The hot water rolling down my face felt like tears, but I was not crying. Definitely not. I hadn't felt a prick of any emotion since the core of my existence left town with his family — vowing never to come back. I was numb. And I held on to that numbness like a tank of air at the bottom of the ocean.

He — I couldn't bear to think his name — was my sole reason for existing, my only reason to live. And now that he was gone . . .

Death would have been such an easy out. But I couldn't hurt Charlie like that, couldn't cause Renee so much pain. It seemed a crime to do something so horrific to my loving parents, so I persevered. I couldn't deny my own pain, but I could at least shield Charlie and Renee from it.

I went through life, avoiding any type of activity that would remind me of him. I was careful to leave the room whenever the tv was on. I dumped all my CDs in the trash. Whenever the memories of my last birthday came into my mind unintentionally, I remembered his present to me. I shied away from those memories. All I could do was to get rid of the objects of the pain, the CDs.

The black trash bag in the back of my closet wrenched pictures that had been hidden in the back of my mind forward whenever I glanced at it. I had torn the stereo out of my truck months ago, trying to banish the pain in another failed attempt. The gaping hole in my dashboard resembled the one in my chest.

That first week , which I tried so very hard not to think about, had been so tortuous that I could hardly bear to think about it even now, four months later. I could not eat; I couldn't move. My whole body ached with the pain of recovering from numbness.

The night he left, I remember a damp pain in my limbs. The rest is very foggy, like I had been half asleep for the whole thing.

I guess I should have been grateful for my oblivion, but there was too much that I had to remember, too much that I should have paid more attention to. Like the chiseled plane of his cheekbones, the pale marble of his skin, the velvet texture of his voice . . .

I stopped myself right there. I couldn't afford to break down at this moment. Charlie was waiting for me. I stepped out of the shower and dressed as quickly as possible without injuring myself. It seemed I had become even more clumsy after he left, if that were even possible.

I made dinner with little enthusiasm. Charlie watched me apprehensively while I moved around the kitchen. But I was used to it by now. Ever since that first week, Charlie seemed expectant of something, like he worried that I was going to have a nervous breakdown at any moment. I tried carefully to hide my pain, but it was so intense that sometimes I let it show through. Apparently, my facade hadn't been working, though I should have figured that out a long time ago.

I served Charlie's dinner and sat down across from him. He smiled up at me and started stuffing his face. I couldn't watch.

Eating had never been a problem for me before, but now it faintly disgusted me. Logically, I knew that I would have to eat to stay alive, but illogically, I felt as though I could survive anything but this. As though I could live without food but not without him.

I was jerked back to reality by a sharp pain in my chest. My battered heart was painfully rejecting those kind of thoughts. Charlie was still shoving his supper down. I took a few tentative bites and stood up to take my plate to the sink. "Are you done already?" Charlie asked.

"Yeah." I sighed. Charlie grunted and turned back to his plate. Leaving Charlie to finish his dinner, I headed upstairs to do my biology homework. But I ended up sitting on my bed, letting my mind wander — something I was exceptionally careful not to do. Free time was definitely not on my list of safe activities. I tried to always keep my mind busy. Things tend to come back to you when you're not doing anything, especially painful things. I could not let that happen.

So how did I end up here, with my mind free and open? I hadn't felt like doing my homework, or anything else for that matter. Maybe it was time for a change, never mind how painful that might be.

Why did Charlie worry about me so much? It wasn't like I was showing signs of depression. Or maybe I was, my mask of indifference slowly wearing off as the time passed. But I hadn't missed a day of school since that horrific first week, I had managed to keep up an A in every one of my classes, and I had never broken curfew. I never went anywhere from which to break curfew actually, but that didn't matter. I was being everything a well-behaved teenager should be . . . wasn't I? Charlie didn't seem convinced. I needed to work harder to keep him from realizing my intruding pain. He couldn't be exposed to my nearly insane emptiness.