I thought I was healed, in a better place—a healthier place—but I was wrong. I know you’ll eventually blame yourself for all of this, but you were my reason to hold on as long as I did. My reason to fight the unbeatable battle.

At least for a while.

Oh, how I wish I had met you before.

I wish I had known you then. Maybe I would’ve fought harder against the voice in my mind. Maybe things wouldn’t have spun so out of control.

I would’ve had you. Only you make me strong.

If I had met you before, maybe you could have intercepted the dark path I was destined to follow with your light. Maybe we could have been each other’s guide. Holding tight to one another against the hurricane that is our lives.

But you were too late, and I grow too tired.

Too tired to keep on fighting for this empty vessel I call a life, a life of desolation now it’s void of you.

If I could go back in time, I would find you. I would search the world to seek you out and make you fall in love with me once more. I would need you, and you would need me, and all the pain, all the demons we harbor deep inside, would have disappeared before they had a chance to take root. And all the scars we have endured and worn with shame, would never have had a chance to strike.

But I’m lost without you.

I can’t breathe without you.

Without you here, all I can do is fall…

Hands shaking, I reread the entry over and over with daggers striking unrelenting at my heart. I never knew… I never knew she felt like this…

How could I have left her? I was so wrong, so f**kin’ wrong, and, by doing so, I’d ruined her. The piece of trash that I was had ruined everything for her.

Standing, I let my feet take me back to Lexi’s room, and I quietly opened the door. “All I Need” by Within Temptation was playing from the speakers—she loved this song. I watched as the chorus played out and a tear rolled down Lexi’s pale and sallow cheek. A part of my heart lurched to life. That was the first reaction she’d had in all the days I’d been sitting by her bed.

Clutching the journal to my chest, I silently backed out of the room, snatching a pen from the nurse’s station, and made my way back to the family room, finding a fresh page, putting pen to paper.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Lexi

I couldn’t believe I was back here again. I couldn’t believe I was back in this room. Memories of back then invaded my mind… I was only sixteen…

I stared at the large generic clock ticking on the wall in the small sterile office, feeling three sets of eyes on me.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…

I didn’t look their way. What was the point? They didn’t understand. No one did.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…

“Lexi? Are you listening to Dr. Lund?” my momma asked, her voice curt, or was it desolate? I couldn’t tell anymore. Was beyond caring.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Keep calm. They cannot change what you will not let them change, the voice assured me, and I felt myself relax.

Keep strong, Lexington. You know what is best. It is just a few more pounds. Listen to them and they will make sure you fail. You must not fail. You have come this far. Feel me. Trust me. Trust how good I make you look. Feel me in your mind, guiding you to perfection, the voice pushed and took back control.

“Lexi!” my momma snapped.

I dragged my head away from watching the black second hand on its hypnotizing circle, dancing starkly against the white plastic of the clock face on a snow-white painted wall.

“Lexi, you’re being pulled out of high school, at sixteen! All the cheerleading, the gymnastics, the dance classes stop. Your cheer scholarship to Oklahoma State has gone, revoked and given to someone else. It’s all gone! Are you even listening to this? All your dreams. Everything you’ve worked so hard for, for years, has gone!”

My eyes narrowed at her over-the-top emotional outburst, but I kept silent. My momma’s eyes, however, were unnaturally wide as she stared at me, water glistening. My daddy, stoic as ever, clutched her hand tightly.

“Lexington. You’re being sectioned. You’re not getting any better, despite our best efforts.”

I could see Dr. Lund’s mouth moving, lips tight. Strangely, the words seemed to pour from his mouth and sail out of the window behind him. I smiled as I watched the letters of his sentence dance in vivid primary colors and make their escape into the bright-blue summer sky, floating gently away on the light breeze.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Lexi!” my daddy shouted, causing me to jump. He let go of Momma’s hand and crouched before me, grasping my hands. His fingers began to caress every inch of my all-too-slender fingers and my bony knuckles. Daddy’s watery eyes flickered down to our joined hands. A single teardrop splashed on the ceramic white tiles at my feet. For a moment, my stomach flipped as I looked at my daddy, so broken, but the voice in my brain drowned out the solitary crotchet of compassion fighting to be heard.

The voice cooed, Ah-ah-ahhh, Lexington. Do not give in to your emotions. They make you weak. Remember, he is trying to get you to fail. They all are. You must not let them. Think of how far you have come. Stay strong. Only a few more pounds and you will be perfect. Together, we shall make you perfect… perfect.

My shoulders straightened in defiance, and I wrenched my hands away. Daddy slumped to his knees in abject defeat.

The voice was right. They were all trying to block the path to my goal.

“Lexington, we are losing you. Can’t you see that?” he whispered, moving back to sit next to Momma, retaking her hand in his. “Please… come back to us, sweetheart. You’re all we have. You’re our world. Our whole world. This… this… disease has overwhelmed you. Fight it, sweetheart. Fight it with everything you have,” he begged, his head dipping down yet again.