It's not the way her dad talks to her but doesn't really.

It's just that she feels like she's sinking into the ground even if she's just standing there and it's like the earth is crumbling onto her shoulders and everybody's screaming, "Come on, Jade! Keep shit together!" like it's her fault that everything is falling apart. Like it's her fault that her mom left.

Jade pinches herself.

She didn't mean to think about that. She hates, hates, hates thinking about that, hates the way that it pops into her mind whenever she's feeling the slightest bit sad.

Maybe it is your fault, she thinks.

Maybe it's your fault that you watched your dad scream at her and did nothing and maybe it's your fault that she would get the distant look in her eyes and maybe it's your fault that she wanted so much more and you never tried to give her what you wanted.

Nobody says, "It's okay, Jade. You were only, like, eight. Eight year olds don't know." Nobody rubs her back or holds her fingers or breathes into her hair like she's done for Cat so many times before. Nobody's brought her pizza or ice cream like she did for Vega that one time when she had mono and she was in bed for, like, two weeks.

The more Jade thinks about it, it's not so much her mother leaving her that's the cause of her feeling so abandoned all the time. Sure, she feels like a shot puppy when she sees Andre comfort Tori after the guy she likes doesn't feel similarly. Sure, the fact that her mom packed her bags and left at exactly 2:37 in the morning on March 16th (not that Jade really remembers) is probably the root of all the other holes in her life. Jade's no idiot, and she doesn't need some "professional" to explain her emotions to her. But maybe it's a lot of the fact that nobody has really started to care, even now.

Jade is tough as nails, apparently.

Jade feels no other emotion other than pure strength coursing through her veins.

She eats raw steel for breakfast.

Mashes it into her eggs and scarfs it down her throat.

"Not true!" Jade wants to scream. "I feel! I feel!" Not that she really knows what she feels. Sadness. A lot of that. But she feels, nonetheless, and that's gotta count for something, right?

I guess her friends have assumed that when she's obviously upset, that it's just her natural emotions. The part of her that snaps and shouts and has a persisting scowl on her lips.

Because nobody ever says anything to her regarding how she feels otherwise.

"Are you okay, Jade?"

She's never heard that in her life. Or any variation of that. Nothing like that has ever graced the precious lips of her friends and family. Not ever.

Because they don't care. They've got other things to worry about, like the chem test next Thursday, or the guy that keeps sending signals but won't make a move.

Jade wonders if she's being selfish, attention-seeking, for wanting her friends to realize that she sits up at night contemplating how she could die.

She wonders if she's being awful for thinking her friend's problems don't compare to hers, because that isn't true.

(Is it?)

She realizes that she shouldn't be one to judge. After all, she doesn't know what's going on underneath the surface. But then again...

"We're fucking glaciers, Jadey," her mother had said one time.

"What's a fucking glacier?" Jade had asked.

"Don't be stupid, okay? I mean that everybody's got their own shit. We only see a little bit of anybody, at first glance, at least. We never see the whole thing. We don't see underneath. Okay? So don't fucking assume things." Her mother exhaled a thin plume of smoke from her cherry-stained lips.

Two months later, her mother was gone. Left nothing behind but a scribbly note telling Jade to "take care of the fucking goldfish, will you?"

So it's not like Jade had to take any of her fucking advice.

All her words were slurred anyway.