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Prologue
Lena
This is what rock bottom feels like. I just know it. I can't stop the tears from freely flowing as I stare off into space and wonder how the fuck I got to this point. I've never felt so alone. I thought this feeling would end after high school, but somehow, it’s only gotten worse. From my seated position, I glance down at my wrists and watch as the blood flows from the cuts I just inflicted on myself.
"I think it will be easier for everyone if you go off to your new college without having any connections to Cherry Hill, me included."
That's what my best friend, Dani, told me earlier today while surrounded by a crowd of people. She didn't even have the decency to talk to me about it in private, where we could hash things out and get to what the real problem was. At the ripe age of nineteen, the only person I thought I could depend on proved otherwise.
We never had any issues with our friendship until she started dating Ross. He was one of several people who openly bullied me in high school and she knew this but still tried to convince me that he changed. She insisted that once he graduated, hegrew up. I tried to tell her that people like him don't change. They only get better at disguising who they really are. They get better at manipulating others into believing their lies.
Still, she continued to make excuses for his behavior. I didn’t want to hear any of them. None of his excuses will change the way he treated me and the things I had to endure.
Everything around me starts to feel colder. I don't think the temperature in the house changed. Another glance down at my wrists reveals large puddles on my bathroom floor. This would have been cleaner if I did it in the bathtub. Whoever finds me is going to have the burden of cleaning up the mess I leave behind. I hope it's not my mom. She always makes everything about herself. I'm sure she will bust out the waterworks and tell the world all about how she had to find her daughter in a puddle of blood. How it stained her perfect marble floors.
I expected Dani to understand where I was coming from. I don't know how she thinks being in a relationship with someone as cruel as Ross is okay. He wasn’t the only one to bully me, but he was the worst of the group. When I was sixteen, he approached me in the lunchroom and cut my ponytail off. My fucking hair. He cut it off and then swung it around, laughing about it with the rest of his fucked-up group of friends.
I hardly consider cutting off someone's hair a joke. Even now, after three years, it only falls to my shoulders. I keep it short on purpose. That group of assholes called me names for the rest of the school year because of him.
I glance down to let my eyes roam over the scars from the cuts I inflicted that day. Two of them on each of my arms, just below the inside of my elbow. I should have cut deeper. Maybe if I did, I could have avoided the way I’m feeling right now.
Dani decided our friendship was no longer something she wished to pursue. It was too hard for her to try and balance her relationship with Ross and her friendship with me. She was tired of being in the middle of the two of us and ultimately chose him. She loves him, so she left me behind.
I’m so confused, and my mind is running in circles. When did things change? When did she feel like she couldn't talk to me anymore? Why was it so easy for her to end our friendship without a second thought? Do I really mean that little to her?
She was the only shoulder I had to cry on throughout high school. She tried her best to protect me, even though it wasn't always something she could do. I was a pariah, and the bullying was constant.
For some unknown reason, I was a target from the time we hit puberty. I never did anything to stand out, and I think that's why they honed in on me. I was always the quiet, weird girl who was always sitting in the corner reading a book or keeping to herself. People are threatened by what they don't know or understand. Nobody knew or understood me. They still don't. Outside of Dani, that is. Well, was.
It might seem strange to have such a drastic reaction to a friendship ending. This friendship was the only thing that lifted me up and saved me from some of my darkest times. She wasthere for me to lean on when my grandma passed and told me I’d never be alone.Lie.
My grandma was my person, and Dani filled those shoes for a while. Not anymore. There is nobody here to help me pick up the pieces this time, certainly not my shitty parents. I'm left in the dark with no prospect of finding the light.
My family will never understand. I've struggled with my mental health my entire life. They tried to tell me, ‘It’s a phase; you’ll grow out of it.’ My mother insisted high school is hard for everyone, and once I got into the real world, it would all change. They firmly believed I just needed to get a better handle on how to express my emotions. My mother clearly has no idea how mental health works.
I know exactly how I want to express my emotions. The blade sitting on the floor next to my bloody arms seems like a pretty good fucking way. It's the only way I know to express anything anymore.
My thoughts always win.Just cut a little deeper. It's not enough. This one needs to go further, so maybe I'll actually feel something besides the numbness that currently spreads through my heart.I glide the razorblade against my skin again, and the trail of red instantly begins to flow from it. Blood oozes onto the floor to meet the puddle from the previous cuts.
The edges of my vision begin to darken, and I notice I no longer have feeling in my fingers or toes. I should get up, but I can't move. Everything around me has a haze to it now. It's almostas though I am looking at it from the outside.Finally, I think, and I welcome the feeling.
A shadow figure in the hallway outside the bathroom catches my attention. Black tendrils of smoke spiral along the carpet. I try to lift my head higher to get a better look at what they’re connected to, but I'm too weak. I watch with astonishment as the smoke-like tendrils inch toward me.
I think I might have finally done it this time. I've let the numbness consume my body, and a tear slips from the corner of one of my deep brown eyes. This is the part where I get to be free from it all, right? My eyes flicker closed as the shadows stop directly beside me.
I'm shaken awake violently by my mother screaming in my face. "LENA! What did you do? How could you do this to yourself? Look at this mess."
My mouth falls open to answer her, but nothing comes out. I want to tell her to leave me be. Let me move on from this cruel world the way I want to. Just let me have my moment, grieve me, and get on with your life. That's what I want more than anything. Just let me die.
My eyes flutter closed as I tune her out, and the darkness takes me under. When they open again, I'm in a bed covered from the waist down with a dark, scratchy blanket. My arms lie by my sides, palms up, with bandages covering them from my elbows to my wrists.
I take a deep breath, realizing my mother found me in time. I can't even kill myself properly. The one time she showed up to save me was when I didn't want to be saved. Fucking figures.
Chapter 1
Lena - 2 years later
College is supposed to be easy and fun. The last years of our dying youth, but this doesn't feel fun. In fact, it's been a long time since I was able to feel anything besides empty. The last two years have been riddled with one disappointment after another. Just like the rest of my fucking life.
