For Valentinas, traceit, someWhereinRoma and especially Greys has become my life, who really went above and beyond the call of duty with the detailed review (and yes, I loved every second of it). Thank you so much for your continued support, it really means a lot to me that anyone cares about this at all.

8

There had never been anything to do in Lima, of course, but there were even fewer options for me now, as I hadn't kept in touch with anyone I'd known before- I suspect most of them believed I was dead, considering the fact that I'd run away from home and simply never returned- and anyway I couldn't risk being recognized. At first I thought this would be a good thing. I could take some time to write some music, catch up on the new season of Dexter, and just relax, which is something I never got to do in Los Angeles. And the strange thing is, I knew I should have enjoyed it, would have enjoyed it just a few days ago, but now… The house was so big, and empty, and my footsteps literally echoed, and echoed, and echoed, with no response from feet other than my own.

There were ghosts and memories lurking everywhere, in the kitchen and living room and even the mailbox somehow, and it took so much effort to push them away, and I just felt so lonely. Which was abnormal for me; I'd been a quiet child, a quiet teen, and had been completely on my own since the age of 16. Being alone did not usually equate to being lonely, not for me anyway, and anytime it did I'd just write about it and maybe end up with a new single or, if I was feeling especially motivated, pick up a guy in a bar.

But I couldn't do that here (again). It was too risky and anyway I… I didn't really want to. My mind kept returning to thoughts of Will, and as much as this continued to perplex and terrify me, the terror would sometimes recede and I would smile, and genuinely look forward to Wednesday when I could see him again. And then I would catch myself, and reprimand myself, and I'd vow not to go, because I neither needed nor wanted friends and certainly not friends like him, so earnest and endearing and enthralling. Nor did I need or want anything else. At all.

The worst part was the fact that even though I went through this cycle, apprehension rising and falling like the tide inside me, I wore his shirt constantly. At this point it smelled more like me than like him, but… I wore it nonetheless. And I told myself it was because it was comfortable, and I never believe myself when I lie like that but I do it all the time anyway.

I don't want to sound delusional here, or at least not entirely delusional. After getting my GED I also took some college courses, including an intro to psychology, and that was more than enough for me to know that I was attempting to cope with whatever it was I couldn't handle by focusing my attention elsewhere, or something. The problem being that I'd chosen the worst possible elsewhere. It was a case of the cure being worse than the disease, and actually I'm not sure what I'm talking about. All I knew was that I'd broken the rules. I'd started to get to know him, and the little bit that I did know made me see the life I might have lived if I had stayed in Lima, the kind of man I might have married, the kind of family I might have had. And for literally the only time in the past ten years, I began to see that life I had forsaken as having more value than I'd originally believed.

It was something I'd never considered before, because when I'd left I'd felt like I hadn't had a choice, and really I hadn't. Between my mother constantly pushing me away and the voice inside my head screaming at me to run, there had been no other option for me, and my entire life as Honor felt like a boring, hazy daydream compared to the life I'd built for myself as Norah. Nothing had ever felt as real to me as the concrete floors of the Los Angeles central Greyhound station the day I climbed out of the bus that had delivered me from Ohio; secretly, inside, I saw that day as the day I was born.

But every hour back I was slipping, and California was so far away. The longer I inhabited the unfamiliar persona of my former self, the more real she became, the more the lines blurred. Suddenly the hardwood floors of my mother's house, cold and smooth under my bare feet, felt solid and true, and in all my memories of Los Angeles I was floating, un-tethered, my soles never touching the ground.

Yeah, so these were the thoughts that were running me ragged day and night, though occasionally I would sit and force myself to not think of my mother, just to keep it interesting, and is it any wonder I was sick of it, sick of myself? I wanted to be alone but couldn't stand the silence of my own company, wanted to be touched but couldn't stand the thought of anyone touching me, or almost anyone, and I ignored the exception because he just proved the rule that one-night stands should only and always be one night. And now looking back I wonder if maybe I wasn't having a nervous breakdown of some kind and simply didn't realize it.

This nonsense went on for two days, Saturday and Sunday wasted so pointlessly, no songs written, no Dexter watched, and definitely no relaxation accomplished. I was a wreck. Then, Monday, a visitor came and saved me from myself, and thank god, because really I was driving myself crazier than a musician is required to be by law, and nobody likes an overachiever.

TBC