Okay," I said, "what's your biggest fear?" As always, he took a second to think about the answer. "Clowns," he said. "Clowns." "Yup." I just looked at him. "What?" he said, glancing over at me. "That is not a real answer," I told him. "Says who?" "Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence." He thought for a second. "Clowns.

I always thought I was different.

Everything looks different when you're older, not staring up at the world but down upon it.

But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.

It's a big deal when you finally get the chance to do the one thing you want to do - need to do - more than anything. It can kind of scare the crap out of you.

But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.

Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.