“At any given moment in your life you have the right to say that, no, this is not how my story ends.”

- tidally_locked

I need to get out of here before I start going down all over again, before I break down into pieces. I would rather die before letting anyone see how weak and broken I am right now.

I walk quickly down the hallway.

“Gwen!” I hear my name being called.

How much did I want to hear that voice? How much did I love it before?

“Gwen, wait!”

I don’t slow down. I make my way out of the school building. I am regretting wearing heels instead of regular shoes.

I reach the parking lot. It takes a little time to find my car. That little time is too long.

“Gwen.” I hear that voice closer to me.

He grabs my hand.

“Don’t,” I snap. I snatch my hand out of his.

I don’t look at him. I can’t afford to.

“Gwen, I have been looking for you the whole day. I went to your house, but your parents said you had already left,” he says breathlessly, as if he has been running.

“I called you. I texted you,” he says. “You didn’t pick up, you didn’t reply.”

I look around. Why am I standing here? I should just leave.

“What is going on, Gwen?” he asks. He sounds confused.

Of course, he doesn’t understand.

I gather all of my energy and finally look at him. He is looking at me with wide frantic eyes, eyes full of apprehension and question.

Oliver Carlson looks lost.

He should get an oscar.

I laugh. “You don’t understand. Right.”

Oliver looks helpless. “Gwen, did I do something?”

It feels ironic. It’s taking me so much just to stand here and listen to him. I want to hit him and ask him why. I want to ask him what my fault was. I want to know how he could do this to me.

But look at him acting all innocent and heartbroken, as if I am the one who did something wrong.

I can’t take this anymore.

“No, you didn’t,” I say. My nails are digging in my palms. I have to hurt myself, or else I will break right here.

“You did nothing,” I say. “It’s me.”

It is me. It is my fault for falling so hopelessly in love. It is my fault that I didn’t get it when we were together and he never asked me out.

I didn’t think hard about the fact that we were not even in a relationship in the first place.

He doesn’t owe me anything. I am the one who fell in love with him.

I can’t even say he cheated on me. We were not a relationship. I am not his girlfriend. He never said anything about liking me.

So how could I hold it against him?

“You did nothing, Oliver,” I say looking down. “It’s all on me.”

I shake my head and look away. My eyes water. My lips tremble.

I am such a fool.

Faye was right. I am an idiot.

“Gwen,” Oliver says. He takes a step towards me.

He sounds heartbroken. He sounds like he is afraid of something.

“I got your message, Oliver. It’s okay,” I say. “I just hope we don’t cross each other’s path. I hope you’ll at least give that to me.”

Oliver blinks. He shakes his head. “What are you—”

“I’ll go now,” I say.

It takes so much not to cry. I don’t know how I’m holding myself together. I have no idea.

“I thought...” Oliver says. “I thought you loved me.”

I glance at him.

What does he mean? What does he want from me?

I don’t know. I don’t want to know. So, I shake my head, and I say the biggest lie I have ever said in my life.

“That was a mistake. I don’t,” I say with a hard face. “And I think that makes things easier, doesn’t it?”

Oliver takes a step back. He stares at me.

He looks like I have just broken his heart.

I will never understand people. I never could. I can’t, even now.

Oliver shakes his head. “Okay.”

“Yeah,” I say. I open my car door.

“I get it,” Oliver says.

I sigh. I get in the car and strap in my seatbelt. Oliver steps aside. I turn on the engine.

I take a deep breath and drive off.

I don’t look back, but I see his shadow in my rearview mirror.

He stands there alone in the dark, looking my way.

*****

I have to stop the car so I can manage myself a little before I reach home. My mascara is waterproof, thank God.

As I open the front door, I find Mom. She looks at the clock upon seeing me.

“You’re home early,” Mom says.

I shrug in reply.

“Did you find Oliver? He came here,” Mom says. “He asked for you. Your dad talked to him. That probably got him a little late.”

I want Mom to stop talking.

I close my eyes and inhale. “Oh.”

I don’t say anything else. I go to my room.

I close the door and sit down on my bed. I am back to where I started.

I am back to being with me, all alone.

I change into my pajamas. I look at the teddy bear sitting on my bed. I take it and go to our storeroom. Opening the door, I leave it there. I come back to my room and I climb into my bed.

I am so tired.

I am tired of living. I am tired of existing.

I close my eyes and I hope I will fall asleep. It hurts to breathe.

I don’t fall asleep. I toss and turn in my bed the whole night. My thoughts chase me. They are worse than a nightmare. I sit up and breathe heavily. I feel like I need to—

I won’t. I won’t. Please. I need to stop thinking. Stop. Please.

My thoughts don’t listen to me. They remind me again and again that it’s all my fault. I feel helpless. I close my hand in a fist. I breathe hard.

I hug myself and move back and forth.

It will be okay. It will be okay, I repeat to myself.

But it never is.

It never was.

It never will be.

Why do I even hold on? For what? What is the point?

Why do I try?

I shiver. I try to cry. Maybe it will stop my thoughts for a moment.

I can’t cry.

I try so hard.

I can’t cry. Not a single drop leaves my eyes. They are dry.

It is painful. So painful.

Why do I have to go through this again? Why? I thought I had healed. I thought I was okay.

I thought I was strong. I thought I was holding on.

Why am I back here?

I brought it on myself. I did this to myself.

I hate myself.

I hate myself so much that I want to, I want to…

It will be over. It will be over.

It isn’t.

It isn’t until I see the morning lights coming through my windows. The night has passed.

I have somehow managed not to do anything. Anything that will take me down.

I need to go out. So, I wash my face. I tie my hair in a ponytail. I look at myself. My face is hard and there is no trace of the fight I had with myself last night.

No one can tell.

I put on my shoes and head out the door. I don’t take my bike this time.

I run. I place my one foot in front of the other and run.

It’s all I need to think about for now. One step after another. One step after another. One two three.

I don’t know where I am heading. The streets are empty. Everyone else is sleeping.

It’s six in the morning and I am running outside.

I keep running until I find myself back in the lake.

Why do I keep coming back here, this place where I almost ended it?

I stare at the water.

I need to leave.

Maybe it’s okay. Maybe it’s okay to be an idiot.

Maybe it’s okay to be a fool.

Maybe it’s okay to fall in love, giving my everything.

I can try. I can try to change myself. I can die trying. But I can’t really change it. I can’t change myself. It’s me. It’s how I am. I fall. And when I fall, I fall completely. When I love, I don’t think about myself. When I trust, I trust with my everything. I give it my all. I don’t think twice.

I can try to become someone else. I can try to become someone who is smart and clever and never gives in. I can try to become a person who never falls.

But will I be me then?

Maybe it’s a part of me to become a fool again and again. Maybe it is me to think the person who I trust will be someone better.

I try to be better. I try to give my best. But there is no one to take it, and at the end of the day, I blame myself for trying.

Why do I blame myself?

I shouldn’t. I should never.

This is me. I am Gwen Bradbury and that’s just who I am. I won’t change myself. Ever.

I won’t even try to.

I will fall like this. I will get hurt. But then I will stand up. And I will go on, again and again.

Again and again.

I do it all the time. I get betrayed. I get cheated on. I get told that I am stupid, that I am boring. But I am still here. Aren’t I?

Yes, I am.

And I won’t change myself for anyone. Ever.

I have been here before, and I have fought it before. I am standing in front of the same enemy.

And I will be okay again. I just know it.

I think you have to completely break down into pieces before you can reform. There’s no way other than that. You have to get to the point where you want to do nothing but black out, vanish, and completely destroy yourself. So when you go through that phase, where nothing means anything, where you are blind in this colorful world, where nobody can reach you, when your back is against the wall, and you feel so heavy, so heavy that even a little weight will crush you to the ground, that’s when you can start to come back.

Because when you have no other choice, you find a choice. The only choice is to live.

I tried to drown myself. Here. In this lake.

I went to the point where every breath I left was a sigh, where nobody would look at me and say I was alive, when even my mom asked me if I was okay.

Yes. I have been there.

I’ve cried like you never did or hope you never do again. I have been broken, crushed, hated myself so much, so much that I’d hate to wake up in the morning, hate to wake up and look at my face.

I’d look at myself and feel ugly, so ugly that I’d want to claw my face. That I’d want to rip out my skin and crawl out of my body. I wanted my thoughts to go away and leave me alone.

And then came the last straw.

I dived into this water. Everything properly planned. I wrote letters and left them in a diary on my desk. I cleaned my room. I took a bath. I wore clean clothes.

Then I came here. In this lake. I folded my clothes and dived in, swiftly, like a swimmer. I floated for a few moments.

I didn’t cry. I’d gotten to the point where I didn’t have any more tears.

I wanted to disappear.

So I held my breath and went down. The water felt okay at first. Then it started to pressure everything. There was a dead weight clasping me. I suffocated. There wasn’t any air. My lungs were burning. There were dots before my eyes.

I waited for my whole life to flash before them. I wondered what I’ll see.

One second more.

One second more.

Three.

Two.

No.

I don’t want to.

I don’t want to.

I heard that voice. Somewhere deep inside. It said, “Maybe once more. I will try once more. This can’t be the end. It just can’t be.”

I resurfaced. I stared into the distance.

Then I started crying.

It took a lot of time to stop crying. I took my time getting out of there, putting on my clothes, biking for hours, and finally coming back home.

Nobody was there.

I came back to my tidy room. I burnt all the letters I wrote. I heated up some food and mindlessly stared at the TV. I wondered why.

I wondered why I stopped.

But then I thought, yes, it wasn’t the end. Maybe there was a reason why.

Whoever sent me here didn’t have plans to take me away now. So I am here. Now. And I will be. Till I go away some other way.

But not by myself. Never again by myself.

That’s when I reformed, I guess. It sounds corny and cheesy, but I guess I really did reform.

And I won’t give that up, just like that. I won’t give it up because somebody took my heart out of my chest and crushed it into a million pieces.

I can do better than that.

I am Gwen Bradbury, and I always do better than that.

*****