Stu shrugged and opened up his truck door, putting the beer on the passenger seat. “I wish her luck and all, but I don’t need that shit in my life. There are plenty of bitches in the sea. No sense in straddling myself with one who has a kid and issues. No f**king thank you. So you’re more than welcome to swing by when you’re done playing babysitter. But if you’re just gonna be a bitch, stay away. We don’t need the buzz kill.” Before I could say anything else, Stu hopped up into his truck and drove away.

I never mentioned to Dania that I had run into Stu. What would have been the point? And she never mentioned the fact that our so-called friends never bothered to come by. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything.

It was hard to tell if she cared or not. It was impossible to know if she cared about anything anymore. Because she had gone into complete shut down. Nothing and no one mattered.

Except me.

She became clingy and tearful and I knew I couldn’t leave her alone. Despite everything she had done, everything she had said in the past, none of that counted now. Because she was suffering. And I couldn’t turn my back on her.

My life became consumed with helping her. Taking care of her. Trying to get her to put her life back together. She was incapable of doing anything for herself, her hollowness crippling her.

I tried to convince her to go to her doctor to get some medication but she insisted she didn’t need it. Even as she fell further and further into the black pit of her depression.

And she was taking me with her.

Because my entire life became focused on Dania and her issues. There was no room for anything else. My needs had been put on the backburner.

The life I had been building was flushed down the toilet and I found myself right back where I started.

Stuck and alone.

I woke up every single morning thinking about Flynn. I wanted to call him. I wanted to see him. I wanted to hold him and touch him again. But it seemed the longer I went without doing any of those things, the easier it became to convince myself that he was better off. That the only thing I could give him was pain.

After telling him that it was me who had burned down his house, I could never expect us to have a relationship built on anything other than distrust.

I knew I was being a coward by not at least talking to him, but the more time that went by, I became certain that there was no future for us. And it was easier to avoid him than to face the condemnation I was sure I would see on his face.

Numb and hard Ellie McCallum was fighting to make a comeback. The newly soft and cuddly Ellie McCallum was fighting just as much to hang on. And they were both miserable.

So even though I missed him so bad it was like a physical ache, I never called him. I never allowed my car to drive the familiar road to his house. But I could stop my heart from loving him or my mind from thinking about him.

There were some things I just couldn’t control.

And he it wasn’t as though he had tried to contact me either. And even though I knew, deep down, he was taking his cues from me, that perhaps he was feeling a rejection just as devastating as my own, it hurt that he hadn’t bothered.

As the weeks passed and the holidays came and went without a word, I realized I had ruined my chance at happiness. And now I was lost.

Because my life officially sucked.

I lived with a sliver of hope that Dania would snap out of it. That one day she’d wake up and be the old bitchy drama queen she used to be. But that never happened. And every day I felt more and more trapped because of it.

I tried not to resent her. But it was difficult. And the longer I went without speaking to Flynn the less bright and shiny my future became.

After the holidays, I started my new classes at Black River Community College. I had thought about dropping out, not sure school had any place in my life now. But the small campus was the only place I could pretend I was okay. But my excitement about school had waned and now I was just going through the motions.

Kara had invited me to go out a few times but I was less inclined to start a friendship that would go nowhere. Eventually she stopped asking. Even though she was still nice enough, a definite chill had taken the place of her easy candor.

I became more and more isolated, reverting back to the Ellie I had once been. It was like putting on a pair of shoes that I had outgrown. I wanted to wiggle my toes but they were tight and restrained.

I tried not to look for Flynn on campus. I tried like hell to pretend he wasn’t there at all. Repression had always worked so well for me in the past, this should be a piece of cake, right? I had once pushed my feelings for him away; I could do it again.

But my heart had evolved since the last time I had let him into my life and then discarded him. It wasn’t my heart to close off anymore. Flynn owned it. He owned me. And there was no getting rid of him.

Dania’s depression was catching. I found myself falling into a sad cycle of working at JAC’s, coming home and tending to Dania, and going to school. I rarely talked to anyone. I had given up. Just as Dania had.

We had lost ourselves.

I thumbed through the trashy magazine, counting down until I could get out of there. JAC’s was a little busier than normal but it wasn’t enough to stave off the boredom. I tried to stifle my jaw splitting yawn and wished I could prop open my eyelids.

I had been sleeping on my second-hand couch for months. I had never noticed how uncomfortable it was until I was forced to make it my bed. I spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to find a position that didn’t involve a coil digging into my back.