect balance between talking too little and talking too much. I just want a little sound. Silence always makes me feel like I'm waiting for something.

I feel everyone's eyes on us. Somehow, Jay and I had become the talk of the school and I didn't like it. I was about to walk away from him again if he was just going to stand there and stare like I had just grown a third arm, but he grazed my shoulder lightly with his fingers and I couldn't move.

This isn't healthy. It's all bits and pieces. I can't concentrate. I've thought of so many things and now I can't even think of one. It makes me feel calmer, though. The illusion of calmness, anyway. Suddenly, it doesn't feel like everyone's eyes are on us anymore. All I see is him and that's all that matters. But, that moment leaves as quick as it came and nothing is left. I pull my shoulder away from his grasp and back away slightly, I couldn't move anymore. I still can't tear my eyes away from his and it frustrates me that he still has this power over me. He knows that he does. But, sometimes, that isn't enough.

It's different now. He just stands there looking gawky and then at once, seeing him without that hat on, I knew who he was. That memory of him will be forever etched on my mind as what could have been. We could have been something, we really could have been. I suppose I just memorize things without thinking sometimes, but this had a purpose. Everything that ever had to do with him has a purpose. He looks at me for a moment and I swear that he can see right through me. I wish he could. I'm screaming out to him in my mind to just look at me and realize that this isn't what I want. Things weren't supposed to be this way. But, I can't expect the world from him. He brings his hands back down to his side like he always does, he has a habit of that. He puts his hands to his side or behind his back because he just doesn't know what to do with them. It's unbearable how much I want to reach out and grab his hand and keep him next to me forever. But for now, I just watch as he nods in a silent defeat and walks away, with his head hung low, his feet moving in quiet shuffles down the blistering hallway.

I didn't think it would hurt so much to see him be the one to walk away.

Is it any wonder why the answer keeps me petrified? Is it any wonder why I'm scared?