As of late, Ava has been stressing out over everything. I mean, more than usual if that is possible. It’s her senior year, her friends that she diets with are abandoning her or dying off, her family trying to keep in touch and in her business… the list goes on and on. She really tries to keep it from me, but I can see it in the way she looks at me with her dull, lifeless eyes.
   Her hair is growing thinner and her skin is covered in a thin layer of fuzz. I've seen it before. I try to tell her to go to the doctor’s, but she always gets mad and runs off for a day or two. I haven’t brought it up in a long time.
   Ava knows as of late that I, myself, have been acting strange. Excuse me, more strangely. Psychotic, if you will. My Tourette’s syndrome and Schizoaffective disorders have always gotten me in trouble and have always made me feel horrible. Lately though, it’s been worse and I just don’t feel the same way about a lot of things. I can barely get a sentence out without offending someone.
   Everyone here knows me as Crazy Jackson. Even before my freshman year 3 years ago, people knew all of my secrets. My personal and family drama was spread like wildfire. This is all because of my outbursts, which I can’t control at all anymore. I've given up.
   They all knew about my mother who left my father after he cheated with that stripper from the Tiger’s Den in the Big Bucks parking lot.
   They all knew about my mother flipping out and doing drugs. The worst was the meth. I prefer to call it “the Monster.” It would make her angry and violent and she would slap me for blinking at her. She would slap me because “ you reminded her of your father.”
   I remember the single most horrid day of my life. It was during the end of my sophomore year of high school. I had stopped to pick flowers after school for my mom. She really liked the little purple ones that grow at the beginning of Spring.
   When I got to my front porch, I knew something was wrong. When she wouldn't answer the door, I had to crawl through the window that led into our small dining room.
   I found my mom on the floor in the living room, overdosed. She was foaming at the mouth and she was still flushed from her efforts. I thought there was still time to save her, but I was too late. The police came and the ambulance took her body away, leaving me all alone with the bouquet of wilting flowers.
   My peers all knew about me finding her by the next day.
   They all knew about how I skipped school for “mourning” and how I kept Ava with me. All I did was talk to the walls for weeks. The people in my head would yell for hours, days, weeks, telling me how much of a screw up I was. I didn't want to go away to a mental ward. I didn't know if I could ever see Ava again.
   We decided against the facilities and Ava would stay next to me and feed me and keep me warm at night when I couldn't sleep. She would handle my violent outbursts and tics that had increased from stress, and she would help to calm my paranoia and hallucinations. i still feel bad about the harm and inconvenience I caused her.
   When I went back to school people would point and stare and call me names like “Crazy Jackson” or “loony bin.” It didn't help that they stared at my scars that healed from my mother’s beatings and my self-inflicted wounds.
   They all knew Ava and I were together. I love Ava, and even more so for staying with me and showing me the love I never felt as a child or a young teen. People think that she moved in with me to be a replacement for my mom, or because I forced her to by threatening her. Ava and I know that we love each other, and that we will always be together, but it still doesn't stop people from talking.
   They all know what abuse I had gone through, the things I continue to do to myself, and the thoughts I think are. All because I can’t keep my impulsive mouth shut.
   I’m just so tired of it all. I don’t know if I can take much more.

I remember the day clearly. We both had school, but I had work until 11 pm. My phone had run out of minutes.
   Jack had agreed to pick me up in our dented car at the bench, which was a block from my work. The bench was where we first met, had first sat to talk, to hold hands, and to really get to know each other. Even our first kiss. We ventured there almost every day for two years and three and a half months.
   I remember all of those moments, the gentleness of his movements. He had always treated me so fragile, and I liked it. I mean, I know why he did it. He didn't want to cause bruises to me that I got so easily and so often. I know though that if things were different he still would have been just the same Jack he always was.
   I waited there, after work, in the stifling and humid early midnight heat, until I just couldn't bear anymore sweat rolling off of my gaunt cheeks.
   I remember getting up to begin the trek back to the low-income apartments we had recently moved in to. We were so excited to finally get our own place.
   Unfortunately, they were all the way across town, and that was going against my health and monitor doctor’s orders. Every step filled me with dread and fear. Night time in any town or city is horrible, especially in a small town full of rough riders, meth heads, and pimps. There was another feeling aside from fear stirring the heavy air, though.
         As I neared the apartments, I saw the our fourth floor lights on. Obviously Jack was home, and it wasn't unusual for him to fall asleep at odd times and forget to wake up for a few hours. I hurried up the three flights of stairs, cursing the gravity that affected my unmuscular legs so much.
The apartment door loomed in front of me. I looked up at the rusty numbers: 413. I reached for the old brass doorknob. Something inside of me burst as I opened it slowly, kind of like when you open up a shaken bottle of soda pop.
         I found a small letter stuffed inside and envelope in the middle of our coffee table. My name was scribbled on it in Jack’s distinctive and uneven handwriting.
My shaky hands gently grabbed it, and I took out the crumpled paper. I knew what is was. I couldn't believe it was happening. It read:

My dearest Ava Gareth,
   As I write this, I am calm. I know that it is time for me to go. You will be confused and
heartbroken and upset. I am sorry to have left you this way, to find me like I fear will happen. I need you to know that I love you more than I have ever loved anything on this Earth.
   There are so many factors that go into my decision, but I know I caused it all myself. So, in my going, I can take it all away. Please just stay happy, and please take care of yourself. You are worth more than you think.
   Your Love,
       Jackson M. Beta

 I fold up the degrading note. I've read it three times, at least, since I got to my old house. Before then, it’s been left alone on my dresser, my cigarette butts littering his words with ash. That’s how I feel, my life burning bright and quickly like the end of my cigarette. There are moments which cause a spark for a short while, where I feel something, but then it’s over and things become dull and lifeless.
   Everyone has left me alone so far, even during the uneasy car ride home with my mom and Macy. Macy has always been pretty loud, so of course I was underwhelmed with her behavior.
   I hear a knock on my door that interrupts my thinking. Speak of the devil, I think.
   “Hey, Ava,” Macy says, walking slowly and awkwardly into my dark room. She looks a lot older than she did almost two or three years ago.
   She’s my cousin, even though we've lived together with my mom as long as I can remember. Macy and I are exactly 42 minutes apart, our mothers going into labor almost at identical times. I use to brag about it when I was younger, though I never bring it up anymore because of the fact that her mother died in labor and she got more sensitive about it as she grew up.
   Our blue eyes and blonde hair makes us almost indistinguishable from the back, but our heights, weights, and personalities are what really set us apart.
   Macy 5 foot 9 inches, and skinny like a bikini model. She is spunky, outgoing, and down-right gorgeous. I’m only 5 foot 3 inches, and people cringe when they see my weight. My bones stick out at my hips and my high cheekbones highlight my grim face. I am introverted and reserved, with nonexistent self-esteem and absolutely no real friends.
    I snap out of my drifting comparisons as I notice the bed springs shifting abruptly.
   “Hello? Ava? Earth to my favorite cousin?” Macy says, waving her hand in front of my face. I look her in her doe eyes. She never even used to speak to me. I find it suspicious I am her favorite all of a sudden.
   I look away because my eyes are puffy and I remembered I've been crying for four days straight. “What, Macy?” I croak out of my raw throat.
     “I’m sorry about what happened. I’m here, always and forever, if you’d like to talk about it,” Macy says. She gives my hand a squeeze, which I hadn't even noticed she’d grabbed.
   I muse again to myself whether mom put her up to this or not. Ever since I went downhill trying to be her, even before I left, Macy has tried to avoid me. I didn't exactly make her look fabulous to her friends.
   “Ava, you know that I have school tomorrow, and mom wanted to know if you were going to go. We've got you all signed up for the last few weeks, so that you’ll graduate with my class! All of your grades have even been transferred,” Macy says cheerfully. I notice an undertone, like she is speaking carefully crafted words. It’s as if she were walking on broken glass.
   I give in easily. I know I can’t just shut myself out anymore. “I’ll go,” I sigh. “I’m tired though, and I’m going to go to bed now.” I have to face new people and old classmates that undoubtedly have opinions about my decisions, and I know I need to the extra rest. Also, I don’t want dinner. I’ll get fat again.
   My mind starts to race as I have a panic attack. I try to keep my face still, unsuspicious.
   “Okay, Ava. I’ll tell mom you’re going, and you’re going to skip dinner tonight,” she says. Macy takes a long pause and gives me a long look once over, then continues, “Mom’s worried about your health. She said that your old doctor has been contacting her, and they say you’re too skinny. She said to tell you she’s setting up an appointment with the doctor, and that you’re
going, sedated or not.” Her eyes begin to water, and I know now that mom is still using Macy.
   I just stare at her and sigh. I knew the honeymoon wouldn't last long. Macy exits the room as I begin to make another list.

My topic is: Why I Left this Place.

1.  Mom is manipulative and still somehow manages to be overprotective.
2.  I wanted to get away from the washed up people and this washed up town.
3.  Macy is always used as a messenger.
4.  I couldn't stay the way I liked to look here.
5.  Dad moved to California, giving me the perfect chance to start over.

   I think over the list and decide the most important reason is number five this time.
   I had the perfect chance to start over, and I still messed it up.

  It’s been three or four weeks and I've managed graduated with straight D’s, one C, and a B. I managed to get a scholarship and acceptance to a college in Oakland, California. I’m currently back on an airplane on my way back to Larkspur, where my dad has conjured up a place for me to stay next door to him, “just in case.”
   In the last few weeks, with a few trips to the therapist and my own determination, I've managed to move past a few of the feelings that haunted me the first week and a half that I came here. Everyone has explained to me a million times that it won’t last forever, which I know. Things still hurt like Hell though, with Jack gone. I’ll never forget him.
   I've also decided that I am going to go somewhere very important when I get back and leave a bouquet of flowers.
   Overhead, the pilot comes on this walkie-talkie and tells us arrival will be in about 20 minutes, and that the skies are cloudy and are promising a nice storm. My stomach does a little flop.

   I walk quickly in the rain, trying to jump around each puddle as they steadily grow. My blonde hair is plastered to my face and neck, and tears I knew would flow are streaming down my face, making it impossible to see.
   Things are unfamiliar here in Larkspur, with my memory trying to forget about my past I had here. Eventually, I find my old work place. I walk quickly toward the next block, forgetting about the flash flooding that occurs there occasionally along the sidewalk. I step in a puddle that goes up to my ankle and it splashes my worn jeans and black hoodie.
   I have found exactly what I was looking for. I stop and look at our bench, the rain still thumping hard against my head. I gingerly sit down on the creaky old bench that hold so many memories. It seems like I knew it in a different lifetime.
   I realize now I was probably wrong about being able to come and see it again, but I am already here. I know that no one else in town is crying over my beloved Jack, and the thought makes me cry harder. No one else cares for the loss of such a beautiful life. No one will remember his warm smile or his beautiful blue eyes. They’ll only notice that the atmosphere in the classroom has shifted, how their target in no longer there. I begin to shake violently as my tears begin to come out in waves, like the ebb and flow of the ocean that seems to be my life.
   After a while of sitting in the rain, the sky has grown dark, and I sit still under the lone street light. I am finally tired enough to sleep. I lie down on the bench as the rain lightens up, not willing to part with it.
   As I sleep, I dream. I dream of the times before Jack had to go away, because those are times when he was happiest. It’s like little scenes pieced together. Jack always had something good to say about everybody else, and I dream of all the times that he and I would just sit and talk. In my dream he holds me close and whispers things we used to say to each other all of the time. Memories recount and flicker through my closed eyelids. I can feel him look at me and tell me to always be happy, no matter what.
   I awake the next morning, with only a trace of rain that kissed my skin. A calm comes over me, and when I look up at the clear blue sky, I can swear that I can see my Jack smiling again.