Stacey's stepmother called me today: I guess Stacey showed her some of the portraits from my photography project...and she thought they were good, really good. So good that she offered me a job this summer, an internship: I'd be an assistant on her photoshoots and her castings, help her with her equiptment and her studio...I'd be working for a real live well-known photographer! I'd have to move to New York for the summer, though Kevin and Shoshannah said that I could stay at the brownstone in the city with David; it didn't even hit me until after we three had talked it out that I had no intentions of asking for Dad's permission.

Not after what happened on Father's Day. No.

I don't want to leave here, my new home, Bee and all of my friends. Dawn. Loes. But if I told Samantha no, wouldn't I be doing what I've done all year? Putting everybody ahead of myself and nearly breaking apart over and over. It's like I have to give all I can because back in December, I took all of those pills and this is my penance. Have I done enough? I feel like I've been lying still on the bathroom floor, drowning in all of that water. Can I stand now? Can I walk into something new, something that's mine, and not be guilty?

I'm depressed.

Badly, lately. All I want to do is study, alone, in my room. Or climb in bed and not move. I told Theo that the photo project gets me out of bed some days...most days. I feel like I'm pretending, all the time. The only person I want to talk to, be with anymore, is Loes. Even Bee is hard sometimes, because she has so much energy, and I...I'm tired. I fight my way through the fog, I smile and act like I belong, I'm nice and perfect. All of these people need me to listen to them, help them, be there for him: I have to be perfect like they need me to be. So I'm perfect. Nobody would ever guess that I'm tarred on the inside.

I need something to change.

Today was the fourth day that I took the medication that Dr. Axtell prescribed. Four days, four pills. I need help, I need a way out, I need to change before I topple over the edge again.

I can't go back to where I was before. I want to be found.

It was easy to figure out, when I was at the Lodge in Utah: I want to be a person that other people can confide in, I want to be a person that other people can turn to for sympathy and care and a shoulder to cry on, all because I didn't have that when I was growing up. Kristy was wonderful, but she never was the type to listen very well; the only person I had was Mimi, and I wanted to be Mimi to others. It's a very maternal thing, what I try to be for my friends, for strangers. But it makes me happy. My therapists, though, all of them from Dr. Reese to the doctors I have now, have told me that it's not my job to be the world's therapist. It's not my job to heal everyone.

Lately, I...first, I have to tell off Abby to get her to make a breakthrough, which is fine. But then I'm trying to reach out to Tree Daniels? I'm trying to convince Carly to trust people? The conversation with Carly left me confused...and tired. Not tired physically, exactly, but tired mentally because my first thought was, "Well, if she doesn't expect anything from relationships, then I'm going to be that friend who changes everything and fixes her of this!" But the idea of that made me so...tired. Wasn't I the one who told Logan that I have to fix myself? Isn't that the same for her? And more than that: when did I become the person who heals everyone? Dr. Axtell said that my problems are heavy and gigantic and exhausting, and when I put healing others over healing myself, I hurt myself, and that there's a difference between being a good friend and doing what I do sometimes...what I feel like I should do with Carly.

But I guess it's even more than that: it's that, ever since December, I thought Carly and I were building a friendship that started with our art bonding and was going deeper. But when she has this categorical rule that she'll only give so much...then do we have a real friendship at all? Is being more than just art friends...worth it with someone who isn't willing to have a relationship? I don't want to sit around and therapyspeak at each other when it's clear that under it all, she's not willing to invest in me like I'd be in her, and...that she doesn't trust me. I understand that her family has been hard, but...if she's that closed off, I'm not egotistical enough to think that I'll be the person to magically heal her after all of this time...I don't know. I just feel suddenly like she's fenced me away from her...and I don't know if I want to stand there with a pair of wirecutters and snap the electric wires that keep me away. At what point do I say that it's not worth it?

Ironic: Tree accused me of stealing Carly away from her. The truth is, Carly was never available to be stolen in the first place.

I don't know.

If someone hurt me, physically hurt me, I'd want...I'd expect Logan to defend me, to stand up for me. To hurt them like they hurt me. On the other...I'm angry at Pete for doing that. I'm pissed, genuinely upset at him, for something that I'd want Logan to do for me. I guess: no. I'd want Logan to defend me, but I wouldn't want it to be public. The fact that Pete did it in front of other people meant that everybody now knows. Everybody. Why couldn't he wait, why couldn't he do it in private! I don't understand.

I have trouble looking some of my friends in the eye sometimes, because they know: they know my dark secret, they know I was in a hospital, and so many of them know what I did, and I want to crawl out of my skin, I'm so shamed by the fact that they know. And I feel this pressure to be more perfect than ever around them, so that they think that I'm fine now. Maybe they'll forget. Maybe they'll forget that I smashed apart, maybe...if I were Andi, and everybody knew that my boyfriend beat me, I'd kill myself. I'd kill myself, I couldn't do it, I couldn't go to school, knowing that everybody knew...Andi's stronger than I am. But...I just...I don't know.

How do I tell her how much I ache for her? You can't go up to someone and say, So there's this rumor... I can't. But how do I tell her...and I feel so stupid, my God, I feel...how stupid I was! I cooed over that bracelet...my necklace looks like hers, I'll never be able to wear this necklace again, I'm so ashamed of myself for gushing over how romantic it was that Andi had changed Bruce while he was making her bleed. I want to be here for Andi now, I want to sit with her if she wants to talk, if she wants to not talk...but I don't want to crowd her, shadow her, scare her...these rumors, that I know because of a rumor...

Logan's coming over tonight. I asked the Hirschs if he could, and they didn't care, and we asked his parents, and it took a bit of convincing, but because of what happened to his mother, I suppose they yielded because we found their sensitive button and pushed it: when girls are treated badly. I just want him around tonight. I want to talk. I want to not talk. But...I just want my boyfriend around tonight because...just because. I just want him, and I don't care if that makes me stupid or weak or lame, I want him tonight. Because I'm scared. Because I'm angry at a good friend, and I won't ever tell him why because I can't bear to let him know that I'm not All Better. Because I'll never be perfect enough to make it all go away.

Because all I can do is cry for Andi, and not a single tear makes it better for her. Not a single one.

I don't know why I said what I said to Marty. All I want is for everyone to think I'm...I mean, I might as well have just told him that I am anorectic, I suffer from depression...that I'm suicidal, I should have just told him everything, considering what I said.

Dr. Axtell says that it could be that I wanted to show someone in this school who thinks I'm such an angel that I'm not, that I'm actually broken inside. Or maybe I wanted what would happen if I showed that side of me.

But I wonder if...if it wasn't the part in me that wanted Marty Bukowski, Marty who hits, Marty who yells, Marty who judges and is rude and base...that I wanted Marty to punish me for being so broken. That he'd mock me or...maybe a tiny part of me wanted him to tell everyone, then I'd be...and it would force me to try it again because I couldn't...

I haven't been able to eat since. And I don't want to eat today. I was able to hide it in front of Loesy last night at the Rodowskys, thanks to Jackie interrupting dinner about twelve times. Not eating lets me balance this anniversary against how I feel inside, so that I can enjoy it and still...

I told Marty what I cannot tell people, and he was...so decent, and...Loes is so sweet, and...

...and I can't eat.

Miranda's Test Results
Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Type 3 Image Focus |||||||||| 34%
Type 4 Hypersensitivity|||||||||||||||||||| 86%
Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||| 66%
Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||||||||| 74%
Type 7 Adventurousness || 10%
Type 8 Aggressiveness |||| 14%
Type 9 Calmness |||||||||| 34%

type score type behavior motivation
1 22 I must be perfect and good to be happy.
2 22 I must be helpful and caring to be happy.
4 21 I must avoid painful feelings to be happy.


...even this test knows, doesn't it, that I'm a mess.

I flipped out on Logan yesterday; I couldn't even stop myself, I was just...I let everything go on him, every little fear. I'm slipping right now, and everybody watches us, everybody because he's Logan Bruno, Mr. Star, Mr. Football Savior, Mr. Awesome. Which isn't fair to him, that everyone treats him like that, but...all of those eyes are on him, and then they hit me. His perfect little girlfriend that makes up a perfect little couple, and...I feel like I'm starting to crack, but nobody can see. Especially him. And I know it's unfair, to push him away, to snap at him when he worries, but...

Why won't this all just go away? Why can't things just stop? Why can't everyone just leave me alone, everybody. Everybody wants something from me: Dad needs me to be his good girl. Sharon needs me to be bright and happy and social so she feels better. Dawn needs me to be healthy so she doesn't worry. All of my clubs need me. Loes needs me...and he also needs me to be this sexy thing that I am not. I thought I could be, but. I'm not. I'm failing.

When did I stop dreaming about who I wanted to become? I wanted to evolve this year. Instead, I'm starting to tread water all over again. I'm tired of always waiting to drown. I feel like I'm one bad rain away from slipping under, and...just when did everything get so complicated that I can barely keep up? But I have to. They need me to. I need me to. I'll figure something out. I will. I'm just so tired of this.

I'm starting to get tired of myself. Of being me. I just want things to be easy, just once. I need an end.

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.

I keep trying to write something here...and then I look underneath...and see that last entry. The last one.

There shouldn't be an entry here. It should stay empty forever, I shouldn't be here to write this entry. I shouldn't be here, at my desk, at my computer, my breath fogging up the screen as I lean forward to see what I wrote. That very last entry, a sort-of cyber suicide note.

I need space, between the me that writes here...and the me that wrote that.

It's been a month since then.

It feels like a lifetime...

How do you do this. Who gets a letter, who doesn't. If I write a letter to Stacey, will Claudia feel left out? Will Abby wonder why I didn't leave something for her? Would Bee's parents mail her letter to her in Colorado? Would they all compare length? If Tess's letter is longer than Logan's, will he feel less loved? Maybe I shouldn't write letters at all. Just a note, to explain why.

No. Just a note to say that I'm so sorry.

I'm the only one whose body is made of cinder and smoke, who feels the fire every day. The anniversary of it is Sunday: my bones ache for it, forecasting its coming like as if it were rain. Dr. Reese told me before the fire, when I was just a sad and stressed thirteen year old who needed a therapist to get through the day, that I had to deal with how I felt about my mother's death, the way my father raised me, the discovery of my grandparents...even how it felt to watch my father change into this completely different, happy man at the hands of Sharon, a kind of happiness that I could never give him...that I had to deal with it all before I let it burn me out.

And then...my house burned down. Burn me out, burn me out. No wonder I'm empty.

So I need to say I'm sorry. For being the weak one, for not being good enough...for me. And that will have to be enough. And then I can be done.

I hope, when you die, you get to sleep, that there are no nightmares. That everything you lost is found again.

I hope my mother's waiting for me.

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?