Still grounded into the unforeseeable future, I stayed in my room like Rapunzel, but I no longer had the kind of hair that would help me escape this prison. Today, I didn't risk calling Parker again, even if I craved her voice. I wanted to disappear inside the way she could make the total destruction of my world less grim. The way she could pry a smile from my ugly crying face.

We texted instead, but her response time lagged longer and longer as the day went on.

My parents banned Camille from coming over too.

I spent the day catching up on homework and practicing my violin, but my heart wasn't in it. Always in the corner of my eye, I waited for my phone to light up. I gave up on the violin and crawled into bed, cuddled up next to my phone and the internet. Eventually, I got so bored that I dropped my phone on my nightstand, turned onto my side and just stared at it. I watched it not ring, not chime and definitely not buzz.

This was worse than watching paint dry, at least then, something was getting accomplished.