Why share all that had happened between myself and Brandon?

Because after him, my life began to completely fall apart.

It began to spiral.

I lost the dream of being with him.

I lost the stability of working at the vets.

I lost some friends.

And I lost me.

My YTS course had come to its two year end, so the vets said I was ready for Veterinary Nursing College. But there was a fundamental problem; I didn't have the necessary entry qualifications.

The vets knew this, but wanted me to go back to college to get the two sciences and the maths that I needed to continue with my veterinary nursing. But I just couldn't face it. They had no idea of my pain over Brandon and the resurfacing memories of my past. They had no idea that I wasn't coping with all that was going on inside of my heart and my brain. They were simply trying to throw me a career lifeline...a lifeline that I stupidly decided not to take.

I was already working a 40 hour week, I just couldn't face going back to college as well. So, I left the vets. I had already thrown my virginity away, I rebelliously thought I may as well do the same to my career.

That decision, it broke my heart.

It was just yet another thing that would continually fragment me.

I thought I had everything figured out, but I didn't at all.

It was like the world was letting me down again, and most of the people in it, too. So, I rebelled. I self destructively rebelled.

Life kept screwing me over, it became my time to screw it over.

I tried being normal.

I tried being happy.

But happy and normal were two things that never lasted long in my life, so I just decided to be unhappy and abnormal.

Failing was something that I had become pretty bloody good at too, so I decided to factor that into the all-new self destructing Mary Rose.

The resentment and anger towards my mum and dad, that went up to a furious level. Friends who didn't like the argumentative and non-conforming Mary Rose, they were no longer considered my friends. For months, I bummed around, just getting more and more emotionally lost. Even nan and gramp, found me difficult to love at this time. Of course, they did, but I didn't make it easy for them.

They were disappointed.

Confused.

Worried.

They supported me as best as they could, but I kept much of what was going on in my miserable life, a secret from them. For them alone, I'd try and paint on a smile, telling them that everything was alright.

But it wasn't.

It really wasn't.

It was about this time that I first began to experiment with drugs. Without them, I wasn't feeling very much anyway. With them, I thought I might feel a different kind of numbness.

And it would be Jeanette who would be the one to welcome me into her world of drugs and the lowest level of self worth.

By then, Jeanette was now an alcoholic, an heroin addict and an incurable thief. Her stealing had very much escalated from the new hair gel that I once saved up for when I was nine; her thieving had now gone to ridiculous levels.

Over the years since she had moved out from mum's, we would hear snippets of Jeanette's antics. She would even occasionally find out where my mum's new address was, then randomly just show up.

That girl would literally steal anything.

She was unreliable, unpredictable and a drunken addict.

And yet, she would always roll back into our lives like a bad penny.

That's what she did with me. She rolled back into my life, at a time when I didn't know who I was anymore. As lost as I was, Jeanette had found me. "Alright, Rosey?" Was her high-grinned greeting to me when we were all alone in a pub toilet. "You still working at the vets?"

"No, I'm not." I didn't want to go into why I was no longer at the vets. I didn't want to go into why my life was spiralling into a nothingness. I didn't want to go into anything with her.

It was then that she pulled out some pills from a pocket of her denim jacket. "Want one?" Holding out her hand, she offered me the white pills like she was sharing some of her sweets with me.

"No, you're alright." I quickly had told her.

Jeanette then smirked. "Ohhhhh, the very perfect Mary Rose couldn't possibly do anything that was anything other than perfect, now could she?" She teased me. Goaded me. Sarcastically chastised me.

Staring at her in the large toilet mirror, I argued back. "I'm not perfect. You know nothing about me, Jeanette...nothing!"

"Then prove it? Prove to me that you're not the perfect girl that your nan and gramp always think you are?" Again, she held out the handful of pills to me. But her smirk had changed to a taunting, tilted sneer. "Go on...take one!"

Reaching for one with my fingers, but then thinking better of it, I anxiously then asked. "What are they?"

"Dexies. It's a prescribed stimulant. It won't hurt you. Now, just swallow it down with your drink." Impatiently, she took one of the pills from out of her own palm, to shove it deeply into mine. "Stop being a bloody goody two shoes all of the time, Mary Rose!"

With that, I swallowed the pill. In the hope, that it would swallow all of the blame that I still felt for Brandon.

I blamed him for ruining all that I was.

I blamed him for ruining my dreams.

For ruining my hopes.

For ruining my future plans.

I blamed him for completely wrecking me.

It was easier that way. It was easier to just blame him, than it ever was to blame myself. But I was to blame.

I was the one who gave him my virginity.

I was the one who walked away from the vets.

I was the one in the driving seat with all of my spiralling.

All those decisions, were done by me, and me alone.

I hated myself.

I felt like I deserved all that had happened to me, even to the things that had happened with Ivan, Maria and Mario—I deserved it all.

That was my irrational belief at the time, that I deserved to be used and abused. So when I took that pill, I just wanted all of the blame, all the feelings of failure and self-hatred...I just wanted them all to stop.