“You’re an adult,” he says, “and you can do what you want. We won’t stop you.”

But that doesn’t stop him from slamming the door behind her when she finally leaves.

Echoes of her mother’s silence. She barely utters a word. Of course, Connie knew she wouldn’t. She stares holes in the floors, mutters under her breath that she is a disgrace to the family and she never wants to see her again, but these words don’t wound the way they should. On some level, this must come as a relief to the woman who birthed her. There has never been anything between them but silence.

Echoes of Emily’s defiance. It’s Emily that tries to stop her. She snarls, “Have you lost your fucking mind?”, her gaze frightened and confused. She doesn’t understand and it’s not her fault. Connie knows the world is changing and maybe the day will come when Emily does understand—when Emily accepts that this is who her sister is and comes to love her anyway. But for now, echoes of Emily ring through her brain—Emily telling her she’s wrong, she’s making the worst mistake, she’s ruining her life. But none of it rattles her anymore. Connie knows her sister is right, after all, and it doesn’t stop her. She is ruining her life. She is making a mistake.

The truth is that she doesn’t care.

It’s been three months since Alex left. Three months and all she ever does is think about her. There’s nothing without Alex—no joy, no hope, no happiness. Life became an existence void of anything discernible at all without her. She misses Alex with an agony she never might have imagined that blocks out every other feeling—and certainly all her logic, her common sense. Sometimes during the quiet moments in between dinner with her father or conversations with Emily, between her head touching the pillow and sleep taking over, a memory resurfaces unwillingly—Alex’s back arching on the bed—Alex’s face hovering over hers, curls tickling her chin—Alex’s naked form, illuminated by the starlight streaming in—and she feels what little resolve she has left withering away at the thought of every touch, every whisper, every kiss. All the emotions that flickered across her face that night—the tenderness, the longing. It doesn’t matter what she does to keep her at bay. That night dwells on in the back of her mind, burrowed down into the crevices of her memories.

And Alex’s hunger. Her insatiable, constant hunger.

She knows that a day could come when she would forget all about Alex Ryan. The memory of her voice would be no more than a passing whisper, and her touches no more concrete than the thought of a chilling breeze. Perhaps years from now she would sit with her family and that name would flash across her mind. She would think of her fondly, remember her as a girl she once believed herself to love, back when she believed in such a thing at all. Those old memories would fade away to nothingness, grow hazy with time. There could come a time when she no longer wants her, or needs her. And the things that hurt her now—they would serve as fond reminders of a time gone by.