Connected (Connections, #1)(111)

As a lone figure, I huddle to the ground feeling completely lost. As my tears merge with the rain into one slow dance, they only fall further into the darkness. No one is here to see me. No one knows where to find me. Only the vultures notice me as they fly swiftly overhead, seeking shelter against the cold rain. I’m not looking for refuge in this place I now despise, but I have nowhere else to go. I have no hope. I have no future. This is where I belong—in the darkness.





March 4th, 2010

I was killed in a random carjacking gone badly. I’m in New York City now. Caleb dropped me off at some apartment he rented under my new name and got me a job as a college professor. Shit, I f*cking hate him. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be alive today. I left everything behind except this one journal. I have nothing, and I’ll never see my Dahl again.





November 17th, 2011

Caleb showed up at my apartment after one of my classes. He told me something was going down, he didn’t know what and he was worried. He informed me that the house Dahlia and I shared together was ransacked like they were looking for something. He asked me if I had given him everything.

I lost my shit and just started pounding him uncontrollably and he let me. He never even tried to hit me back. I only stopped when I saw the blood running down his nose had soaked into his shirt and down onto the carpet. He grabbed a towel and held it to his nose but continued talking as if nothing happened.

I didn’t let him finish as flashes of my Dahl hurt, lying on our floor, kept flashing in my head. I think he sensed my concern, and with a nervous edge in his voice he told me Dahlia wasn’t around that weekend, so she wasn’t there when our house was broken into.

All I could think was thank f*ck, but then I asked Caleb where she was. At first he shrugged his shoulders and turned away from me to sit on the couch, but I pressed him until he finally told me. He said Dahlia had come back to the house with some guy. I pressed further; I wanted to know what guy. Who was he? I got even more irritated as I silently worried. Was he using her to find the information I’d hidden so well?

My fifty questions continued, and I never paused to let Caleb answer. I didn’t know if I wanted to know the answers. All I knew was I had to get back there to see her, to be with her, but Caleb insisted I stay dead for her safety and for mine. He said they wouldn’t hurt her since she didn’t have anything to do with it, and I was dead.

I went to sit on the couch next to him. I told him he owed it to me to tell me what he knew. So he did. He said he was pretty sure Dahlia was f*cking the guy he had seen her with. He told me he was really sorry after the words reluctantly came out of his mouth. Caleb went on to explain that he had followed them to some swanky LA neighborhood in the Hills. And as far as he could tell, she was staying there. Dahlia in the Hills. What the f*ck?

I was f*cking furious at him, at me, at her. She’s already shacked up with someone? I really wanted to kill the guy, and I wanted to beat the shit out of Caleb. The thought of my Dahl f*cking someone else drove me to the verge of insanity.

I knew she’d move on eventually, but hearing it was something else entirely.

I had walked over to the CD player on a table in the corner of the room and just stared at it. The song playing, ironically, was Go to Hell by Go Radio. Fucking appropriate, huh? I couldn’t help myself. I pounded my fist on the player so hard it smashed into a thousand pieces on the floor, and I broke my f*cking hand.

Caleb took me to the ER where they put a cast on my broken hand. God, could they just put a cast on my broken heart? I sat there in the ER, thinking back to Dahlia, and wondering why I hadn’t just insisted she marry me when I first asked her. Not that it would have mattered that much. Shit, either way I would never see her again.

Caleb left the next day. He assured me he’d watch out for her and said he wouldn’t contact me again.





September 21st, 2012


Sitting here now at the large wooden conference table with a room full of suits from some government section I still don’t even know the name of, I can hear every tick of the clock hanging on the f*cking wall. All I can think about is that, after almost three years, I’m finally going to see her again touch her again, love her again. I gave up everything to keep my Dahl alive, and now I’m going to be able to finally get it all back.

Caleb told me she’s with some douchebag, supposedly it’s pretty serious, but I know the minute she sees me here in the flesh it'll be over. We just have too much history for it not to be.

Damn, why did I have to be so f*cking good at my job? Why did I want to make my mark on the world of journalism? Today, I couldn’t tell you why because I lost it all in the blink of an eye. Back then I was hungry for it, and nothing else mattered. Well, that’s not true. I cared about all those people and what they were allowing them to do. I really did care.

I hadn’t heard from Caleb in almost nine months until he called me a few days. I knew something was up, but had no idea what. He asked me again if I had kept information, and once again, I lied and assured him I hadn’t. I tried to ask how my Dahl was, but he just hung up.

So when they called me yesterday and told me they were bringing me back in, I knew something must have happened. All they told me was that it wasn’t over, but they wanted me back here. I was accompanied by one of the suits and on the next flight from New York to LA. The only thing the suit told me was my house had been broken into again. I wondered if this time they found the information, but how could they? I asked if she was okay, but he didn’t answer.