In Which Smoke May Mean Fire

Dear Diary,

Sleep is a lot like love. It’s all at once or not at all, unavoidable, and pisses me off to no end. I can’t get Vincent out of my head. I can’t stop thinking about the way Caleb looks at me, the way he touches me. I know he’s being comforting but there’s something beneath it all that scares me. I never sleep in anymore. Just like I swear I’ll never love again.

But with every breath I find myself exhausted and wanting to fall into the warmth of sleep with another. With Vincent? With Caleb? I don’t know anymore. The two of them confuse me. Even forgetting me seems to not be enough to keep Vincent away from me. He wants to know me again. Wants to go out and do things together. Like it will ever be that simple again.

Dad’s never home anymore. He’s in the middle of switching hospitals and transferring patients is taking longer than he’d like. At least that’s what he says. I think he hates looking at me. I remind him of everything he’s lost, including the life that he fucked up. I’m the daughter who maybe looks too much like her mother. That’s what Uncle Chase said at the funeral. That I look so much like her.

I was about to try to sleep and stop staring out the window when a call came on my phone. It was Vincent. It was also almost three in the morning. I thought it must’ve been important, you know? Why else call at this hour? So I answered it. He asked to meet up. And I said yes. I don’t know why I said yes, just that I did. I wanted to see him. I wanted to fall into his arms and tell him I was sorry for everything. Even though I knew I couldn’t.

We met at the school. I couldn’t help but watch the fairy ring from a distance and keep watching I’m always afraid something will come out of there I waited in my car until he showed up and then he started to ask questions. Questions about what he had done and what we were and how I was involved and that I owed him answers.

I told him I didn’t owe him anything. That he could blow in the wind. He had to figure shit out on his own and I wasn’t going to help him because of everything he had done to me. I was saying it so he would go away and stop talking to me, but at some point, I knew I was believing my own words. I don’t owe Vincent anything. I don’t owe any of them anything. What I’ve become is my own doing. But it means I can’t blame them either.

After he left I lit a cigarette and cried for the girl I wasn’t anymore. I didn’t know who or what I was now, but there was no going back. And it was time to embrace that. It's time to be Robin again.

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