Desperate yearning for my old life permeated my being every waking moment. Every day I was forcefully reminded of everything I lost as I watched my peers enjoying their adolescence. Their lives continued in the same fashion as before, just with me no longer in the picture. Happy couples roaming the halls wrapped up in each other. The bottomless hole of blackness inside seized up and bore into nothingness. Pain and exhaustion wracked my physical body, overwhelming sadness my emotional state. I put a smile on my face and pretended to be happy, joking around at school with other kids who made fun of me, trying to laugh away the sorrow.