There had been times over the last few weeks where I had to pinch myself after waking up in AJ's soft, clean-smelling sheets, as if I'd been enveloped in a dream instead of her arms. Her hair was splayed in ribbons across my chest, and her breath tickled my bare skin. I gently slid myself out from under her, only stirring her slightly from her sleep before she rolled over and pulled the covers over her head. I threw a shirt on and tiptoed down the hallway to the kitchen.

AJ had mentioned the other day she hadn't had a real breakfast in a long time, so I wanted to surprise her, and even though I'd only made pancakes once in my life and I generally burnt bacon to a crisp, I knew how to scramble an egg. 1 out of 3 could be worse, and the rest of it was the thought that counted.

As I fumbled around AJ's kitchen, I thought about the probability that this was what my future would look like. Making breakfast in the mornings, because I could actually get up early after a normal night's sleep. Flour on my hands and a flower on the windowsill above the sink. Four months ago, the thought of my future wasn't even a speck on the horizon. Now it was here, in living, breathing form.

I had minimal dexterity in my hands to begin with, but flipping pancakes was hard. I'd already botched two, but to avoid screwing the next one up, I tried to shimmy my hand under from a different angle and ended up burning my wrist on the pan.

I yelped, but quickly clamped my hands over my mouth to avoid waking AJ up. After shaking the burning sensation out of my hand, I looked down and saw the spatula in two pieces.

"You gotta be kidding me," I grumbled. "Cheap piece of shit."

I hadn't even made the eggs yet.

I turned the stove off and started pulling open drawers in the kitchen, looking for either another spatula or something that could put the spatula back together. After going through every drawer and every cabinet, I tiptoed my way back down the hall and towards AJ's office, hoping I could find some tape or something.

The door opened with a creak, and morning light filtered through the blinds in tiny slivers on the hardwood floors. Even though I'd been staying at AJ's condo regularly, I'd never been in her "office." It looked far more lived-in than the rest of the guest house, with stacks of books in the corner and an antique wooden desk pressed against the wall by the window. The desk looked like her notebooks had thrown up all over it, with bundles of papers and handwritten notes everywhere. How hard could it have been to just find some god damn tape?

I pulled open the first drawer, which was just filled with pens and a leather bound notebook with a string tied around it. My heart lurched into my throat as I ran my fingers over the divots in the leather. I knew by this point I had reached snooping level, but I couldn't help myself. My self-control was still on the edge of a knife, and this pushed me over. I just wanted to know what was buried in her soul, why was that so wrong?

I untied the string and started thumbing through the notebook. I traced my finger over her delicate handwriting, admiring the way she curled her y's and drew little circles over her i's to dot them. Could you be so smitten with someone that you even fell in love with their handwriting?

It wasn't under after I started deciphering her notes that my chest began to tighten. The word struggling jumped out at me several times. Struggling addict. Struggling relationships. Struggling to breathe.

It had to just be a coincidence. My name wasn't anywhere, but the words pulled me in deeper. I turned the page to strings of sentences, detailing a boy on the beach who couldn't find his way out of a paper bag. It was like a short little story, and suddenly I found myself reading about my own life from someone else's perspective. My stomach churned, and my heartbeat throbbed in my ears, but I couldn't put it down. It was like watching a car crash.

He's cute, in a lost puppy kind of way. Everything about him seems lost, and I have to wonder how much of a lost cause does he think he is, and how prepared was I to find out?

Still in delusional denial, I flipped the page again.

I pull up next to him, and I don't think at first he registers that I'm there. When he finally glances up at me, still sitting on the pavement, there's a glazed look in his eyes, and I'm not sure if it's lust, or drugs, or some combination of both.

There were words and sentences scribbled out below that, but underneath it all was the dagger in my chest.

Kai, from the sea.

I furiously flipped towards the back pages, but before I could take in any more, I heard a voice behind me.

"What are you doing?"

I swallowed the lump that made its home in my throat and turned to face AJ, still rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Seeing her standing there, with my t-shirt hanging off of her shoulder and her freckled cheeks still ruddy from sleeping on my chest, is what broke my heart the most. It hit me all at once, like a freight train. This girl, this perfect fucking girl that I had fallen head over heels in love with, was probably just using me for a storyline.

"What is this?" my voice came out meeker than I wanted it to, a knot of pain still lodged in my throat.

"What is what?"

She took a step towards me, and I took a step back, nearly backing myself into the desk.

I flipped open the notebook again and read out loud, "He's strung out and he smells like coffee and cigarettes, but I can't help thinking I'm making the same mistake all over again."

I sighed and snapped the notebook shut.

"They're just my notes, Kai." AJ's voice was eerily calm, and it only seemed to send me flying off the handle even more. "Listen, there's nothing-"

"Notes? For what? This god damn secret book you've been working on?" I groaned. "God damn it, you know it all makes sense now. Your fucking book is about me, isn't it?"

AJ's gaze dropped to the floor. "I...I was going to tell you-"

"Tell me when?" I snapped. "You know, when I asked you if you were going to write about me, I didn't think you'd take it so fucking seriously. You're literally plagiarizing my life, and there's not even anything good in there! Is this what you really think of me? Just a fucking mistake you're going to make?"

I threw the notebook on the floor, and it skidded across the hardwood to her feet. She still didn't look at me, but I watched a single tear glide down her cheek as she reached down and picked up the notebook.

"Was anything about us even real?" my voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Or was it just fucking fodder for your book?"

"Why would you even ask me that?" AJ cried.

"Because that's what it looks like!" My throat felt like I had swallowed a match to light the fuse in my stomach, and I had just self-destructed. "Get the stupid junkie to fall in love with you and pick you over drugs. Right, like what a great fucking story that would be, wouldn't it?"

"Kai...that's not..."

I willed my body to move and brushed past her, inhaling her perfect vacation scent for what might have been the last time. "Well congrats, it worked. Put that in your fucking book."

I stormed out of her condo, grabbing my skateboard from the front steps and taking off into the morning sun.

I propelled myself forward as fast as my aching legs would allow, blinking away the tears in the corners of my eyes so the road didn't become a complete blur. I hit a crack in the street and went flying off my skateboard, my knees skidding across the concrete. I laid on the ground for a few moments, trying to get the rattling in my bones to subside before pushing myself up and getting back on my skateboard. I felt blood trickling down my shins, and I was probably pretty hurt, but I couldn't feel it. The pain in my chest was screaming, howling, demanding to be felt, rendering the rest of me numb.

Everyone in my house had left for the day by the time I got back. I stumbled through the front hallway and towards the bathroom, starting to feel the sting of the tears in my knees. With shaky hands I fumbled around the medicine cabinet for band-aids, but there weren't any.

With every step I took, my head throbbed and my knees trembled. I cut through the kitchen and to my parent's bedroom, dragging my feet to the bathroom and tearing open the cabinets above the sink. Why were there no fucking band-aids in the entire house?

I sat down on the floor and yanked open the cabinets under the sink, hoping for at least Neosporin or something I could clean the gashes with. Blood stained the white tiles as I leaned forward and stuck my hand further back into the cabinet, knocking over bottles of hair dye and bumping my wrist on the pipe of the sink. My head was in such a fog, I couldn't even remember what the hell I was looking for.

The sound of rattling pills rang out in my head like gunshots. My heart lurched in my chest as I pulled out the plastic bottle I had knocked over and sat back on the floor. I ran my thumb over the label. Tramadol. 100mg. Danford, James.

I twisted the cap off and poured two little white pills into my trembling hand. I swallowed them back, closing my eyes and took another. And another. And another.

I sat on the floor and I waited as my entire body shook, though I couldn't tell if it was pain or something else. It wasn't working fast enough. I was in pain, right? I needed a painkiller to kill my pain. That was the god damn point.

I tipped the bottle back and swallowed the rest, sticking my mouth under the sink and washing it all back. My head filled with static, and as I ambled back into my parent's room, my body began to betray me.

I crawled onto my parent's bed and watched shadows of the clouds dance on the walls, and in my head I swayed along with them, not really sure if my body was moving or if the room was spinning.

I felt sick, but not the normal kind of sick. I felt like someone was reaching down my throat and trying to pull my stomach out of my mouth. I rolled over and hugged my still bleeding knees, and maybe in the darkest parts of my mind, I knew something was wrong, but I didn't move. I barely let my breaths leave my mouth. In my own twisted form of self-preservation, it was almost comfort. Getting high was like a warm blanket. It was something that welcomed me home, and something that wrapped itself around me when I was all alone in a dark room. In the end, that was where I belonged.

Slow dancing with my shadow, all alone in a dark room.

✗✗✗

so...be honest, how many of you saw this coming? I think by a few chapters ago some of you started to catch on that something wasn't quite right. The best plot twists shouldn't be "I never saw this coming!" they should be "I should have seen that coming!"

As we're nearing the end, what I wanted to emphasize now is how much of an unreliable narrator Kai is. Kai has this image of AJ in his head that we've been seeing through his eyes, not realizing that maybe she's just not as perfect as he's made us believe that she is. All that being said, AJ wanted and needed her life back too, and it would be wrong of her to just drop everything for this guy she started to fall for. I'm not justifying what she's done, but I'm trying to give perspective from a more neutral point of view.