Dreamland

But mostly, I cried because my life had been going full speed for so long and now it had just stopped, like running right into a big brick wall, knocking the wind and the fight right out of me. And I didn’t know if I ever even wanted to get up and start breathing again.

She was still handling me so gingerly, as if I was a piece of china already cracked and a fingertip’s weight could break me completely

looking down the stairs and out the front door, trying to picture her making that walk away from this. It seemed like so far, and I was so tired. Tired of keeping time, of studying faces, of hiding bruises. Of disappearing, bit by bit, while my world kept going without me, even as I slipped farther beneath the water, drowning.

kept collecting faces, as if by holding all these people in my hands I could convince myself that everything was still okay

That had been a different time, a different hurt. I couldn’t even remember that pain, now.

The dark might not be so bad when it was everywhere, even outside.

All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called my name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.

Wake up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing had said. 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 told myself I had too many secrets already: the drugs, cigarettes, my downward cheerleading spiral. If I let one out, the rest would tumble behind it, out of my control, like wild horses let loose to stampede.

We might have felt like things were going on, seasons changing, months passing. But we would have been wrong