COLLIN

We were fucked.

Way before Aspen Cornwell made her way into our little dysfunctional group. The days of laugher, careless fun and juicy memories were long gone because that's what tragic death does to you. It makes the pain fester inside you, like a puss-filled wound threatening to pop and spill all over everything if you're not careful enough with how you treat it.

The thing is, even though we seemed perfectly normal to the rest of the Highland High population, there was an unspoken tragedy tying us all together, tainting us. Then there were the secrets. The ugly, disgusting ones that come bite you in the ass when you least expect it. We settled into the routine of pretense, making ourselves to be who everyone else thought us to be.

 Shameless bastards. It was easier that way.

And soon, it became our identity, making us forget who we were before Adam's death. Making us forget who we didn't want to become. I guess in a sense I could consider myself lucky, not because I survived two car accidents that could have been fatal for me as well, but because I lost memories of the past year due to the brain injury of the second accident, which made a clean canvas out of me. Thank you, retrograde amnesia. I could be painted, repainted. Made into something better.

If I gave myself a chance.

If I ground my teeth and got through the hard shit. If I did what was necessary.

But our actions have consequences. And there comes a time when we all have to pay. 

I knew my time would come. I knew it wouldn't be pretty and this time, there would be no one around to hold my hand and save me because I already blew it two times. Royally. 

I knew the price would be high, it was clear to me the night I packed my shit, got on the train and left Los Angeles in order to do what I should have done a long time ago. Find the truth. 

Chase it even, if there was no one around willing to give it to me. I knew that maybe, I would be grandly fucking myself over once again but I didn't really want to think about it at the time because fucking myself over was a pretty consistent activity of mine at that point. 

I was ready to go down if it came down to it and I wasn't scared. I was fucked already, it didn't matter. I knew I could withstand some more. I didn't know though, that me leaving Los Angeles would lead to this. 

I didn't imagine, not even for a fraction of a second, that I would manage to take down someone else with me, dragging them into deep pit of hell, making it damn near impossible to get out of that desperately annihilating place in one piece.

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