�These are not words, they're only feelings.
There are no sounds that you can hear.
There is no form that you can touch.
There are no colours for you to see�
          -- VNV Nation, �Tempest�

I still dream about her.

That sounds stupid I know. I bet it gets said all the time. Some girl ends up in their thoughts, and they tell people, �Oh god, I�m still in love, even though she�s gone��

But I tell you, I�m not like them. I�m not stupid and crazy and obsessed. I�m�I�m sane. I�m so god damn sane I can�t tell you.

I know the things I saw last year were true. I didn�t make her up, regardless of what you tell me.

Sometimes, when I�m wandering around campus I think I see her leaning against a fence, or a building. I�m always just about ready to call out her name, and then the girl turns. And it�s not her. It�s some girl with her waist, or her hips. Some girl who dresses like her, and maybe walks like her, but it�s not.

And then I start to think about them all. Dara and Deke, Dashiel, Matthew, Bethany my ex, and of course, about her. Think about going back to the needle, as if that would solve my problems. Think about packing all this recovery bullshit that you�re feeding me in, and going back to who I was.

No. I didn�t like me. You�re right. But I don�t like me now, either. I�m empty. I�m cold. I look in the mirror and see a shell. A fucking shell. I�m nineteen years old, and I�m already seeing one of those people who wander through life seeming as if they�ve given up. Maybe�maybe I have.

I mean, let�s go through my routine. Every morning I get up. I walk to my bathroom and shower. I think about food, and try to convince myself that eating is a good idea. I might manage that, and have a yogurt, or a piece of fruit. Most likely, just coffee. I go to class. I come home from class. If it�s a Wednesday I get in the car and drive my pathetic self here, to this office, where I will wait for fifteen minutes in the lobby. Then I talk to you for an hour. Not even a real hour. Fifty minutes. My dad pays you for me to have this dubious honor.

My father, who wouldn�t pay for college, and who could barely be roused from his chair to care that my mother had been killed, pays you for this so I�ll get over some girl. Over what he calls an �issue�. As if addiction to her, to heroin, to living on the edge is curable by a book, and a couple of pills.

I was never really addicted. Not to the drugs. Let�s get that clear. I liked them, the warm golden glow, the honey softness of my muscles, the taste of summertime all the time. I liked the nothingness. The lines, and the needle. It was clear. It was true. It wasn�t like this feel good bullshit you keep feeding me. But I was never addicted.

I might have been addicted to her, it�s such a hard thing to tell. I should have listened to Deke when he told me she wasn�t my kind of girl. I should have let him and Dara set me up with Bethany again. Should have known.

My life is so full of should haves. Of why didn�t I�s. Do you get that often? Sad little kids who sit here on this very fucking couch and tell you, �Oh, I should have been a better person. Why didn�t I listen to so-and-so?� I�m not going to give you that satisfaction. The should have I just gave you is the only one there is. And it�s done with.

Don�t give me that wounded, hurt look. You ask me why I don�t trust you enough to be open. This is why. Because when I tell you what is true and real and right to me, you look at me like I�m full of shit. Like I�m scum. Like I deserve to be left on the street. Then you give me some song and dance about how you�re only trying to help me.

You wanna help me? Help me. Don�t tell me how I don�t know what�s going on. Don�t give me that crap about how I�m the only one who can do this for myself.

I�m not.

But I don�t need witnesses to make my story real. I don�t need you to validate it.

I�ll tell you anyway. You get paid to listen to me, so really listen. Don�t take notes. Don�t make this about who�s sane, and who�s not. It�s not about that.

It�s about me. And a girl. And a secret that no one believes.