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I should have hated Julie, but there was no hatred in my heart for her. Among all the flames of hatred for those people who had taken away my anchor in life, the highest flames burned for only one person. Me.

You blind fool.

That's all I was.

I loved a liar.

And oh, she had been good at making me believe that it had all been real. That we had been real. That she had been able to fill the hole that had been left when my family had been torn from me. When my roots had been burned. My anchor. My everything.

A fool, Quentin. You are a blind fool!

How did one erase feelings? How did one wipe out emotions?

No... I didn't want to let go. But I had to.

J was an invention.

No matter how hard I tried to convince myself, a reckless, stubborn part of me resisted hating her.

She's real, Quentin. J is real. She had her reasons for lying to you. She's not like the others...

Images of Mom flashed through my mind, of her crouching next to me in the sand, forming figures out of water for me in the air above the approaching and receding tide on the beach behind our house. A dolphin, a lighthouse, pirate ships... with a smile on her face that this godless cold world had not deserved.

Images of Dad picking Mum up into his arms, twirling her around, and her begging him to put her down, squealing with laughter, while Dylan jumped around them, wanting to be picked up too.

Images of Dylan showing his wooden figures to an unsuspecting Delilah so she wouldn't cry whenever Mom and Dad argued. Always about the same thing.

She had wanted to leave town with the four of us. He hadn't wanted to give up fighting for a better future for his children in Blairville. Words whose meaning I still didn't understand.

He had finally given in. Too late.

It had killed them.

All the images, their smiles that went up in flames in my worst dreams, made more and more water rush into my eyes, blurring my vision, with no prospect of mercy.

J, Quentin. J is still here. She's all you have left.

Everything I had worked for all these years seemed about to lose the raging war inside me.

Numbness crept into my body, slowly but surely, ready to save me from a final breakdown. But it couldn't compete with the voices in my head.

My vision cleared and, with my chest rising and falling heavily, my gaze landed on my parents' rings. J's ring.

She's your family.

You love her.

I loved her...

I still loved her.

“Please, Erik...” I heard her desperate voice in my head, pulled myself out of my seated position, and leaned forward to grab the ring.

She had been crying, so distraught. So real.

It was as if I could still feel her soft, cold hand on my cheek, sending electric impulses across my burning skin.

I slid the ring back onto my still trembling finger.