Had I done things in a different way, it could have even been constructive and healthy. But I’d been a stupid kid. Arrogant. A little worship was good. I’d worshiped Dean. He’d worshiped me. On a level, I’d reached for the wrong things in places, prioritized certain things over others in how I handled the adulation and the public. There were a lot of things I wished I’d done differently.

That wasn’t even the biggest part of why, much like Byron, I couldn’t go to my most natural ways of finding recharge. Like how mental illness obscured the ability of the person in question to even see the problem at hand, my capacity to recover was distorted and damaged. Tainted.

Tristan had remarked on it too, now that I thought about it. Needing people. He wanted to party, to abandon restraint. I wanted… I supposed I wanted not to illogically, automatically, inevitably think of the wretched thing that had occupied that hospital room, anytime someone paid particular attention to me.

I wanted to not feel a deep sadness sinking in when I caught someone staring.

In the places my head went, the wretch loomed in first place, the hero celebrity in second. The third place possibility was that this girl looking at me was something nefarious, and that the young, freckle-faced athlete was an agent of Tattletale or a hire from Cedar Point. Not impossible, but not likely.

Then the fourth place possibility, that she thought I was attractive, not impossible. The fifth place possibility that I had a piece of my breakfast stuck to my cheek or something in my hair. The sixth place possibility, that she was staring off into space and I was somehow always in the way…

My thoughts were mired in something so minor, my heart ached indistinctly, and I was just making myself anxious and upset.

I checked my phone. I could focus on the job. The mission at hand.

You have 49 unread emails.

It was rare for me to have more than three.

Pinned Email: Houndstooth (2 hours ago)
[7 prior messages]
9:15am it is. I’ll meet you guys at the station.

(Unread) Kenzie Martin (5 minutes ago)
oh I wanted to ask again is there any word on Rain? you should be seeing Tristan soon and they are probably in contact

(Unread) Kenzie Martin (18 minutes ago)
thats not me trying to guilt you either

(Unread) Kenzie Martin (19 minutes ago)
it’s okay if you don’t answer

(Unread) Kenzie Martin (20 minutes ago)
but seriously who starts the day with math right?