"What is an 'instant' death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous."

- Looking for Alaska, John Green

34

I had one more bad day.

I say "one more bad day" because I decided the day after that was what I wanted it to be. The last one.

I was at Charlie's when I woke. The room was light from the mid-morning sun and the house was quiet, as he'd gone back to work with a five a.m. start. I hadn't even really been asleep, more in that awful state of dreaming from which no rest comes. The way my brain managed to contort the deaths of Rose and Renee still scares me. It terrified me at the time. What I hadn't let myself release during the day manifested in bad dreams when the lights went out. I was trying to be strong, but at night, I was weak. I shouldn't have let Edward go home the evening prior, but I couldn't use him as security. Maybe it was a good thing I hadn't gone back to Emmett's either. It prevented me from using Ben as a Band-Aid, rather than the reality check I got from being alone.

I had startled myself out of my nightmare at the horrifically clear image of Rose matted with blood. All of the worse case scenarios had happened in my mind that night. Rose didn't die instantly, Renee was trapped in the same car and couldn't hide from the bullet that was fired at her, the car didn't stop and Ben's side was crushed by the lamppost. Thank God I woke up before I saw any more of that part. The first thing I saw was her photo by my bedside, no blood, eyes smiling. A minor comfort. I hated that the dream was more like reality than the picture and began to cry tears that I thought had long dried out.

I cried until the lack of decent sleep and the pain in my head had me catatonic. I vaguely registered the distant sounds of phones ringing and my cell beeping. I must have drifted off, because time seemed to have passed when I heard the door crash open into the wall. My eyes felt closed over with puffiness, but I managed to see Alice as she was running toward me. She grabbed me into her arms in the bed.

"You didn't answer the phone! I thought you were…" she scolded me through her sobs.

I hoped I hadn't rubbed my bad day off on her, too. She'd been strong enough before now to know that this current pattern didn't mean we were all going to die this year. Today that sense seemed to have escaped her – though I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't have panicked if our positions had been reversed.

"I even called Edward and he said he didn't know; he said you should be here. I couldn't help but worry."

Sense was all very well until your baby sister got you scared.

I wondered if I needed meds, counseling, a psych ward… They were scary words. I needed my sister back. I needed my mom to have not been shot by a man we told her was terrible for her. It was just a bad day. The last one. I couldn't get her back, or help my mom. So it had to be the last one. I wouldn't drown in this; I wouldn't.

Shortly after Edward turned up, his face racked with a worry that should never befall his handsome features, I decided I needed to do a session with a grief counselor. It was partly for me and partly for everyone else's peace of mind. I had been conflicted because I didn't want to lie or hide from Edward that I wasn't entirely okay, but I didn't want him thinking I wasn't okay either. I wanted to seem strong and stable despite it all. Our relationship was new, and I guess I was self-conscious. He was realistic and perceptive – he would have known the brave face had cracks. I just didn't want to lose him because I turned out to be too fragile or too broken.

I managed to get an afternoon with Emmett's counselor two days later. I decided that I found talking to my family more effective than to Harry Clark. However, the best thing he did for me was to give me techniques, tips, and advice for the dreams, dealing with the memories, and finding myself again. I told him I didn't want to medicate. Even sleeping pills were a last resort. I told him how my mother had used sleeping pills, and one night after we had a heated discussion, she shut herself in her room. When I went to check on her she told me meekly that she'd taken more pills than she should have. I had to tell her that she was better than that, better than him, and then I had to sit there to make sure it definitely wasn't enough medication to cause her more harm than a heavy night's sleep. I was torn between shocked and furious that I was once again the grown-up in the situation. It was so wrong that I was in that position: I was thirteen, and it was the last time I bothered going to stay with her in Phoenix.

He of course wanted to talk about my feelings surrounding that experience, but I'd dealt with those long ago. Those things weren't secrets for me; my family discussed it openly, and I had left the older Renee dramas behind long ago. I took from them the lessons I needed to: don't stay with her again, don't take sleeping pills, don't drink so much that you make a fool out of yourself like her scumbag boyfriend. We moved on to talking about every holistic method Harry had in his grief-management arsenal.

I would start yoga. Herbal tea before bed. Watch alcohol consumption at night. Do one thing just for me every week. Keep writing my thoughts down. Keep going for walks with Ben. Try to reintroduce things I did "before" gradually. Music, dinners out, developing my career. Keep being open in my relationships. Don't feel like people will judge me for getting upset. Don't feel guilty when Edward makes me happy. Reaffirmations, mental imagery, books I could read. If this plan failed, or if I wanted to talk more about my mommy issues, I promised I would return for another appointment. He penciled me in for a month's time, just in case.