I haven't talked to Dad since Father's Day. I don't know how I feel about it, so...how can I write about it?

I haven't been writing much here at all, lately. In my dayplanner, I have a section for daily notes, and I guess I've been using that as a diary, but...I mean, one of the things that shattered my heart after the fire was losing years worth of diaries, and here I am, in one of the most important times of my life, living in New York, and...I'm not documenting every day here, dissecting every move.

Instead of writing them down...I'm seeing them all. With my new eyes. I feel like I'm seeing the world for the first time.

Do I have a label on my head? This girl is disposable. This girl is invisible.

This girl is worthless. Walk through her. Bulldoze through her.

Rip her apart like Kleenex.

How many people have treated me badly my whole life because they thought they had more value than me? Corinne is just the latest. Susan...I'd like to believe her when she said she didn't know it was all to hurt me, but...she's a part of it, too, isn't she. I've been quiet and shy, but I've been good, and I don't hurt people, and I never ask for anything, and yet this happens over and over again.

You think it wouldn't hurt like this anymore. When my father's been doing this my whole life: not listening to me. Acting like he knows better, even when I hurt. Right for him is right for me.

I have a sparkling tiara on my bedside table now, and it glitters like a faraway star. I used to wish on stars for things, but all of my wishes were for him. I never wished for a first kiss or a boyfriend, like the other girls did. I wished for good grades for Dad. I wished that Dad would be happy. I wished that Dad would be happy with me. Even my dreams belong to him.

But I have a crown now that says that sometimes, you can flip it all upside down. Maybe this isn't a symbol of one crazy night. Maybe it's the first star of my own.

When Logan and I broke up the first time, back in eighth grade, I forgave him, and he corrected what he was doing wrong: he had stopped listening to me. He stopped listening, and I forgot that to be listened to, you have to speak up. People not listening to what I say, though, has stayed with me. He doesn't do it anymore, he wouldn't dare, but...others do.

I've been trying to put my finger on why I haven't been eager to spend time with Carly lately. At first I thought it was because of that trust issue that was raised in our conversation, but that wasn't right: I give time to everyone, and Carly is a great, amazing, talented person, why wouldn't I want to spend time with someone like that, even if it never deepened into a friendship because of her own reservations? And then I realized it as Shoshannah made me a bowl of Cream of Wheat for breakfast: it's soft like soup but not as messy as oatmeal. I don't like oatmeal right now, it's so ragged looking, you can't keep it even as you eat it. I was smoothing the surface of the food and I looked up, it hit me that I hadn't even had to say that I was struggling, everyone knew. At some point, my voice stopped being important. Everyone can see that I've lost weight. That I'm...my food habits have picked up, that I'm counting every bite. My voice has disappeared: if I said I was fine, everyone would ignore me, wouldn't they.

Carly ignored what I said. And I'm upset. I guess I didn't realize it until just now.

( Ghosts appear and fade away. )

I can't cry anymore. It's worthless, all of those tears. Wasted water: I remember once, after the fire, when I couldn't cry I overheard Mrs. Thomas whisper about that to Sharon. Mary Anne hasn't cried. Why should I: I shed an ocean of tears before that fire, enough to put out the blaze...all of it, wasted.

I'm tired of crying. It does nothing, not a thing. I'm sitting in my room looking just like I did when I was ten...same size, too. Sharon's tried to talk to Dad, but the fight was so disasterous that I ran downstairs and begged her to stop, just stop. I deserved it, I told her. It was okay. So I sit up here since I'm grounded for the rest of the week: no phone. No TV. I had to get my thoughts down, so I asked my therapist if I could use her computer. This is all I'm allowed out of the house for, therapy and my sitting appointments. So, I sit here and knit and quilt and read and take portrait after portrait of my body, of every bone that stick out, looking like it just begs to break. I've been forcing myself to eat, even though it's the last thing I want to do.

I don't know anymore. All I know is I don't want to cry over what my father has done or how much I miss Logan because just like none of the water I cried could put out that fire or bring back everything I lost, none of the tears I cry now would convince my father that I'm not what he thinks I am...or bring back the boy I love. Nothing. It's hopeless, that's all it is. No point. I just stay here, with my braids, in saddle shoes, in this room that never got the makeover that we started. It's been halted, stopped, right in the middle of its change. Just frozen here, like me, my little room.

My desk is perfect.

Everything in its place. Computer, textbooks, notebooks, dayplanner. Pens, Post-Its, highlighters. My certificate from NHS. My camera. A vase with daffodils I cut from my Logan garden. It's so perfect, orderly and clean. It's exactly how I want to be, to seem. I am not.

Dad traced his finger down the edge of the desk yesterday and asked if I was okay. He said that he's getting worried about how I've had another night terror, about how thin I'm getting. How thin I am. I smiled at him so bright, my insides winced, and I said that I am fine. I've said it so much that the words have lost their meaning and their shape. I'm fine, I'm fineimfineimfineimbreaking apart, and I don't know how to put myself together again? I don't know what to do? I don't know...I'm so lost, and I'm so scared, and I'm so empty, it's like everything that I do is falling down into a deep chasm, and I'm doing everything I can, I'm doing everything perfect, and nothing seems to...it all falls in me and down and through me, and I'm so...I don't know what to do. I don't know how to say it. I just feel like I'm screaming, but my voice has died...it's like it's ash. I taste ash when I speak. I have these nightmares, over and over, I wish...what do you do when you feel like you're already dead?