Silent Solitude

Chapter 1

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to live life without choosing a memory and feeling ice-cold regret plunge into your stomach? Into that never-ending hole that starts to spread until you no longer feel like a person? If I picked any memory from the last two years of my life, there would be nothing but regret. The darkness in my body has no stars, no moon, no sun. Do you know what it would feel like to shroud yourself in eternal darkness?

I think I did. 

I'd always loved stargazing.

Growing up, it was something my family would do, sneaking even a sliver of minutes out of the endless night to set up tents and start a fire. My dad would set up the tent in the backyard, or sometimes just a blanket. It usually depended on how much my mother would be willing to clean the following day. But after that, we'd all lay and stare at the sparkling dots in the sky.

That was before the skies had turned cloudy and the stars blinked out.

I'll never truly forgive the stars for leaving, even though my 5th-grade science teacher had told an innocent group of kids that the stars were always there, day and night. She'd said that they just glowed during the night. Something special you saw if you stayed up late enough, she'd said.

That was complete bullshit.

The stars weren't permanent, they left, just like everything and everyone else. Just like people, the stars were gone.

At the Norfolk Airport, exactly one hour away from Nags Head North Carolina, I wouldn't be seeing anything close to stars. Despite the clear skies and lack of pollution, it didn't matter where I was, my skies seemed to never leave their state of perpetual darkness.

When I first found out that I was moving to Nags Head—an island in North Carolina—I figured beaches, shacks, and people in swimsuits. Whilst all of that was here, I didn't expect the fancy cars, the mansion-like houses, the designer bags. It wasn't new to me, not in the slightest. It just hadn't been what I'd expected.

I'd been born and raised in New York, the Upper East Side, had been raised by the rich, using money and cards since I could walk. I had rich friends with rich families, we'd drink rich booze and eat rich food. It wasn't exactly the perfect environment to raise a child.

But I could tell, just by looking at this airport, that there was a different type of rich around here.

"Come on, let's go, Indigo's family is waiting out front," my mother called, wheeling her two suitcases, expecting me, my brother, and my dad to follow.

I would be starting my freshman year of college in a few months, attending Duke University, where I'd be going with my childhood best friend, Indigo Levine. It was only a 3-hour drive from where we were moving to, so it was one of the reasons we had moved. It was also because everyone in my family needed a change of scenery—as my parents kept saying— and the Levines happened to be family friends kind enough to help us settle in. My brother Jacob, was going to high school on a basketball scholarship. My family had enough money to pay the school if his ever-growing love of basketball failed to help at school, but I think we all knew Jacob would never let the sport go.

The passage is not all in the same tense. Most of it is in the past tense, but there are instances where it slips into the present tense. Here is the corrected version, maintaining the past tense throughout:

By the time the humid air hit me, my mother was chatting with Jasmine, Indigo's mom. I was the last to reach them, pausing to throw away a few empty candy wrappers from my plane ride. The first person I noticed was Indigo. Her familiar long blonde hair, light constellation of freckles, cobalt-blue eyes, and sun-kissed skin. She smiled when she saw me, and I allowed myself to relax just a little.