You might totally hate it, Owen had told me. Or not. It might be just what you need. That's the beauty of it. You know?

When I hit the PLAY button, all I could hear was static, and I settled in, closing my eyes, and waited for the first song to begin. It didn't. Not in the next few minutes, not ever. Then I realized: the CD was blank.

Maybe it was supposed to be a joke. Or something profound. But as I lay there, it only seemed like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.

It was the weirdest thing, so different from music. The sound was nothing, empty, but at the same time, it pushed everything else out, quieting me enough that I was able to make out something distant, hard to hear. But it was there, albeit softly, coming to me from some dark place I'd never seen but still knew well.

Shhh, [...] It's just me.

But these words were only the middle of the story. There was a beginning here, too. And I knew suddenly that if I stayed where I was, in all that quiet, and didn't run from it, I would hear it. [...]

All I'd ever wanted was to forget. But even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below. [...] Because that is what happens when you try to run from the past. It doesn't just catch up: it overtakes, blotting out the future, the landscape, the very sky, until there is no path left except that which leads through it, the only one that can ever get you home.

I understood now. This voice, the one that had been trying to get my attention all this time, calling out to me, begging me to hear it--it wasn't Will's. It was mine.

--Just Listen, Sarah Dessen

I had a splendid argument with mother today. I mean that quite literally, too. Not sarcastically at all.

Let me just start by saying this: I'm always scared. I get scared very easily. I also don't like to admit when I am actually scared, because I don't want to appear weak. This is because my greatest fear is that once the people around me discover my weakness(es), they will leave me.

I was scared. I wasn't ready and I couldn't actually imagine going through with it. Every time my mother brought it up, it felt like she was trying to push me out of the house and rid of me completely. I wasn't emotionally ready. I'm just not strong enough.

She's not trying to get rid of me. The only reason she was pushing me so hard was because she thought that I really wanted this, which I do, only I don't quite feel ready for it now. And you know what? After telling her this, she said the most remarkable thing in the world: It was okay.

You have no idea, how happy I was after hearing that. All this time I've been worrying about letting her down and I honestly think that that is what has been causing my insane moods lately. Now, I feel like everything is going to be okay.

(And I'm really beginning to love that word. Okay.)

I'm not worried anymore. I'm still going to apply to colleges, but I don't think that I'll go, even if I do get in. I think I'm going to stay home awhile and grow up. And you know what? That's OKAY.

So that's it. No more craziness. Problem solved, okay?