She buried herself in research. For some reason, she couldn’t get her mind around the fact that Dana had died so quickly. Of course, heart attacks were usually quick, but as much as she tried to picture it in her mind, she just couldn’t do it. Dana had looked so normal, so regular, walking away from the car. Fucking cancer was nothing more than a liar, too. She wondered if Dana had known it was coming. She wondered why the fuck she hadn’t insisted she go in too. She wondered why she was such a shitty person that she’d let the love of her life die alone in some fucking room in a hospital. She wondered if it had happened in the psychologist’s office, and if they’d wheeled her down to ICU or just used the crash cart right there, next to the expensive furniture.

She wondered why her last words to Dana had been "I promise." It sounded so stupid, so callous. Dana had given her an incredibly beautiful goodbye, and Alice had left off with something she said all the time. Oh, she’d told Dana she loved her, but her very last words to her were so fucking stupid that she hated the fates even more for it. The least destiny could have given her were some decent parting words.

It was amazing. Nothing stopped, aside from Alice’s world…and to a lesser extent, Shane, Howie, and Helena’s. The rest of their friends were sad, of course, but it was nothing compared to the other three, and it didn’t even come close to Alice’s misery.

She hated the fact that she wasn’t even sad most of the time. It was more like she was in some kind of drug-induced haze, with no concept of reality. She had a really hard time focusing, and barely registered the fact that she was being spoken to, let alone what was said. Her thoughts were only on Dana, and on what a complete fucking dumbass she’d been.

The anger was what eventually did her in. She knew, somewhere in her muddled brain, that anger was one of the steps, but it felt so fucking wrong to be angry with Dana for leaving, for breaking her promise. And it made Alice hate herself, and hate even more that the one of the next steps was acceptance. She couldn’t fathom accepting Dana’s death. That’d be the same as dying herself, and she simply couldn’t accept the fact that she’d accept it.