The diary was a slippery thing, weaving together confession with self-delusion, truth with distortion. No—the weaving metaphor isn’t right. That suggests truth and distortion are strands and, therefore, separable. I think it would be more accurate to say that truth and untruth were present in Alison’s diary as hydrogen and oxygen are present in water. The challenge is not one of separation—for what use are either hydrogen or oxygen in understanding the nature of water?—but of understanding these moments without attempting to separate them. I had to find a way to understand how truth and untruth make each other.

ONE DAY at work, a Facebook invitation appeared in my inbox. Jackie was throwing herself a birthday party: dinner at an all-you-can-eat-and-drink sushi and sake joint, followed by karaoke in Koreatown. I could no longer imagine attending such an event. How frivolous to be twenty-five and doing sake bombs, what a joke, what a cliché. What a cliché, even, to possess some ironic relationship to your own clichéd birthday party, as Jackie did, to affect a pose of self-mockery toward oneself and the basic things one loved. (Yes, we’re doing this. Bon Jovi non-negotiable, the invite said.)

Before I set out for the Little Sweet on the night of Jackie’s party, I texted her: Sorry, I have a thing tonight, but have so much fun!

Jackie texted back immediately: You’re bailing on my bday?!? Is everything okay??? I’m worried.

Her worry opened something in me. For a moment I wanted to go to Jackie’s party and have stupid fun there the way I would have just a few short months ago, but I knew I couldn’t; it was simply no longer possible for me to get wasted and eat bargain-basement spicy tuna rolls and belt out “Sweet Caroline” like these things were somehow relevant to me, and there was loss in this, too. Briefly I considered telling Jackie everything. I typed and deleted half a dozen messages, but in the end, I gave up. I never replied.

I BEGAN sleeping less and less, and erratically. Night after night, through the dark hours, I listened to Alison. I had not experienced insomnia like this since I was a child, churning out fatal scenarios in the darkness, and the feeling now was familiar: I wanted to stop listening, to give myself over to sleep, but I couldn’t. To press stop, to extinguish Alison’s voice, seemed dangerous in a way I cannot explain rationally, but which felt absolutely inviolable to me. I was almost grateful when the man above me began his nightly guitar practice at two A.M., the music sifting down through my ceiling providing an alternate and utterly ordinary explanation for my wakefulness. For the first time in my life, I was sleeping through my alarm and arriving late to work.

I JUST got back from a trip to Becca’s ski house. First of all, the trip was a freaking blast. I seriously think I have a six-pack from cracking up so much. I feel like I’ve been really, I don’t know, blah lately, and this trip made me remember that I really, really love my friends. A few highlights: Matt and Andy losing a bet and streaking across the yard in the freezing cold. Staying in the hot tub for hours drinking beer and talking. Getting ridiculously stoned one night and taking all the blankets onto the deck and lying there looking up at the stars while it snowed. After a while I couldn’t even tell if the snow was falling or the stars, it was just this beautiful mess. High stargazing is seriously the best.

Did I mention I broke my wrist? True story. It happened on the last day, otherwise the trip would have been a total bust. I fell coming off a big jump. Everybody else was in the lodge for a hot-cocoa break, and I went off on my own to get in one more run. I had a three-seater to myself on the chairlift. You know how sometimes the world just rips open and you find yourself in a moment that is totally sacred? This was that. The trees high up on the slope were coated in snow and glittering. The snow had that bluish glow, and it was like it was all here for me. I actually started to cry because I just felt so moved. I was still in that energy when I decided to take this jump on the way down. There was that moment when I was hanging in the air, that weightless, almost-flying moment when you start to realize your body is no longer under your control, then splat.

Ski patrol came and brought me down the mountain in one of those gurney thingies. Once my friends figured out where I was, they were all crowding around me in the med hut, and then at the hospital with me later for the X-rays and everything. I didn’t cry. It hurt like hell but I was a total champ. I’m really proud of how tough I was. But then again, the only reason I didn’t let myself cry is because I wanted the medics and my friends to tell me how brave and amazing I was, which is exactly what happened. So does that even count as toughness, or is it actually appalling?

I’m leaving for college next week and my parents said I have to sort through my so-called “junk” before I go. Today I was going through these boxes of old essays with my teachers’ comments and school photos of my friends, and every stupid trophy and medal from swimming and dance. All of a sudden I was like, “Why have I held on to this crap? Why is it so damned precious to me?” I got these heavy-duty black garbage bags from the garage and I started filling them. I got into this rhythm … trance is too dramatic, but I got to this headspace where I couldn’t see any reason to keep anything. The only memento I didn’t throw away was my prom corsage from Drew, and I only kept that because I kept imagining he was in the room with me, and how hurt he’d be just killed me.

As I was throwing everything away I had this vision where I had pared down everything I need in life to a black attaché case, like people use to hand off dirty money in espionage movies. Then, like, what if you got rid of not just things but parts of yourself? Memories you’d been holding on to and random skills and knowledge and all the books you’d ever read that didn’t matter? What if you pared yourself down to one essential part? What would that one grain be? It occurred to me that I have no freaking idea.

I broke up with Drew today. It was awful. He was crying in my bed and begging me to take it back. I know this makes me seem terrible but the begging actually made it easier for me. I kind of lost some respect for him, you know?

Now my mom is all concerned. “It was just so sudden, sweetheart!” Like sudden is this problem. But I did something that had to be done. We’re going to college, for one. But it’s more than that. I am totally settled into Drew, and I can see how it could just go on and on, and something in me is saying, No, no, no. Like, is that really where it’s supposed to lead? But seeing Drew cry and knowing I did that really sucked.

I had made my way through all but the final tape. I was terrified to reach the end, but I couldn’t slow myself down. I called in sick at work. I stayed in my apartment and listened.

Do you ever wish something terrible would happen to you so the world could see how strong you are? People probably think I’m this delicate flower because nothing bad has ever touched me, but I’m not. This is fucked up to say, but I think I would be amazing in the face of a tragedy.

“Humiliation is purification, because it causes the most corrosive, the most painful awareness.” We’re reading Notes from Underground in my World Lit Survey and Dostoyevsky is officially my new favorite writer. Dude gets it.

I really shouldn’t be recording right now, because I’m going home tomorrow for winter break and I need to pack everything I need for home and for the annual Thomas family vacation to a culturally devoid tropical resort, and I haven’t even gotten my suitcase out yet. But this thing from last night has been bugging me and I have to get it down. So I was at this dorm party and this extremely hot junior from the lacrosse team was there. We went back to his room and we’re sitting on the futon in that pre-make-out phase and he’s touching my hair and everything’s great. Then he launches into, “Have you ever wondered what if your green is my purple?” I told him I was really tired and left. Honestly, if I meet one more pseudo-intellectual, actually so stupid boy here, I’m going to lose it. Let me go on record and say that the number of dumbnuts at the best school in the country is mind-blowing.

That was it. The number of dumbnuts and then the barely audible spooling of blank tape. Right away I took out the tape, swapped in the first one, and started back at the beginning.

Today when I woke up I just felt different. I knew today was the day.

She’s only six years old and I can already see every single way it’s going to be hard.

Fanfuckingtastic.

THE MORE I listened, the more I felt that I was far out in the ocean, swimming down, down, down. I knew I should rush up to the surface for air, but I couldn’t help myself. There was something at the bottom I was after, and I couldn’t stop.

Maybe it hurt him, maybe I hurt him.

I didn’t make a single mistake, not one, and I still completely failed.

Blah blah blah.

True story.

This beautiful mess.

It had grown dark in my apartment, but I didn’t turn on the light. I listened to my sister’s voice in the darkness until I could scarcely remember a time when I’d heard anyone but Alison. I had the feeling then that I was entering my sister. I stretched and filled her, head to toe. I opened my eyes and looked out through hers. Together, in our body that was Alison’s body, we descended through lilac clouds.

THE REAL WHEREVER