Lydia
I’ve been riding this wave for months after spring break; this high I was really enjoying. I was feeling kinda normal for a change, happy even.
The thing about feeling so high for that long again…
is that there’s always a down that follows, and this might be the worst one yet.
The thoughts are so loud tonight, sitting in my empty dorm.
Empty in the same way I always feel. No matter how many things I try to replace the emptiness with… it’s always still there, waiting.
I’m supposed to go home for summer break, and just the thought of being back in that city makes my skin crawl.
I don’t want to be there, but I can’t stay here.
I don’t really want to be anywhere anymore.
I’m so tired of the whiplash from all the highs and lows.
The lows are starting to swallow me whole, and I don’t think I can keep on like this. The cycle never seems to end.
The voices won’t shut up.
They loop. Telling me how much my friends hate me.
That nobody cares. That everyone I love is gone or getting tired of me.
I don’t even want anything out of this life, not really.
I mean, how do you plan for a future when you don’t even see yourself living long enough to have one?
I’ve thought about ending it so many times I could map the route blindfolded.
I hate Eli for what he did and the way he took out. But I get it.
I hate him so much for what he did to me, what he did to my brain. It’s been a whole year since he destroyed my life and the future I could have had without him stuck in every thought. I just want it all to stop, to finally be quiet. Maybe that’s all people are ever trying to find when they leave.
I stare at the bottle in my hand, contemplating, but I know there’s not enough there. Not to make sure it stays quiet.
My fingers automatically start moving, desperately not wanting to change my mind.
Lydia: Need a summer break stash. Can you front me?
Atlas: At Kay’s dorm. Swing through
Kay answers the door when I knock. She’s beautiful, but in an ‘always looks strung out but still effortlessly pretty’ kind of way.
She grins at me like we’re friends when we both know we aren’t.
“Hey, babe,” she calls back into the room, “your girl’s here.”
I almost laugh. Your girl. Cute. Little passive, but whatever.
Atlas stands up from the couch, game controller tossed aside, another guy still playing without him. He looks at me as he walks over, like really looks at me, like he’s counting all the bruises no one else can see. “You good?”
“I’m me. So, no,” I say, shrugging. “But what’s new? Same old, same old.”
He tries again, voice lower when he reaches me, shaking his head. “Nah, there’s something else…” He nods his head in the direction of the hall, outside the dorm. “But let’s talk out here.”
He leads me into the hallway, and Kay squeezes past us, giving Atlas an unnecessarily long kiss and telling him she’ll be right back, asking if we need anything.
He tells her we’re good as she’s walking away, looking back, like she’s trying to assess the likelihood of anything happening while she’s gone.
No, babe, I don’t want your man. I just want the out he holds hostage.
I slide down to the floor, arms on my legs, staring blankly across the hall at the glass window, my reflection haunting me. All that stares back is an empty soul with no fight left to give.
I see him sit down beside me, turning his body to fully look at me.
“What’s going on with you? You’ve been…off…and I mean more off than normal.”
I turn to glare at him. “I’m always off.”
“Yeah…but this is like…more. Like sadder than normal.”
He narrows his eyes at me, and I squint back, mocking him.
“I guess this is just kinda the baseline now…” I pause for a moment, my expression shifting into a questioning one.
“Why do you care so much anyway? You’ve been pretty fucking busy with Kay lately.
It’s not like you have much time for me anymore… or actually give a fuck.”
He looks up at me, holding my stare. “Not fair, Lyd.”
“Don’t call me that,” I tell him. “Only my friends call me that.”
“Damn, Lydia…I thought we were friends.”
I just shrug.
I don’t know why I’m being such a bitch right now, just in the mood for a fight, I guess? I don’t fucking know anymore.
He lets the silence hang for a moment. “I’ve always cared about you, Lydia…too much sometimes, actually.”
I blink. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
He looks away. Then back at me. I hold his stare for a moment, trying to read what he’s silently saying. No…can’t be.
“You’re…with her.”
“Yeah…I’m with her. Because she’s nice, and she likes me, and she’s…a good distraction.”
“Distraction from…what?”
He swallows. “From you.”
I laugh…because I don’t know what else to do. “From me?”
He looks almost annoyed. “Yeah, Lyd…from you. I mean fuck, it’s not like you do the whole love thing, or relationships, or anything more than just meaningless casual sex…
and I get that. I’ve known that…But, fuck.
Maybe I started to want all that shit. So I put some space here between us before I kept letting you hurt me when you weren’t trying to. ”
“I didn’t—” I start.
“It’s okay.” He lifts a hand, waving me off. “I know we aren’t that, or that you couldn’t ever want that, but just…trust me, I’ve always cared. That’s all I’m saying.”
I’m kind of shocked here…at a complete loss for words.
“Why?” I ask quietly.
“Why what?”
I stare up at him, confused. “Why would you want any of that…with me?”
“You really don’t realize how you make people feel when they’re around you, huh?
You think you’re all broken and shit”—he smiles, and I do too, barely—“but you still have this…pure thing under it all. This light, I guess. I know people in your past really hurt you, but deep down, you still have a really fucking beautiful soul, Lydia. And it’s pretty captivating. ”
He reaches over and pushes a strand of hair behind my ear.
The gesture feels like a scene from a life I know I won’t ever get to experience.
I don’t know what to do with any of it. I don’t believe it.
I don’t know how to. The only future that ever flashes behind my eyes is empty and cold.
It’s just me, alone, forever. A life with no purpose. Sleep with no rest.
The sound of the stairwell door closing and Kay’s voice filtering through the hallway again has Atlas standing up from the floor, putting space between us, not wanting to cross any more lines.
He clears his throat, walking back into the dorm as I follow.
He pulls a small bottle from his bag. Then reaches over to hand it to me, and when I grab it, he holds his hand over mine, forcing me to look up at him before he’ll let go.
“Be careful.”
“Always,” I lie, stuffing it into my pocket. “Thanks.”
“Wanna smoke together before you go?”
Yes.
“No. I gotta…go pack. Thanks, though.”
I’m out of the dorm before anyone can question me. I needed to get out before the panic started to take back over.
Everything feels too heavy as I walk down the hall and down the stairs.
Everything feels wrong—my head, my body, my heart…
like none of them want to be here. They’re all in agreement that I’m not cut out for this life.
My brain hates me, my mind never shuts off, my heart doesn’t work, and my body isn’t far behind with the way I treat it.
I fill my days with getting by just enough so I can go get high again, turn it all back off as soon as I can.
I spend every free night I have trying to find any guy to hook up with to make myself feel some fake version of love and intimacy that never sticks.
I leave every bed hating myself more and more.
All I do is fuck things up, ruin people’s lives, and make a mess that other people constantly have to clean up.
You know, maybe…maybe I am the fucking villain in this story.
I used to think I was the victim…and maybe I still am, or was, but now?
Now I’m also the one who’s doing the hurting.
Starting fires just to keep myself warm while it burns everyone else around me.
I don’t want to be the reason other people are in pain.
I don’t want to be here if all I’m going to do is hurt the people I care about.
I just want to disappear before I let the match actually hit the floor, destroying things beyond repair.
I can’t physically move; I can’t keep going; I can’t even get out of this building without my legs giving out.
I had no plans on where I was going tonight, or where I would do it…
but I don’t really care anymore. I grab the wall just to keep myself up as my heart attempts to beat its way out of my chest. Looking up, I see I’m at the door to the building’s common room… and it’s empty.
I find a couch in the back and lie down, wrapping my arms around my body, and finally breaking, allowing myself to just…fully fall apart.
The beauty is, there’s no one here watching, no one here trying to fix things for me, no one here to tell me it’ll be okay when I know it won’t. It’s just…peaceful, peaceful enough to let it all out without anyone trying to shove it all back in.
Everything Atlas said plays on repeat in my mind.
How he’s right, I don’t know how to love.
I don’t want to love again. I don’t want to experience the high that love gives you, because it’s the most dangerous drug of them all, the one that has fucked me up the most in life, and the one that will finally put me in the ground.
The pain love leaves behind is worse than any comedown you could experience.
It rips every good part of who you were away.
Guts you and leaves you to bleed out in its wake.
The thing is, when you love someone—anyone—you willingly hand them the knife to stab you with.
You look them dead in their face and tell them it’s okay to hurt you.