me outside, telling me I shouldn't be here, I should wait outside, that I was going to be okay, that everything was going to be okay even when I knew it wasn't.
The detective starts turning away and hurries back inside, but I grab her through my tears. 'Tell me,' I gasp. 'Tell me what happened.'
Her eyes look sad, so sad, sad for me. 'I shouldn't--' she says quietly and tries to brush me off, but I cling to her for dear life, not knowing what else to do.
'Please, tell me,' I whisper. My voice sounds so hollow and defeated it doesn't even feel like mine anymore. 'Tell me what happened.'
She sighs, then locks eyes with me. 'It was a robbery,' she says. 'Your mother's jewelry was reported stolen. Suspect appears to be male. They tried to stop him, but… they couldn't. He had a gun,' she adds.
My stomach twists at her words but I manage a nod, whispering, 'Thank you.' And then I start shaking all over again, and I collapse into her arms, screaming and crying and telling myself this can't possibly be real, this can’t be happening to me, all night long.
When I wake up next, I can vaguely hear a door slam outside, feel someone grab my arms and mutter something under their breath. And then I'm being moved away from here, to somewhere outside in the blinding sun. I feel my head loll back, and then I'm back in another memory.
It's three days after the murder. I'm sitting on the rooftop of my old house, closing my eyes and thinking. I think about my dance classes. They're supposed to be my escape, supposed to wash everything else away. The grace of my movements, the way my legs sway every which way, so nimbly, it's all supposed to free me. From what, I don't even know. My thoughts, maybe? Or is it supposed to free me from my depression? Or really, maybe it's just freeing me from myself.
Whatever it is, it hasn't worked. The ache in my heart hasn't gone away, and my parents are still dying again and again in my mind. I live with my aunt now, but I hardly care for her, and she returns the favor. I hang out here, at the house they died in, because I have nowhere else to go. Because the pain is stronger here, but at least I feel like myself again. At least, when the depression and loneliness overcome me, I can feel like Crystal Knight again. I can feel like the real me, the one person who otherwise couldn't seem farther away.
And today, I'm going to end it at all.
There isn't one particular thing that brought me here, or a certain reason why I chose today, or a breaking point that I reached and couldn't keep going on after. It's been much more gradual. I'd been sad for a long time, mainly because my parents were always away on their business trips and I'd never had friends before. But even in the thick of it, I used to cling to the knowledge that my parents were still alive, that I needed to be strong for them, that I needed to keep on pushing, but now that they're gone, who do I need to be strong for anymore?
The answer is nobody.
Nobody.
Nobody.
So for a while, I just sit on the edge of the roof and think. I think about the life I'll be missing out on if I go through with this. I think about the children I'll never have, the friends I'll never meet, the husband I'll never get to know. I think about whether I'll ever even have children if I stay alive past tonight, if I'll ever make friends, if I'll ever have a man in my life, and then I tell myself that of course I won't. Good things don't happen to me; good things never happen to me. If I decide to live, I'll spend my life alone, working a dead-end job just to pay the bills, hating myself the whole way through. I'll live my life just to get through the next day, with nothing to looking forward to in between, and that's no way to live at all, right? Next I think about dance, the way it frees me. I think about the tons of performances I've been to, the awards I've received, the applause I've earned. I think about that moment when I'm on stage, when the music plays beside me and everything fades away, because my sense come to life. I think about how my body hums with energy before every performance, and then I think about myself closing my eyes and dancing, getting lost in the movements. I miss getting lost. I miss it a lot. I miss that moment when I'm moving across stage, feeling nothing but the gentle pounding in my temples and the beautiful, magical, exhilarating feeling that all of my different dance moves give me.
Finally, I think about my parents. I think about how they never deserved to die, like I don't. I think about what it must have been like--to die like that. To one moment be sitting in the living room, drinking wine and listening to music, and the next, to just not exist anymore. I think about how they went down with such a fight--they always go down with fights, that's just who they are--and how Dad and Mom attacked the robber when he stole her prized jewelry, and then I think about him holding the gun on them, taking a breath, and firing. And before everything else, I think about how my parents' hands locked as they fell backwards, think about how, even in death, they were together forever.
And then, before I fall and break my leg and end my dance career forever, I think about nothing at all.
I drift back into consciousness after some time, feeling my head and heart pounding. My ears are still ringing, not even slowing their incessant sound for a second. I try to look around, but my vision is blurry. I'm moving, though, and something hard is beneath me, like someone is carrying me away in their arms. Which makes no sense. But I definitely feel myself progressing forward, feel the nausea rise up, and the next thing I know, something warm and soft is beneath me. And then, when I try to open my eyes, there is blackness. Another memory.
It's been over a year and a half since the night I almost died, and I still haven't moved on. I moved away, if that counts, to this dead-end town. I got a job, a tiny apartment, and I guess my prediction about living only to get through the next day came true after all. I'm not happy, not really. I have no love, no passion left in me. I'm living just to survive, doing nothing more, nothing less. This Starbucks job has gotten me less than nowhere, and so when my new friend Ash convinced me to try just one night out at a club, I said yes. 'It's not like you have anything else to do,' she'd said, which was all too true. I didn't have any hobbies. I didn't have any interests. Hell, I'd probably have just spent my night watching TV if it weren't for.
But instead, that night, I met Sebastian.
And then everything changed.
Anyway, Ash brought me to a club as soon as I agreed to go out with her. I dressed up in a purple dress, put on eyeliner and mascara and some makeup and lipstick, and then I let her drive me to wherever she had in mind.
So here I am, standing here, so, so out of place. The club is as cliche as ever. It's a giant room made up of multiple floors connected by a white, winding staircase. The whole place is dark, flooded with people drinking and swaying to the music, laughing and talking as the colored flashing lights illuminates the area between beats. Retro music pulses throughout the building, and everything is so loud and full and surreal that I feel like I'm in a dream.
'C'mon,' Ash says, taking my arm and pulling me to the bar, where several desperate, well- dressed men sip drinks and flirt with any passing women.
Ash sits me down on the stool, then orders us both a drink. It's pathetic, really. That I'm here. That going to random clubs at midnight on a Thursday night is what my life has come to. But it has, and at least the club provides a distraction from everything else. At least, for a few hours, I can pretend to be normal.
'So how are you liking it so far?' Ash shouts to me over the music, taking her drink in her hand and smiling like she always does: like nothing in the world but this moment matters. I've always admired that about her, how she lives 100% in the present, how she never lets anything but what's happening right here, right now bother her. It's a nice way to live, and sometimes I wish I could ever be like that.
'It's fine,' I manage to say, but as I look around the packed club, I couldn't feel more out of place.
'Don’t worry.' Ash leans into me. 'We'll find you a hot date.'
I nod, not really believing it, when a man comes up to Ash. 'Fancy a drink?' he says, smiling at
