My little period of happiness came and went faster than I'd expected. In less than another month I found myself thinking and worrying over nothing, asking myself too many questions devoid of any substance. Despite everything Ben had told me I was still somehow convinced that my efforts to free him as soon as possible were necessary, even if he seemed happy at the moment. And isn't that what everybody's brain does? When everything is happy and carefree, we find something, no matter how tiny it is, to fuss over because we have nothing left to complain about.

That's why I slowly started dressing down.

School didn't help my worries, even though it was the one place I was kept away from my one big responsibility. It was probably the "junior depression" part of the equation, now that I think about it, but it still didn't make sense to me why I couldn't seem to get up in the morning when it mattered most. Eventually, Ben began checking on me, which made everything hurt more.

"Ave...don't try fooling me, I know that if you have the day off today you would've looked happier last night."

"I know, I know, I'll get up. Man, you are really on my case lately," I chuckled and sat up, rubbing my eyes and stretching, though having someone standing right next to your bed keeping a sharp eye on you makes it 101% more difficult to get up.

"I have to be. I don't care how many times you eventually come down the stairs and head out the door, it's concerning when it's 7:20 and you're still nowhere in sight."

"Yeah, I get it. I'm sorry. It's just really hard nowadays." I yawned and swung my feet over the edge, finally standing up. Ben looked a tiny bit more sympathetic.

"I guess I can't judge. I haven't been to school in seven years."

I'd slowly started changing from my typical binder, tank top, and mesh shorts to more loose and baggy clothing that could hide my body more. I was falling into that hole that a lot of enby people succumb to; trying to make nobody see you clearly, eventually just downgrading to a hoodie and sweatpants to avoid any strange looks. It wasn't even so much my insecurity getting in the way at this point, I was really just stressed for whatever reason that presented itself that day. Like a TV show's monster of the week.

But Ben was always there at the end of the day, which made things a tiny bit easier. And somehow, a whole lot harder at the same time.

I had stopped sitting at Meghan's lunch table all the time. I couldn't pinpoint why, only that I didn't want to give her any direct chances to see me like this. Wherever I was, though, Jason would usually find me and strike up a conversation, which I assumed he did out of pity. Luckily, with all the tightly-bound groups of friends in my lunch period, there was always some new corner of a lunch table I could silently stay at for the day. Nobody commented. I became nomadic for a solid month.

Then I remembered that she existed.

Oh.

"Why so quiet? Did you become brain dead hanging out with that weird geek boy?"

I made a mistake one day, failing to notice the occupants of a certain table before sitting down and trying to enjoy my chicken tenders in peace. Charissa nudged her way over to me, sitting right across with an uncannily sympathetic look. It was almost as if she really wanted to hang out with me, but I knew that could never be the case.

"Is it okay if I sit here?"

I stared at her for a moment, trying to process her question. Silently, I nodded and returned to my food.

"Look, I'm sorry if something I said hurt you. I'm just trying to be more friendly around you, and I don't know what it was but it felt like something I was doing was making you feel bad. We're cool, right?"

I couldn't see her face, but something about that overly sweet tone knew how to make someone not trust this girl. I still nodded again, of course. I wasn't in the mood to start anything right now.

"Okay. Great," she said, instantly returning to her original place at the table and leaving me alone again. I wasn't sure what the point of any of that was; maybe it was some gaslighting technique. Maybe she thought that if she gave some seemingly sincere apology, I wouldn't tell anyone that she was being mean to me. Again, it didn't feel like she was trying to be malicious for her own sake. I was still pretty sure some of her peers had put her up to making me uncomfortable.

And then I heard whispers at the end of the table.

"I think they're actually mentally retarded. For real."

"Hey! Don't say that. They spend all their time on social media, they'll send a 12-page article to you about why that's offensive."

Everyone laughed except me. And now I had no choice but to take it. Up until now it was more backhanded stuff that was upsetting me, but now they were just kind of being shitty.

I wasn't sure which was worse.

—

"Jesus Christ, Ave. I already told you to deal with this shit and you're still letting them walk all over you?"

"It's not as easy as it sounds! Do you know how it feels to know that no matter what you do, somebody will always find a way to make it look like you're the one who's wrong?"

"Well, no. But isn't not doing anything when they make fun of you just playing into their hands too?"

"Honestly...I don't care at this point. It's more than halfway through the year, I won't have to deal with their immaturity much longer."

"And then next year?"

I thought, then smiled. "Get a restraining order."

"You will do anything to avoid conflict, won't you?"

"Not normally. But this is different. I'm being directly attacked now, so I can't let them know they're getting to me."

"A little late for that, wouldn't you say?"

I paused. Shit.

"Ugh. You're right."

"Yeah. Well...I really can't force you to do anything. I'm just saying that you won't have anything to lose by calling them out now."

"I know..." I groaned and laid back in bed, hugging a pillow to my chest. It was one of the ones we'd recovered from the attic, and being around it alone was giving me an emotional boost. I still had no idea why Charissa & Company's barbs we're getting to me so much; they just were. I turned back to Ben, who was hovering above me with his arms crossed in a disapproving manner. I furrowed my eyebrows and patted the space on the bed next to me. He sighed, drifting down and muttering, "This again."

"Sorry, I just feel like sometimes you're the only one I can count on." I curled up, burying my face into his chest. "You get it."

"What about that girl, Meghan?" He asked, wrapping his arms around me with a kind of gentleness that felt like he was afraid of breaking me. "You talk to her. She seems nice. Why can't you...?"

"Eh, it's kind of different with her."

"Excuses," he scoffed.

"But it is! We haven't really hung out in so long, the last time I tried talking to her about something like this, it was so short and it felt so weird. It's like we barely know each other anymore."

"Maybe. But you should still talk to someone. Someone other than me," he added sternly, cutting me off before I could say anything. He sighed again and kissed my neck. "You know, I never said anything to anybody about all the stress the Children put me under. It didn't help anything. If I'd just looked past my own pride and even mentioned it to someone who cared, I could have saved myself from that whole mess."

"I'm not being recruited by a bloodthirsty cult. But...I get it." I smiled the tiniest bit, giving in.

"Hey...'who's Logan Paul?'"

Ben paused out of shock, then almost exploded with laughter.

"Oh, come on! You're so mean...!"

"You come on, you lived in the internet for years and didn't know who that was?!"

For a good couple of minutes, we actually got something nice out of these little talks for once. But after a while, something flipped a switch in the back of my brain and I started silently worrying again. But this time, it wasn't about Charissa.

The way he could smile and laugh so effortlessly with me...it made me realize just what I was to him. I did technically have "friends," if that's what you wanted to call them. Not very strong ones, but I had them.

And Ben had nobody.

He was always helping me as best he could. The constant nagging voice in the back of my head, the stress of somehow making everything worse, knowing that it would probably be a long time before we found a way to get him out; I was just starting to get used to that. But now I realized that all in all, I was alone in this. Sure, Ben was there—he was why I had gotten myself into this situation. But this was a different kind of alone. Probably the worst kind, in all seriousness.

Ben depended on me and me alone, a terrible decision. And I couldn't depend on anybody else.

Hell, I probably couldn't think of a way to free him in a million years. There might not have been a single person in the world who could pull of something like that.

Unless...