I cannot remember the last time I saw such lifeless eyes.

The vacant look strikes me first. Then I see the stark blue of her eyes. Such a cold look should send shivers down my spine, but instead, I sit there and gaze at her imperviously, as we barrel down the road in my rickety and dented truck.

The girl hasn't spoken to me since we got into the truck. Earlier, my father helped me carry her out to the vehicle as she seemed to be unable to walk. She's a fragile, delicate-looking thing, thin-boned and she appears to be hardly over ninety pounds. Her pale skin is unblemished, and I believe that she's the same height as me, though, I haven't seen her stand on her own yet.

She looks too frail to anyway.

Her clothes—a baggy tank top and loose shorts—hang off of her frame, making her look smaller than she actually is.

If not for the dead look in her eyes, she's everything I wish I could be. She's beautiful, thin, and I would even say perfect, with a feminine delicacy that begs protection. Underneath it all though, I see that she's broken. Inside, she is a mess of trampled dreams, broken promises, and shattered hopes.

"We need to take you far away from here. Somewhere no one else will find us," I say, but really, I'm hearing myself speak from outside my body.

Everything within me is disconnected. I move without thought. I hear, but I'm not the one speaking. It's as if I've been banished from my own body and mind, forced to watch myself from a distance. By what agent?

Nobody knows, and nobody cares.

The girl doesn't reply to my statement. She is staring at the road, as if she can find some meaning there, but her eyes remain as hollow as they were before. I believe she is depressed. I can see the suicidal gears turning inside her mind, yet she doesn't move.

I look away from her and focus my eyes on the road. We have made it out of the city and entered the countryside in a surprisingly short period of time. I remember this drive taking far longer before, yet only a few seconds have passed and we are here.

I cannot explain it.

As we continue down the empty dirt road, the houses are an unseen blur. There seems to be no real background to anything. All I can see is the interior of my truck, the girl, and the faint swatch of road before us. Everything else is a blinding white haze. I don't know if any of this is real, or if it's just a figment of my mind, but that does not bother me as I drive.

Instead, I continue with an alarming sense of normality. I don't know how fast we are traveling, nor do I observe myself changing the truck's direction. We are simply barreling into the unknown. Anything could happen, and I don't think I would have any control over it.

"We are almost there," my body says.

I look over at the girl and see her looking up at me with those cold eyes again. I hold her gaze for a moment as if musing over it. I'm not confused, simply...thoughtful. Eventually, we both break the gaze and my eyes return to the road.

In what feels like a matter of seconds, we are standing inside of a house, large enough for a family of four. I don't know how many rooms, bathrooms, or how many square feet it has, nor do I recollect entering the house, but I know that we are standing in the master bathroom.

Considering the size of the house, the bathroom seems small and shoddily furnished. There is a shower to my left with a dirty white curtain hanging from a white shower rod. Directly in front of me is a white porcelain sink attached to the wall, akin to the kind you see in rest stop bathrooms. There is a faucet and a mirror above that, and on the right is a toilet. The floor is dirty, with stained white tiles, and everything about the place seems hopelessly bland.

Behind me, the bedroom looks just as poorly decorated as the rest of the house. Everything is plain, with an air of dinginess, but perfectly normal. Everything is just as it should be, because it isn't.

I watch the girl quietly. She is looking at herself in the mirror, her blue eyes staring into their own reflection. She is standing on her own, but she looks like a wisp of air could blow her off her feet. Her arms are limp by her sides, and her hair falls just past her shoulders in stringy locks. I look back at her eyes, trying to determine some expression from them since her blank face gives me nothing.

She hates herself. She hates her reflection. Where I see a half-starved girl, she sees herself bloated and overweight. Where I see perfect skin, she sees only blemishes. Where I see beauty, she sees an ugly creature and loathes it.

Her eyes don't move from the mirror. It seems as if she is frozen by her own self-loathing. Deep inside, however, I can see her desire to smash the mirror. She wants to claw her skin to shreds and let the fat and blemishes she sees slough off, leaving behind only beauty. Except that the beauty she desires cannot be attained, because it exists only in her mind. She cannot see the beautiful wraith of a girl already standing there.

Only I can.

I want to tell her what I see, but my lips do not move. My body, my words, and my actions, they are not my own. So, I remain silent, watching her stare at herself in hatred, loathing the image reflected in the mirror.

Then, she is gone.

- - - - - -

I am sitting inside the truck again, but I am not driving. Now alone, I am parked in front of a tall building strung with decorative lights. A small restaurant with fancy tables, well-dressed patrons, and overpriced food is in front of me at the bottom of the building. The image of it against the dark starless sky is the epitome of aesthetic.

Everything screams beauty.

I am the only exception. In my dingy rusty truck that is washed in a layer of dirt, holes rusted through the roof, missing one door and a tire, I contrast the beauty I see, yet I don't seem to interfere.

People are walking in and out of the restaurant. I observe them but I'm not really seeing them. My eyes scan the handicap parking signs, the limousines, and luxury SUVs sitting in the parking lot, but there is no point.

It's all wrong.

I know what I should be seeing here. I can remember the route I drove to get here. Take the exit off Highway 190, follow the frontage road at 45 mph until you reach the loop, then turn right onto the loop. Wait for the oncoming traffic to clear both ways, then drive across the bridge going 35 mph until you reach the college.

There is no college here, though. It's still further down the road for me. For now, I am here, an outsider, wondering why I'm sitting here, unable to leave.

In all honesty, I don't think I can leave. Not until the time is right. Until then, I'm not supposed to leave. There are still months of waiting, minutes of wondering how much longer I will stay here. I'll go when the time is right. Finally, my hands decide it's time to turn the key.

Someday I will reach my destination... Just not today.

The girl has done it. I didn't know it was coming, but I don't find it to be a shock either. I didn't want her to do it, but she did and looking at it, I don't feel sick or queasy. I just feel...normal.

She is lying on the floor under the sink. Her hand—cut off just below the elbow—is lying in the sink as it bleeds unnaturally. The blood doesn't wash into the drain like it should. Instead, it drips in thick globs like paint. It's the same on the floor where her cut off legs lay. Only her torso is left, head still attached, along with half an arm, and a full arm holding the knife she used to do it.

Both arms are covered in slash marks.

She slit her wrists, but it's as if they refused to bleed for her. So, she cut herself apart, in hopes that it would all end.

Only, it didn't.

Her eyes are open and blinking. She is alive, looking up at me expressionlessly. There is a silent plea behind the blank expression on her face. I think she wants to die and end the pain. She wants to bleed out onto the floor, so she can close her eyes and not have to open them ever again.

I can't let that happen.

In one swift movement, I scoop up the pieces of her into my arms, not seeming to care about the thick blood that is smearing across my skin and clothes. Now, I am moving of my own decision. I am starting to feel emotion spark in my chest again. Not a forced emotion decided by an outside force, but a real emotion. An emotion I told myself to feel, not that some exterior person decided for me.

I feel fear.

I am terrified that she will die. I cannot let her go. I don't think that I could exist without her. Even though we are near opposites—her in control of herself and her internal turmoil, while I am a puppet controlled by someone else—I believe that we are in some ways the same.

We are both controlled by expectations.

I carry her out of the house, not seeing anything but a white blur until I reach my truck. I put her in the passenger seat. I pile all her pieces together as she gives me a doleful look, wordlessly asking me not to do this.

I ignore the look in her eyes and walk to the other side of the truck, again moving under an external influence. I open the door, and as it swings open, it comes off the hinges and falls to the ground.

I scream.

I kick the door. Then I kick the truck, as a burst of anger breaks the external control for a moment. I feel frustration burning in my chest as I stare at the broken door. I know it's all coming apart and I hate it. It hurts too much to see everything falling apart at once, right in front of my eyes. I need to preserve it, to just keep one thing together.

I need control.

Just like that, the anger is gone. The emotion vanishes as quickly as it came, and I am forced to climb into the broken truck as my controller resumes power over me.

I take the wheel and look at the girl again. Her eyes don't meet mine this time. I look away, and step on the gas, pulling out of the driveway.

The hospital is ages away, but we eventually pull into the parking lot. The sky is still dark and starless. Only orange street lamps light the concrete of the parking lot as I drive around. I circle around the hospital and look up at it.

It is the same tall building as before, only without the beautiful restaurant now. The windows are all dark. Only a neon "H" marks the building as a haven for help, but inside it's empty.

I drive past the entrance and circle back around. I've been driving in circles for quite a while now, but not once have I stopped the truck to enter the hospital and get help.

I drive to the entrance again, but as soon as I get close, my hands turn the wheel away again as I press the gas with my foot. My body does not want to find help. Whoever is controlling me doesn't want me to help her.

They let me glimpse help, but do not let me grasp it. As soon as I draw near, I begin to feel hope to rise within my chest and break their control on me. But I am quickly pulled away and my hope turns into despair.

I look at the girl again, seeing that she had bled onto the seat, but the blood has stained nothing. No one will ever see this. The minute she is patched up, all evidence of the incident will be gone. Her outward expressions of inner turmoil are only temporary. No one else will hear, see, or remember them.

Only I will.

Again, I pull away from the entrance of the hospital, my blank face turned forward as I drive. I can feel the girl's doleful eyes on me as I circle back around in the vicious cycle of hope and despair. No matter how I try, I cannot break it.

I look back at my passenger, my hands unwillingly gripping the steering wheel of my truck. I look back into those hollow blue eyes. I know now, even though it hasn't fully gripped me. I know why I cannot lose her, and why I refuse to let her die. We are not two separate beings, not in reality. I am her, and she is me. I know because as I look away from her, I look in the rearview mirror. I see my own reflection. Stark blue eyes looking right back at me, but this time they're not hers. They're mine. The sight sends shivers down my spine for the first time as the cold reality grips me fully.

I remember the last time I saw such lifeless eyes.