She tried to be someone people liked. She tried to be someone people disliked. But all I became was someone who didn't succeed with anything I tried to be.

I remembered Owen telling me how music had saved him in Phoenix, that it drowned everything out, and it was the same for me now. As long as I had something to listen to, I could blur the things I didn't want to think about, if not block them out completely.

I was so scared about being discovered, but nobody came. Nobody heard. In my own ears, though, my sobs sounded primal and scary, like something I would have turned off if I'd been able to.

When you don't know where you're going, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have more than you need.

"You ready to play?" Dave asked, bouncing it. "I don't know," I said. "Are you going to cheat?" "It's street ball!" He said checking it to me. "Show me that love." So chessy, i thought. But as i felt it, solid against my hands, i did feel something. I wasn't sure it was love. Maybe what remained of it, though, whatever that might be. "All right," I said. "Let's play."

But those words were only the middle of the story. There was a beginning here, too.

I never really know what I'm going to write next until it comes to me. So we'll just have to see what happens.