quoted from one of Crystal’s entries:
“I am so relieved and grateful - of my four ex’s now 2 are talking to me - 50% - for some irrational reason I feel like my books are in balance. But it’s easy to lie with numbers and arbitrary decisions regarding what to include, and what not to. If I bring her in, if I acknowledge her as such, the total rises to five and my average falls.

Is a five-sided item unstable? Is it a star… with her as the angle pointed towards the heavens - hell, all of them point to the heavens, some just have to pass through the earth first.

I am thankful for technicalities, for slip-ups… for a glimpse. Of course, I needed to get more… which brought the tears again. I went to sleep one night simply content in the knowledge she is still alive… alive… alive… alive… with breath in her lungs, and thoughts in her head.

The prognosis isn’t that bad, luv… haven’t you been keeping up with the literature?”

I can’t make sense of anything that she writes and I make myself crazy over it. I want to talk to her, but I don’t. Sometimes I don’t feel worthy, sometimes I feel the complete opposite - in that quote above, who is she talking about? Who is the girl that would make her ‘ex-count’ 5? Why am I so fucked up? I read her stuff and I think she’s either brilliant or mad or pretentious, because none of it makes any sense to me. Obviously it doesn’t make sense to me because she’s studying things and I’m doing dick. I’m trying to figure out what I’m feeling… I think I want to know if Crystal hates me… but I’m afraid to ask her, afraid to say anything to her. I blame myself for everything, which is irrational, because we both had parts in that happened, but it’s in my nature to feel guilty about everything that I couldn’t make work, everything that I felt I had to run away from because I couldn’t deal. I can’t stop loving her, but I can’t communicate with her and I can’t… I don’t know. I don’t think rationally when I think about her and that’s not safe for me or her in any potential future interaction, however small or great.

I absolutely loathe myself.