The ring lay in my palm, reflecting the bright sunlight streaming through the window. It was as still as I now was, having recovered from my temporary shock. Thoughts upon thoughts suddenly started rushing through my mind, like a damned river breaking through its restraint. I tried to calm myself and slow my breathing-but it took some time and a lot of effort.

My hands started shaking, perhaps from the strain upon my arms from holding them up for too long. I relaxed my muscles, and, in doing so, let the ring slip from my palm. I winced as it chinked onto the floor, cringing away from it in a mixture of horror and pain.

Memories like that were best left alone.

I suddenly got a strange sense of claustrophobia, as though the walls were slowly closing in on me, trapping me, suffocating me. I realised that I needed to get away from the room that I had been solely occupying for so long. In a somewhat confused rush of activity, I flung open my door, sprinting out, and down, down, onto the street. I ran down the road, kept running and running through the city, trying to find an escape from the torture. It was a good while before I slowed, though how I managed to cover so far a distance being so unfit, I could not work.

I realised I could not run from my memories. And so, for the first time in so many months, I sat, in the middle of somewhere I had never been, and cried. I took no notice of the strangers walking past me, and the strange looks they gave me. I let myself become overwhelmed with grief, and did not try to fight it off. I thought of all the things I had had, and lost, all the things I had almost had and thrown away.

And then, all the things I had almost had, and now had lost the chance of ever having.

I had no knowledge of the time, and so did not know how long I cried for, how long I mourned the life I thought I knew so well-the life that had been torn from me. The tears ran down my face as I thought of all the people I had left behind, who I had, effectively lost. And, for all those I had hurt with my depression. I was surprised they hadn’t wheeled me off to a hospital.

Once I had recovered from my outburst, I realised that I had to do something. My life was not stopping, and so it needed to be filled. What could I do?? I’d missed all the opportunities for college…and it was unlikely that I’d be able to re-apply. I could get a job, but without good qualifications, that would be difficult. And should I continue living with Renee and Phil? Or would that, perhaps, be a bit hard on both of them?

I needed to apologise, too. To so many people.

And I needed to get a social life. I didn’t have any friends any more-at least, I assumed I didn’t. I remembered with a sudden jolt all the guys at La Push. I would have been upset at the mention of that anyway-but it made it doubly worse now, knowing that I’d made the wrong decision…and could have been happy, if I’d simply chosen a different path.

All that time, Jacob had been right.