Gaten? Worried.
The whole fucking planet? Worried.
Hell, even I was worried for a minute there. I didn’t feel like myself after I woke up in the hospital. I was alone, scared, confused. Until my parents rushed in, saw that I was awake, and told me everything.
I drowned that day.
I died.
I was dead for two whole minutes before Jesse gave me CPR and brought me back. I was told that Jesse found me using the GPS tracker my parents installed on my phone against my will. He didn’t like the way we’d left things after I found out he was my dad, and he decided to follow me. They said he witnessed everything from the shore.
He saw me fall.
He saw me hit my head.
He saw me drown.
But that’s not even the worst part.
According to Jesse, Finn did nothing to help.
He didn’t even try.
My own boyfriend let me die.
And he watched as I did.
By the time Jesse managed to steal a Jet Ski and get to me, I was already submerged. The doctors said I was lucky to have survived. That my brain and organs should’ve sustained more water damage, but by some miracle, I got off without a scratch—well, except for a concussion and chronic migraines.
I spent the next three weeks in the hospital waiting for Finn to show up. I convinced myself he would appear one day, a bouquet of flowers in his hand, full of apologies for what he did—or didn’t do.
But he never came.
And his absence broke me.
Well, what was left of me.
I later found out that he left town mere hours after Jesse saved my life. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going, not even Xavier or Theo. He just packed his stuff, got into his car, and left. No one’s seen or heard from him since.
“You’ve changed, you know,” Jesse interrupts my walk down memory lane.
I look up at him, arching an eyebrow. “Meaning?”
“It’s just… Something about you feels different.”
He’s not the first person to tell me that. Aveena told me, in her own clumsy way, that I seemed disconnected from reality after the accident. I also had Theo comment on my fashion choices last week. He said something about how I always wear black now—I was big on colors in high school, but not anymore. I believe his exact words were “You dress like a grieving widow these days.”
I brushed it off at first, but now?
I realize there’s some truth to his claims. I think I’ve been grieving the girl I used to be. The girl who saw the good in people, no matter what. The old Dia saw redemption where everyone else saw a lost cause. She was all too willing to forgive and forget, handing out second chances to anyone who asked.
That girl is gone.
I arch an eyebrow. “How am I different?”
“I don’t know. You seem…” Jesse pauses, pondering his reply. “Detached…”
“Last I checked, I agreed to a conversation, not a therapy session.” I check the time on my phone again. I have to meet the girls in a few, and the coffee shop is twenty minutes away. I don’t know what he wants to ask me, but he’d better start talking.