"Alyssa Griffin informed me about what happened to Gage. I'm sorry, honey."

Dr. Chao sat on the other end of the couch, her hands pressed against her knees as she watched for my response, realizing it was smart to walk on eggshells as everyone had for the last three weeks.

"I just want you to understand that he's okay. He's just. . . he's not well right now. He's very sick. This was the best thing for him."

I fought the urge to lash out, and turned away instead, tears stinging my eyes.

Of course I was relieved Gage had managed to escape suicide not just once but twice by some miracle, but the second he'd woken up, his parents had signed paperwork to have him transferred out of state to a rehabilitation center for his drug abuse and his mental instability. They hadn't told me until he was already gone, and though Alyssa continued to let me sleep at her apartment, it just felt empty. Without Gage here, it was like there was an empty void everywhere. At school I walked the halls alone, though nobody made an attempt to mess with me anymore, nobody tried to befriend me either. In support group I had April, but she was still very flighty and she had taken what happened to Gage hard, almost as if she'd been there with us. And at the apartment, even though I was surrounded by his artwork and scent in every corner, not having him next to me hurt in ways I hadn't thought possible.

"I know that you've experienced an inexplainable amount of drama these last couple months, but I'm proud of you for being here. For continuing despite it all. We all are." she reached out and touched my hand. "Especially Gage. His doctor said he's doing okay and that they might consider allowing him to write letters for a while."

I knew that a lot of what she was saying should have been confidential, but I had a feeling Alyssa had something to do with her being so open about it.

"You both are going to be okay." She assured.

But she had promised the same months ago, and look what happened. Louis had nearly raped me again and Gage had tried to kill himself again. This was only further proof that this doesn't get easier, that no matter how hard we try to pretend that we're all okay, our trauma will always find us again and consume us altogether.

*

April, though she wouldn't admit it, was relieved when we stepped through the front door at Alyssa's apartment to find it vacant. Alyssa was with Mayor Griffin and a lawyer, trying to figure out what to do about Mason without it being broadcasted all over the county, possibly even beyond.

"Do you know how he's doing?" April asked quietly, sitting on the couch. "Gage?"

"Alyssa said that he's pissed. He wanted to die. So the fact that he not only survived one attempt, but two, is probably driving him insane."

She remained quiet while I grabbed some sodas from the fridge and returned to her on the couch. Then she stared at me with a sympathetic look. "How are you doing? I know that couldn't have been easy, watching that. Or with what happened with Louis."

I had told her a couple days ago about what happened with Louis last month, but she'd been tiptoeing around it, as if she were afraid I'd spiral if she brought it up again. Which, in all honesty, was entirely possible right now. What surprised me the most in the aftermath of Gage's attempt was that I wasn't a crumbling mess on the floor as I had been when I'd returned back home from my own institutionalization. I was angry; at Gage, at his family, at Louis. So much so that it overpowered all of my other emotions.

"I'm okay." I said through a sigh, leaning back into the couch. "I just don't know how to do this without him. Gage, I mean. He. . . he became like an appendage for me. He was always here when I needed to escape. And now he's just. . . gone."

"But not forever." April pointed out. "He's alive, that's what matters. He'll be okay. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow or next year, but he'll be okay."

I glanced over at her in curiosity. "Do you truly believe that? That we're all going to eventually be okay?"

"I think that once you hit rock bottom there's only one way to go and that's up." She answered, sipping at the soda. "I just don't know if I've hit it yet."

"What do you mean?"

She set the can on the table and rubbed her palms along her jeans. "I mean I've been through a lot of shit, a lot of which most people will never experience in their lifetime, and sure, I did try to kill myself to escape it. But I. . . what if there's worse than this. Then anorexia, then abuse."

"April—"

"Gage always acted like he was so strong, but he was tearing himself little by little internally." She cut me off before I could try and comfort her. "Look where that got him. I try every day to see a bright side to my situation. A few weeks and I'm eighteen and can leave my parents legally, even if that means sleeping in a car. One day I won't stick my fingers down my throat and see myself as this fat whale every time I look in the mirror. I just don't know when that'll be and it scares me."

I reached out and squeezed her hand. "I understand."

"The conversation you saw, it was my boss, or pimp, or whatever the hell you want to call him." she wouldn't meet my eyes. "I have to make money somehow, you know. To keep my car and buy necessities."

My lips parted in surprise, but I couldn't find the right thing to say, so I just leaned over and rested my head against her shoulder, and after a minute of contemplation she rested her own against mine.

*

I shouldn't have expected a quiet, sleeping house coming back home at ten. I knew that Xavier would be asleep, but Mom and Rodger usually stayed up til midnight and I had no idea what was going on with Louis as I had fortunately not run into him at school and had been staying with Alyssa up until tonight.

When I walked in, Louis was in the recliner, half watching the rom-com my mother must have put on. Rodger and Mom stood immediately, looking relieved to see me after close to a month of no contact.

"Look what the cat dragged in." Louis muttered under his breath.

Maybe it was my intense hatred for him that made me snap, or possibly all the hurt and hurricane of emotions that I had kept bottled up for months, that finally flipped the switch.

"Can't you shut up for once in your life?"

Louis, genuinely taken back by my outburst, stood and glared. "When did you grow a pair of balls?"

"When did you lose yours?"

Rodger intervened before it could escalate further and looked to his son. "Go to your room, Louis. Now."

He rolled his eyes at his father, but there was a fire in his eyes when he looked at me once more before jogging up the stairs and out of sight. They waited until his door shut to turn their full attention to me.

"How are you holding up?" Rodger asked, touching his hand gently to my shoulder. "How is your boyfriend?"

I could hear the sincerity in his voice, but it did nothing in his attempt to get me to open up to him. I only shrugged a shoulder a muttered a quiet, "Fine."

His expression softened, and my mother crept forward and touched her nails to my wrist. "Are you staying?"

I didn't respond, instead I slipped between the two of them and climbed the stairs to my bedroom. As soon as I was behind my closed doors, I pulled Gage's sweatshirt over my head and held it against me, hoping that even if it were only for a few seconds, I'd feel his presence. It still had the faint scene of him, nothing like his bedroom, but it was enough that I relaxed a little. Folding it and laying it on my bed beside me, I walked across the room and discarded my shirt and pants so they were on the floor beside the mirror. I eyed the fresh and old scars alike; I'd given up on trying to control my urges after I'd started to become plagued with not only nightmares of Louis and what he'd done, but of watching the life start to leave Gage and the look in his eyes as he all but confessed his love for me. I still had the blouse I'd worn, stained with blood, but I refused to wash it. I wanted to burn it, but I couldn't bring myself to pick up a lighter and do it.

Pulling a pocket knife I'd stole from Gage's room from my underwear drawer, I flipped it open and ran my finger along my wrist.

I had pondered with Gage's words for the last couple weeks, wondering if he'd been right. Maybe we had been meant to die the first time and us living and having to struggle through each day was some sick, warped joke. I liked to think that way, that nobody would care if I slit my own wrists or tried to drown myself again. But my mind couldn't fully fall back into that train of thought. Because anytime I touched the blade to my wrist, I saw Gage, and April, and even baby Xavier. They were only three people, but they were people I had to live for.

"Marley?" the horrified sound that left my mother was accompanied by a cautious, slow closing of my bedroom door. "Marlene, what are you doing? Where did you get that?"

I avoided her eyes burning into me and kept my own trained on the knife at my wrist.

"Mar, baby, wh. . . what is that?" she crouched in front of me, and though I tried to dodge her pale hand against my scarred thigh, her finger nails brushed across them. "Marley, how long have you been doing this?"

I looked away from her and started to close my hand around the blade of the knife to keep my emotions from resurfacing. If I was in enough pain, that would be the only thing my mind would focus on.

"Baby, no." this came out in a choked sob, but it was enough to get me to look toward her again. She was trembling where she stood a few inches from me, the back of her hand pressed tightly against her mouth as if she were afraid she were going to be sick. The agonizing look in her eyes almost made me drop the knife and hug her. Almost. "No, Marley, look at me. This isn't the answer. Hurting yourself—"

"I don't want to hear it." I said through my teeth.

"Gage is okay." She reminded me. "He still needs you. He'll want to see you when he comes back home."

I whirled around so I was completely facing her now. "If he comes home! You didn't see him, Mom! He doesn't want to be here anymore. He looked into my eyes and told me my love wasn't enough to make him stay. I'm not good enough for anyone. Not for Dad, not for you, not Gage, not my teachers, or Rodger. I'm just like Dad. I'm only on a long, inevitable path to death."

She reached out and patted my hair down, tears finally escaping her eyes and running her mascara down her cheeks. "No, sweetheart. Your father loved you so so much."

"So much that he killed himself right?" I snapped. "And then Gage did the same. Because Louis is right. It is me, Mom! I'm the fucking problem. I'm like a poison. I destroy and corrupt everything I touch."

"You know that's not true!" her hands fell to my shoulders. "You are my entire world, Marlene. I love you and Xavier more than anything. I just. . . I feel so fucking helpless! Your father, I watched him spiral until I walked in on him with a bullet through his head and blood all over our bed. But I never wanted that for you. I never wanted you to see him that way, I never wanted you to remember him that way. That's why I stopped talking about him. So you could grasp on to the happy memories you had of him, the silly, goofy man I fell in love with. Not the manic depressive, sad man he was the years leading up to when he killed himself."

I dropped the knife so it fell to the floor between us. My mother didn't make an attempt to grab it, instead she kicked it under the dresser and squeezed my shoulders as tightly as she possibly could.

"I try to do the same with you, baby, I try to see the happy, smiling, carefree girl that would carry the weight of the world on her shoulders if it meant I wasn't upset. I have watched you follow the same path your father did, but this time I have a say. I have to take a stand and make sure you understand that I am here. I love you. I am your mother, Marlene. I would die for you. You need to realize that as hard as it feels to breathe, to get through each day, there are still people here who need you, who love you, who would be devastated and lost if you were to take your life."

I collapsed in her arms then. And with my sudden movement weighing her down, we sunk to the floor. I clutched at her shirt and sobbed, "Mommy, make it stop, please."

She raked her fingers through my hair and kissed my forehead. I could hear it in her voice as she spoke that she was on the verge of sobbing herself. "Make what stop, Marley?"

"I still feel it. Him. I can still feel his hands around my throat." I cried. "I can still smell him. I see him every time I close my eyes. I can feel him leaving bruises on my thighs and driving it into me until I bled."

My mother's grip tightened around me and this time she didn't try to mask the cry that escaped her.

"Who, Marley? Who do you keep seeing?"

I barely got the name out before I finally gave up altogether.

"Louis."