Author's note: Okay yeah, as I went back to edit this chapter, I realized just how morbid it sounded. And for that, I apologize. This is a bit of a shorter update but a lot goes down. I hope it's not too confusing.

I also feel like I should apologize for the way I talk about a certain mental disorder in this chapteror rather, the way Eli thinks about it. I'm not really very informed about this particular disorder at all, although, come to think of it, neither is Eli (obviously?).

So I'm sorry if I was inaccurate or offensive in anyway. I'm no expert, just a seemingly average person with internet connection.

Lyrics credit goes out to Mayday Parade's The Memory

Annnnnnd THANKYOU thank you for reading despite this obnoxiously long author's note.

You're wonderful.

Walk away
I'm barely breathing as I'm lying on the floor
Take my heart as you're leaving
I don't need it anymore

Up and down dark dank streets, he drives much too fast. The flickering streetlights cast an eerie glow on the passing pavement. Not that he pays it any mind. His eyes see the road only briefly while his brain invokes the image of her face, twisting, turning. Fiercely beautiful in his mind's eye despite the distortion.

As his hands grip the wheel, he watches her lips form words, words he still has trouble believing.

This is the curse of having too much time to think about it

He tries to tell himself it was only a memory – her face and those words – but that does nothing to slow his breathing. She's left, she's gone, she's abandoned him. She is but a memory. The memory forever slipping through his grasp, falling between his clumsy fingers until all that's left in his outstretched hand is his own empty shell of a heart.

He drives and drives and drives. He drives to escape.

Nothing seems quite real, quite right. Not the rushing pavement, not his clenched clammy grip on the wheel and certainly not Clare. At least, not the Clare he saw tonight – this morning? He doesn't know. He tries not to care. Only drives.

Drives to escape – this mess, this life. He feels as if he's stopped living, his body in slow motion while the flash of night and streetlights pass on the road, the car speeding ahead.

Vaguely, he recalls, oh – what was it called again? That theory, that extremely rare condition where one believes there is a part of him or her that no longer exists?

Sometimes, one thinks his or her heart is missing, vanished...

Sometimes it is the brain…

Still other times, they believe they have died, lost their souls.

He dimly remembers watching one of those late night crime shows with CeCe however long ago. Possibly a lifetime.

Now spring has brought the rain
But I still see your face

Cotard. Walking Corpse Syndrome.

The killer had the Cotard delusion. He could not recognize himself in the mirror. Consequently, he ceased to exist.

Eli's foot lies further on the gas. What would it be like to be unfamiliar with all of this? To watch life from a safe, secure distance?

To no longer recognize himself?

Right now, he just wants to erase everything. The meeting, the smiling, the laughing, the draining, the slipping, the driving, the grasping, the crying. All of it. He just wants it gone – obliterated – over – finished – done –

The car lurches. He cannot fathom how his hands manage to turn the wheel in time, how his foot miraculously hits the brake. In an instant, he sees a distant figure cross the street up ahead. The individual walks at a casual pace not typically associated with dark nights on the highway. His headlights illuminate the face. It is a girl, unfamiliar and previously unknown to him, wisps of hair blowing haphazardly around her. By the time he swerves to miss her, she is gone.

His car in the guardrail, airbags deflate. He knows he's not dead for all the confusion and pain he has in store. But he certainly doesn't feel alive.

I cannot escape the past, creeping up inside
Reminding me that I can never bring you back

Cotard? The rearview mirror has a crack down the center, a parallel image, he can feel, of his heart. But no. He sees. He knows. There he is in the broken mirror. Bloodied, ugly, frenzied, damaged. Eli in ruins.

He yearns for the apathy, the disconnection, the escape. His hands sink into wet, matted hair. There is a sobbing, ugly awful sound screaming in the hearse. His eyes cut a glance to the shattered mirror. His mouth is open, wide in horror. He finds he cannot close it.

This scene, he's played it before, outside the car on this night an entire year ago today. This is the highway. The very same highway where he watched her die.

His fingers clench wet, bloodied strands of hair. They tug and they pull and they tear. How could he not have noticed before that he'd come crawling back to Julia's deathbed? Her concrete grave?

No No No.

He was here, he was back.

And there come the sirens, the flashing blue and red lights, closer, nearer, here, prying open his car door, saying words, something he cannot comprehend.

Out of the corner of his eye, a figure emerges. A girl, wisps of hair blowing haphazardly around her. She paces on the other side of the ambulance. Her glasses fog up in the cool night air.

With effort, he blinks.

She is gone. And all is black.

Someone help me
because the memory convinced itself to tear me apart
a
nd it's gonna succeed before long