I love the me I am with him. I’m the girl who has Dave. I’m Lauren, Dave’s girlfriend. I’m someone better than Lauren Smith, who no one noticed till Dave came along. The thing is, that girl isn’t me and I know it. But when I’m with him, I feel like I could be her. That if something in me was just–I don’t know, shifted a little or something, smoothed down–people would think of me the way they think of Dave, and everything would always be perfect. I would be perfect.

I felt nothing all the time, and it had started to feel normal. It should have scared me, but it didn't.

Sometimes being me is very confusing.

I thought living dead girls couldn't feel pain, thought I was emptied out but I'm not, I'm not.

I have been smashed and put back together so many times nothing works right. Nothing is where it should be, heavy thumping in my shoulder where my heart now beats.

Then I heard someone laugh. I wished I didn't know whose laugh it was, but I knew Will's laugh just like I knew he had a small scar right above his left elbow. You couldn't be reluctantly lust-ridden for someone without noticing stuff about them.

I don’t think I could have picked a worse guy to be my soul mate.