I asked who it was. Mom said I didn’t know them. She wouldn’t look at me when she said that. It made me nervous.

I couldn’t sleep in the new apartment. I hated the small rooms and the kitchen smelled weird. I wanted to go back to the house in the woods. I wanted to live there again.

Mom said we wouldn’t live there anymore. That made me angry. But I didn’t throw things. I slammed the door to my room and screamed into a pillow. But it didn’t make me feel better.

Everyone was talking at school. I heard people saying Ellie’s name. Then they’d look at me. They were always looking at me.

Two girls were talking in English class about the fire at my house. It made me sad to think about it. To think about Marty who had died. One of the girls said that Ellie had gone to jail because she had burned my house down.

And I had yelled at them and said that wasn’t true. They didn’t laugh at me when I yelled but they moved to other seats.

I ran out of the class. I had never been so mad before. Those girls said Ellie burned my house down.

Did she?

I went to the bathroom and started to scream. I couldn’t stop.

The principal came and called my mom.

She came and got me and took me home. I was so upset. I asked her if Ellie burned down our house. She didn’t say anything.

Ellie burned my house down.

My dog had died in the fire.

I hurt inside. It felt like I had eaten glass. I felt pain and knew it was because of Ellie.

I felt really, really bad.

Why would she burn down my house?

I wanted to talk to her but she had gone to jail for kids. She had gotten into trouble. A girl named Reggie told me that Ellie had been sent away. She had spit on me and told me it was my fault.

But I didn’t want Ellie to be sent away. I didn’t like thinking about her in jail. I wondered if she was feeling bad too?

I wanted to see Ellie.

But I never did.

And then we moved.

But I always thought about her.

And after a while it stopped hurting when I remembered.

32

-Ellie-

And the months kept passing…

Days, weeks, months marched along, oblivious to my desperate desire to stop them.

I felt like I was living my life on an endless loop.

Hope, happiness, possibility…it was all gone.

Vanished like a popped bubble. Lost when Flynn yelled at me to leave him alone.

But even the numbness only lasted so long and then that too disappeared and I was left with something so much worse.

Regret.

Winter faded into spring and the world kept moving on. So why was I stuck in the past?

I slipped the tiny sand castle Flynn had given me into my pocket as I got ready that morning. I never left the house without it. I tried so hard to pretend that losing him hadn’t ruined me…but that one simple act called me a liar.

There was no coming back from loving Flynn Hendrick.

Ever.

I was supposed to be attending a study group in a few hours. I was trying to prep for my end of the semester essay.

As the rest of my life fell back into stasis, school continued to be my only escape. For the longest time after Flynn and I parted ways and Dania had moved in, I thought I had lost my enthusiasm for it.

But I had been wrong. Some things had changed within me that couldn’t be undone.

My illogical (and impossible) dream of becoming something better was one of them.

My love for Flynn was the other.

Neither had abandoned me even when, in the depths of my self-destruction, I had hoped they would.

The post office was empty when I walked in. I headed to my tiny box back in the farthest corner. I opened it and pulled out the pile of magazines and useless junk mail. This would teach me to check it with a lot more regularity.

I stood there, sorting through everything. Most of it ended up in the trash. There were a few items for Dania that I tucked into my bag.

I picked up the last piece of mail and frowned at the return address.

It was from the College of Baltimore.

My stomach flipped over as I held it. I remember when I had, on a whim, applied to a few schools. I had been high on the changes in my life and thought why not? I had Flynn in my corner telling me to do it. I had my professor saying I had a gift. Hope had been new and exciting.

But that had been before real life stuff stomped all over my smiley, happy hope with huge shit kickers.

I didn’t expect an acceptance. The several others I had already received were what I had anticipated. Rejection. I was all too familiar with it.

But this one felt different.

There was some weight to it.

Did I dare to believe again?

Or was it time to finally let my dreams go?

Fate obviously had other plans.

With trembling fingers, I tore open the letter. The envelope fell to the floor and I didn’t even bother to pick it up. It was a packet of information. A glossy brochure showing pretty manicured lawns and impressive brick buildings stared back at me. I pulled the letter with my name to the top of the pile, my eyes skimming its contents.

Congratulations! It is my pleasure to inform you…

What?

I blinked several times, almost certain my eyes were playing tricks on me and I read it again. The words didn’t change.

I had been accepted to the College of Baltimore. In Maryland. Over three hundred miles away.

I could barely breathe.

It seemed almost cruel to hand me something like this at a time when it felt that it was impossible to take.

I shoved the packet of information back into the pile of mail and closed the door to my post office box. I walked back across the street, feeling both heavy and light at the same time.