Dare Me to Live

Chapter 22 (Part two)

Second semester arrived on a gray, cold day in the middle of January. It was the complete opposite of the day my parents had first dropped me off at school. One thing remained the same though: me. I felt no different; Danny's ghost still hovered over my shoulder and his absence still weighed like a rock in my stomach, chaffing and indigestible. If anything, I needed him now more than ever, but he felt even farther away.

I couldn't help but think what it would be like if I had taken my parent's advice, if I had postponed going to school for a semester, a year. Would I feel any different now? Would I still feel trapped in a cage of memories I couldn't seem to break out of? Would I have started to get better, slowly, steadily, as I had done in the middle of the semester?

That was because of Tyler, whispered the voice in my head. I strangled it hard. If there was one thing I knew it was that I was no better off having met him. Now, I had Mia on my conscious as well as Danny for reasons I wasn't sure of.

Amber and I entered the semester much the same way we had the first. She may as well have been a ghost as well. We existed in the same space semi-transparent, just enough to notice, but not enough to bother.

The one thing that did change was I threw myself into school work the way I hadn't before. I worked all the time, read ahead in my textbooks, wrote essays early, and took copious and unnecessary notes. I avoided the library, choosing instead to study in the many unused lounges in various academic buildings across campus. It was unclear whether I was actually absorbing any of the information I was forcing into my brain, though my first few grades were significantly better than anything I had achieved first semester—something that had the added bonus of getting my parents to ease up.

Luckily, I no longer had Philosophy to look forward to on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

"Something's different," said Amber the first night of March as I was poring over a marketing textbook.

"What?" I said, not really listening.

"You don't hang out with that Tyler guy anymore," she said. She was pinning up her hair, a few bobby pins wedged between her teeth, readying herself for another Friday night out. I had been studying nearly every Friday and Saturday thus far this semester and the nights I wasn't I made sure I was doing something off campus with Van or Kevin.

"I thought it was something else at first—but he hasn't been around and you've been—well I don't know what you've been."

"Why do you care?" I asked, looking up from the book.

Amber's eyes flashed. "I don't." She turned back to the mirror, sliding the last of the bobby pins into her glossy blonde hair that fell in a waterfall of curls over her right shoulder. One of the dozens of skimpy black dresses she owned clung to all the right places as she checked herself out.

"So why did you guys...break-up or whatever." Her gaze flickered to me in the glass.

I gritted my teeth as I dragged the highlighter over the sentence she had interrupted me on. Truthfully I had read it half a dozen times without really seeing any of the words.

"He lied."

There was a pause.

"What about?"

I sighed loudly and with as much exasperation as I could muster. "It's not really any of your business."

"Whatever," Amber said, shrugging on a leather jacket. "Whatever it was I hope it was worth it. Because you were weird before. Now—well now you're just sad." She took a swig from her flask, tucked it into her pocket and left.