4 | in which she wants him back

You don't know what pain is,

Until you're standing in front of a mirror,

Willing yourself not to cry.

.\.|./.

Crystal Monroe

|in which she wants him back|

Life sucks. Period.

My mind is far from my body which is cruising down the Alaska highway cleared only mildly of the snow still spiraling down from the sky. Struggling to juggle the mess that is my life and the fact that I should focus on the road, I blink twice to clear my head of all the bullshit I have gotten myself into.

Never had I seen myself turning out the way I am today, the ghost of a girl long dead, trapped an in eighteen-year-old, living, breathing body. So what if I walk around like a half-dead zombie with the mask of a robot plastered across my face? Nobody notices.

Nobody cares.

"Hey, Jem," I speak into the speaker of my phone for the dozenth time this week. "I hope you're doing okay. I just ... I want to ask you how you are and ... when you're coming back. I know you're mad at me but we can talk about it. Come back home. I'm ... I'm sorry ..."

I wait, keeping my gaze fixed on the road stretching ahead of me. I hate how he always makes me beg, how I'm always the one to apologize even when he's the one at fault. He hasn't asked me to say I'm sorry, but I know I have to say it. I want him to come back. I want him to come and fill the void he has left in me.

He should be the one saying sorry. He should be sitting in front of me and telling me he won't overreact next time. Promising me there won't even be a next time. He should be making excuses, telling me he got upset but he'll get help. He should be saying he'll see a shrink and try anger management so that he doesn't blow up again. He should tell me he's sorry he called me a slut for sitting alone in a coffee shop because I accidentally missed my class and wanted some space to myself.

"I miss you, Jeremy," I mumble into the microphone, sighing in defeat before hanging up and tossing the phone in the empty passenger seat. My hands grip the wheel tightly and I purse my lips, wondering when he'll reply this time. He comes back and I know he will, but how long before he does?

He can't stay away from me, I know he can't. Just like can't stay away from Alaska. He loves Alaska; cold like he is. Everything from his sea-blue eyes, to his white-blonde hair, the thin lips hiding those pearly whites that glitter like snow. He's my human version of Jack Frost.

I love Jack Frost.

I lost myself for Jack Frost.

Ignoring all the red flags and turning a deaf ear to the blaring sirens, I followed him into the dark night, desperate to be the Wendy looking for freedom. He was my Peter pan. He promised to take me to Neverland. Just the thought of it was ecstatic. Like the first punch of Pina colada. Beautiful and simmering and sweet.

Only one fact I missed: Neverland isn't heaven. It's not a utopia to hide from all our flaws and insecurities. It is a home for lost souls.

And that is what he made me into.

A lost soul.

I stop the car in the campus parking lot, sitting in it for a long time and struggling to make myself move. I should get to class. I should go sit with normal people and pretend to be normal. I should be able to do that, right? I should be able to at least act like I belong amongst them. All the girls and boys my age, with dreams of accomplishing great things and changing the world for the better. I had been like that once. Until Jeremy came along and turned my life upside down.

I'm young, I know, but Jeremy promised me a happy life and a happy family.

He promised me lots of things.

Killing the engine off, I snap off my seatbelt and get out of my faded gray Honda. My dad had bought it for me on my sixteenth birthday, a sixties model he got off at half the price. He could afford to buy me a new car but he got me this piece of scrap metal because he was afraid I'd reck it. I never wrecked it.

I only wrecked my life.

One after the other, I slowly lost everything I had. Now, I'm sitting in a rusty car wearing second-hand clothes off a discount rack and wondering what low-paid frozen food I can take home for dinner. I need money, but it's not like I'm going to get a job the minute I apply. I mean, I'm a high school graduate who has only now bothered applying to college because her boyfriend didn't want her to before this. I'd dreamed of going to LA, studying in big schools and seeing the world. Instead, I did what Jeremy wanted me to do. I quit my education and became his stay-at-home girlfriend. I stayed here, in fucking Alaska, because he was staying in fucking Alaska. It made perfect sense to me back then.

I was fucking stupid back then.

My motivation to go to class is nonexistent, and I have to drag my feet to lead me up to the campus. My brain is dead while I sit through the two-hour class on the basics of psychology and the structure of the unconscious mind. No matter how many times I bring my focus to the fat lady with crimson-painted lips standing in front of class, I can't absorb anything she says. I'm not the only one lost, though, as most of the students around me seem to be discussing the lady thought red would be the color that actually made her wrinkles look less pronounced. She's got to be at least a hundred-years-old -- and weighing three-hundred pounds -- yet her sense of fashion would fit a fifteen-year-old better. At least that's what the people around me mumble.

I wonder what they think about me.

Most of my clothes have been chosen by Jeremy, who thinks I should cover up as much of my skin as possible. He doesn't like it when people stare at me and I don't like making him mad. Dressing like my grandma is better than having to explain to him that the guy at McDonald's who handed me my McFlurry wasn't flirting with me when he smiled and handed me the change.

Tugging at my sleeve and clenching it in my fist, I put the thought of Jeremy out of my mind for a bit.

"We'll start with the theory and make our way to practical work," the lady concludes as I assume the class rolls to its end. "I'll email you all the module for this class. If you have any questions, please don't email me. We can talk about them in tomorrow's class."

The woman looks around the class and her eyes meet mine. I force a small smile towards her, not knowing why I even do it. She doesn't seem to take it well, her eyes narrowing before she turns away. My smile slides off, and I avert my gaze.

"Crazy little bitch," somebody whispers next to me, probably talking about the teacher. The words, though, bother me more than they would probably bother her.

It's exactly what Jeremy calls me.

The class begins to get out of their seats, and I rise slowly to my feet which suddenly feel like blocks of ice. My eyes scan the classroom space, looking for someone who might be alone and apparently friendly. Now that Jeremy is actually gone, I can spend some time with someone other than him. Nobody pays me any attention, though, and I look down again, sighing as I blend once again into the background.

Two more classes pass by almost the same, with the teachers giving introductions of what we're expected to do and students slowly dividing into groups. Most of the people around me find someone they're comfortable with, discussing common grounds as they initiate new friendships. I watch from the sidelines, constantly weighing my options. The day passes by without me uttering a single word, and I leave campus feeling completely drained.

Getting back into the driver's seat of my car which smells like mothballs and cheap perfume, I take a deep, calming breath and attempt to un-flex the muscles in the back of my neck and shoulders.

"Chill out, Crystal," I mumble to myself, tilting my neck both ways to ease the stiffness. "You'll be okay."

As I begin to drive again -- without a destination in mind -- I blow out a long, mournful breath and lean back against the old, leather seats of my ancient ride. I let my fingers open and close around the wheel to relax them. Just to distract myself from my thoughts, I force-switch on the radio, causing loud music to blare out my rattling speakers. The raspy voice doesn't bother me, sounding more like ragged bass that I have gotten used to. This music is what I use to fill the void Jem left.

How ironic that I use his favorite music to fill the vacuum he leaves in me.

Selena Gomez sings out in all her creepy glory, freaking me out with her new single Fetish. What happened to the sweet girl I grew up idolizing, I do not understand. Maybe she grew up. Maybe she changed for someone. Like me.

For some reason, this is the kind of music Jem likes. It turns him on. And though the old Crystal — the one who still had some sanity left — would have called it bullshit and changed to something more decent, the new Crystal is more than okay with whatever Jem likes.

Or at least she has taught herself to be.

'... You got a fetish for my love ...' Selena Gomez half-sings, half-moans out my speakers, and I hum along without meaning to. It's a defense, pretending to be okay.

'Fake it till you make it, babe,' is what Jem always says. He has fed this into my mind and it's become my motto.

Fake it till you make it, Crystal. Fake it —

Somewhere in the middle of faking to be the happiest abandoned girl on planet earth, I look away from the road.

Big mistake.

I'm being a fool again.

Forgetting to keep my eyes plastered to the road stretching ahead of me, I scan the faces of any human figure I see, looking for my knight in shining armor.

I'm a fool for believing the delusion that he will somehow pop up out of the background and jump back into my life like he hasn't left at all.

I'm a fool for actually even wanting him to do that.

I'm a fool for taking my eyes off the road.

You never do that.

Not unless the person in the passenger seat is dying and you need to check up on them to keep them alive.

This is rule number one of driving: keep your eyes on the road.

The moment my gaze returns to the road, I see a huge bulk being thrown right at my windshield. If I was any slower than 80 km/h on the freeway, I might have been able to dodge it. But singing along to Sexy Gomez — as Jem calls her — I slam through whatever it is the bonnet of my retail Honda collides with.

My heart throws itself out of my throat and into the wheel, my foot slamming on the brake so hard it almost breaks through. It takes only a moment for my mind to catch up with my eyes and tell me I hit something. Someone. And that someone is lying in a pool of blood feet away, where the collision with my car sent him flying.

It only takes this one moment to know it isn't a bulk, but a human being.

It only takes this one moment for my singing to transform into a soul-rattling scream.

It only takes this one moment for me to realize that when people say car crashes happen in slow motion rather than at the speed of light, they're batshit crazy.

And so is my life.

Batshit crazy

.\.|./.

A/N: Views about Crystal? I hope you'll like her. She's far from perfect, but she's human <3