Alex
Dear Nobody,
I think it's been six or seven days since everything happened.
Everything and more since the hallway incident.
I say "think" because these last few days haven't felt real.
Time is passing but it feels like nothing is passing by at the same time.
It's felt a bit more like a daze of blurred images flashing and blazing by.
I know it doesn't really make sense, but at different points it feels like the hallway day happened so long ago.
And sometimes it feels like it was only yesterday.
Maybe it's because so much has been happening that's making it difficult to keep my days straight.
I've been using Indigo's outfit changes, entrances, and exits to log how much time's passed.
And, part of me feels like this is just some bad dream and none of it has actually happened.
But the fact is, this reality is far worse.
For so many more reasons.
I used to think a lot could happen in forty-eight hours, Nobody.
I didn't know so much more bad could happen in two.
And I'm no stranger to what can happen in the aftermath of a moment.
That nameless, faceless strangers would be what forced us to separate.
To cause this unwanted space Elias and I have been dealing with for the last week.
All those videos and pictures posted.
Plastering my deepest darkest secret for the whole world to see.
The whole world to know.
For my parents to find out.
For Elias's mom to call and stress over.
For Elias's dad to not.
Apathy and selfishness have made him blind.
Why couldn't the world be the same?
But it was mine to carry.
And Elias's to keep.
Unfortunately, the world doesn't share Malcolm King's approach when it comes to us.
Instead the whole world found out.
Everything.
Our relationship.
A brothers' brawl.
A couple's lost boy.
Hundreds of posted videos.
Shared hundreds of times more.
And, it wasn't enough.
They only wanted more.
So they dug even more.
And found even more.
To post.
To share.
To comment.
One thing leading to another like the dominoes that make up our relationship were put together only to fall to pieces.
In the aftermath of a moment.
All because of this world.
I wish I could say that we're the couple who aren't afraid to be up against the world-but the world's an uglier place than you think.
It's cruel.
Mean.
And full of vampires ready to suck you dry of all your privacy and plaster it for the world to consume and have a say.
Domino 1:
No more than two hours after the fight, TMZ were sent videos of Elias beating the living daylights out of Tanner.
Of the conversation that took place.
Of the pictures taken there.
Of the aftermath.
All over Tanner and Caleigh's faces.
On Elias's and mine.
And, the internet did what it does best.
Everything spread.
Like a virus.
Domino 2:
Minutes after TMZ, twenty other websites had their scoop, dug, and surfaced moments I didn't even know were filmed.
Moments I thought only existed in my memory.
Memories I thought only Elias and I shared.
Somehow people pulled both videos of Elias and I kissing on Hollywood Blvd. out of the shadows.
From our first kiss outside Grauman's Chinese theater to the last one we had there the night we got back together.
The vampires figured it out.
Find the face.
Find the name.
Solve the mystery they've been dying to know.
Who is Jersey?
They found me.
My Facebook.
My email.
Domino 3:
I never knew making my contact info public on the student registrar would mean risking my privacy to this extreme.
Other students here leaked my info on Twitter.
Where I go to school.
Where I live.
My class schedule.
Then Elias's psycho fan base decided to stalk and openly criticize my entire life and family before the day was out.
They've been doing it every minute of everyday ever since.
At first, we thought it was something we could handle.
A few people lurking around Canyon Point.
The fifty or so hate messages in my Gmail weren't too hard to deal with.
Some people staring and pointing me out in public and in class.
We were stupid to think something like this could die down.
And go away.
Quietly.
We hoped for a win.
For once.
For us.
We'd lived like no one cared.
Like no one was watching.
And we were wrong.
Domino 4:
The few people lurking around turned into crowds of people trying to get into the dorm, hordes of more surrounding it, and some making havoc in our hallway all the way to our front doors.
The fifty or so hate messages broke over a thousand in my inbox.
The staring turned into mobs of people forcing phones in my face, stealing snapshots, harassing me with verbal obscenities and tear-downs.
Then, it was too much.
I had a mini-breakdown.
Elias got desperate.
We had no other answer but the only necessary evil we knew could fix this.
Elias called dear-old Lisa up, and reinstated her as his publicist.
Again, not something we wanted.
But he did it for me.
Domino 5:
It led to this forced separation.
Lisa said we needed the distance.
For people not to see us together.
To not give them more fuel for their fire.
That the more we're seen together, the more it would lead to pictures.
And pictures led to posts.
She said.
Posts led to talk.
And talk keeps us in the public's eyes, ears, and mouths.
She said.
Without that, this will die down.
She said.
But the people were still too much.
And everywhere.
Lurking.
Hunting.
Attacking.
They knew where we were.
Canyon Point.
Third floor.
Last two doors at the end of the hall.
So Lisa made another suggestion.
Domino 6:
She told Elias he had to stay somewhere else.
Somewhere away from me.
That it was him being near me that was drawing the people here.
That if he wasn't, they wouldn't follow me as much.
And, that would help it die down.
So he left.
Because he had to this time.
He's staying somewhere with Ryker while I've been here in the dorms with Indigo.
But he did it for me.
When before, he wouldn't have had to.
Leave me alone.
Like last time.
Domino 7:
It's been almost a week since and I've barely seen, heard or talked to Elias.
Aside from a few short FaceTimes, a few failed attempts at secret run-ins and what Indigo can tell me from Ryker, it's been nothing but time, space, and quiet.
All things I'm not too good with.
But those few times I've seen him have been enough to see everything I hoped I wouldn't have to.
He's different.
Of course he his.
It's hard to see him like he's trying to be okay.
Pretending.
For my sake.
When before, he didn't have to.
And it makes me feel, I don't know, like he's treating me like I'm some fragile thing he thinks is always on the brink of breaking.
When before, he didn't.
I already knew I was.
So shattered after all of this, but this is what I never wanted for him.
To be like me.
To see it wreaking havoc inside him the way it's been wreaking havoc inside me.
And this-this is exactly what I didn't want.
To notice the change.
Domino 8:
I thought the truth was supposed to set you free.
Not make you feel like your even more bound to chains.
Elias wears a different kind of weight now.
We both do.
Sometimes I think-being honest comes at a higher cost than most people think.
Because ever since I told him the truth, I've quietly started to hate myself a little more each day.
To see him suffering and trying so hard to be strong for my sake takes a piece of me each time.
And we haven't even seen each other that much.
This past week I've pretty much been alone.
Domino 9:
Because of the buzz.
The attacks online and offline.
The pictures.
The talk.
The following.
It was all supposed to die down.
Well, it hasn't, really.
Not yet at least.
When Elias left the dorms, I still had to stay here to deal with school life.
Alone.
But I couldn't.
So, I ended up dropping Elias's class.
The people there.
They were just the worst.
Even more close to a situation that wasn't theirs to begin with.
More access.
More room for people to hurt.
Elias couldn't deal with it either.
He wasn't there.
So I stopped being there.
And I haven't really left my room after it.
All of it.
Domino 10:
Sunrises and sunsets have melded together.
I can't tell the difference.
I don't really care too.
I ignore my phone.
It's either a hateful email.
My mom freaking out.
Or Caleigh.
That needs no explanation.
Indigo is gone most of the day.
She gets food and does damage control.
Tries to get the people who linger in the hallway to leave.
She's been so busy with that and school that I barely see her.
I haven't been sleeping too well.
I haven't really left my bed.
I can't sleep at night.
I stay in bed all day.
Thinking.
About everything.
Left alone to deal with these thoughts and feelings.
Being alone led to digging of my own.
I didn't like what I found.
Domino 11:
Lisa told me to ignore the inbox.
To not read anything that was coming in.
But I couldn't help myself.
So I read them.
Not all.
But some.
What they thought.
How they saw me.
It left me feeling a lot of things.
Most bad.
The biggest thing being that people don't understand.
They talk about abortion like the women who've been through it don't know what they've done.
That they went in wanting it.
No woman does.
I live with my decision everyday. And I'm in love with someone who still wants to be my everyday even though it's killing him.
Killing us.
Slowly.
He's still believes in me. Every time he looks at me with all the brokenness, havoc, and attempts at pretending, I see something else.
I see a kind of faith I don't understand.
A hope I don't deserve.
Because no matter how hard things have gotten, Elias is still trying.
To smile.
To laugh.
To show me how much love he's capable of giving me despite everything I've done.
Even though it's hurting me. Even though I keep slipping into moments where all I can think about is how anyone else would be so much better than me.
It isn't easier now-knowing that he knows what I did.
Sometimes, I wake up wishing I was someone else so that all of this could stop.
So that I wasn't the girl who murdered her son and her relationship at the same time.
It almost makes seeing him worse.
And I just keep finding myself more lost then I was before.
Domino 12:
I'm everywhere and nowhere.
All over the place in my head.
And In my heart.
My heart.
It doesn't know anything anymore.
I feel pulled in so many directions-so many of them that contradict-it makes no sense how I can feel all of them and feel nothing at the same time.
I feel the hurt of everything.
I feel it everyday.
This hole and emptiness where he once lay.
My little lost boy.
But that nothing I feel.
It's like a numbness is taking over and I'm not even experiencing everything that's happening right before my eyes.
I don't know which way is up anymore.
Who I am.
Who we are.
Or where this really leaves us.
But this is our new normal.
I feel so much more lost now that everyone's found out about it.
I close my eyes wishing, willing, one thought into existence.
Into reality.
That maybe nobody knows still.
That I don't have to deal with aftermath after aftermath.
The posts, the videos, the opinions just make it feel like the walls are closing in on me pushing me to cave in on myself.
Pushing me out of myself.
Watching the most personal secret of my life leak out on phones and computer screens.
Across the country.
For my parents to find out.
In a Facebook post.
This can't be my life.
This can't be real.
All that's happening.
And, I guess, the only thing I've been doing is holding on.
As thin as the thread becomes, I keep telling myself to hold on .
To everything.
To all we have left.
It's all we can do.
Is to try to hold on to each other.
In the midst of and in front of the world.
And, since, everyone and their moms-ours included-seem to know about Elias, I, and some twisted version of the truth, I guess there really isn't a point in hiding anything anymore.
There's so much no one knows.
Not even you, Nobody.
I've kept quiet.
Hidden.
Locked away.
Hoping I could even convince myself that everything I've been carrying hasn't been happening.
Because of the aftermath of a moment.
The moment that caused a shift.
In me.
Domino 13:
They say home is where the heart is, Nobody.
For the longest time I used to think that was something I knew so well.
Where home was.
What it felt like.
Finding somewhere you belong.
Like something you should always be able to tell anyone.
Because knowing that meant knowing yourself.
But slowly then drastically like a drop into some deep end of a pool my heart got more and more lost along the way.
That the moment I'd been so sure I'd found it was the beginning of me letting it go.
And I haven't been able to find it.
So how can you know where home is if you don't know where to find your heart.
I didn't know I'd lost it that night.
In that moment.
It was summer.
It was dark.
And warm.
The air hung heavy.
Humidity clouding our heads.
A mix of fruit in red wine and teenage anticipation leaving a haze.
In our hearts.
A New Jersey summer night.
An in the moment decision that led to a life-altering moment.
I pulled him back into the room.
There weren't many words.
How could we even.
We were drunk off the summer.
The wine.
Each other.
Just bodies.
Of two teenagers running from their problems.
And into each other.
Mistaking passion.
For love.
And it was.
I'd swear it was.
So we dove.
Deep.
Into each other.
And a choice we couldn't remember to make.
In that moment.
We didn't know.
That it would lead to another choice.
To this aftermath.
To the greatest aftermath I've known.
Where my heart once was.
I swear it was that moment.
In Elias.
Then life came from it.
And it was him.
In him.
My heart.
But I was seventeen.
I was alone.
The town whore from a rumor before.
With parents who had warned me before.
About this exactly.
So I went to a clinic.
In a four-walled room.
With no hand to hold but my own.
With pressure and pain.
I gave my heart away.
To a boy who can't be here.
Anymore.
And where there is this hollowness I feel.
All I have left to do is try.
And I'm trying, Nobody.
I am.
With everything I have left, I'm trying.
To hold on.
It's just this thread tying me to all of it is on the brink of tearing.
And I don't know how much more it can carry.
But I'll try, Nobody.
With thirteen unlucky dominoes.
I'll try.
-Alex
***
(Thank you guys so much for reading and listening this week! It was a bit of a crazy adventure for us to get this to you but we appreciate you guys being so patient with us! kaelking12 wrote this extremely heartfelt Dear Nobody entry so make sure you give her a shout out if you like what you read and listened to! She did an amazing job with this one!
NEXT MAJOR UPDATE (Seriously it's long) IS ON: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14TH
We'll see you then!)
#REALTALK QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
1. Have you ever had a secret that you never wanted to be revealed come out? How did you handle it?
2. Do you think that Lisa made the right decision to temporarily separate Alex and Elias?
3. Absence supposedly makes the heart grow fonder, do you think this separation will make Elias and Alex stronger or pull them apart? Why?
4. If you could say something to Alex and Elias to give them hope in the midst of this situation, what would you say?