NO...

"No," I looked up from the green and gray tiled floor of the emptiest shopping mall in America, and scanned across the thinly spread crowd for the assertion that had echoed straight into my ears. My destiny was parallel to me, standing in the middle of these confused people's stares and hopes of an answer to their disrupted zombie state.  I felt the warmth swim over my face as my muscles formed the largest smile I had ever given, as if it were my first time smiling at all.  I used the wall behind me to propel me from the tiles and walk toward him. He, who was statuesque in his black button-down blouse tucked into khaki colored trousers.  "This has got to stop..." His voice went silent, but his lips were still moving.  All I knew was that he was rambling about how he cared enough to not want to see me like "this", but by the time I got to him, the speech was finished.

"Hey," escaped from my throat in a mousy rasp. He embraced me as tears began to convene within his eyelids.  A drop of liquid salt fell to my cheek as I looked up.  "Thanks," I said.  They were the first words I had spoken in over three months.