Sunflower Café

Amaya

Since most of the book is in Harry's perspective, I wanted to add a little insight into Amaya's thoughts and feelings. This will be a short chapter of her internal, daily monologues.

TRIGER WARNING
Mentions of suicide, self-harm, and death.

***

It's difficult to articulate feelings you yourself don't understand.

How do you explain you disappear into anything but yourself because your own mind overwhelms you too much? How do you explain the constant distractions are there to save you from yourself when you are the thing you are most afraid to be alone with? How do you tell your father his only daughter is looking for a way out? How do you tell your darling grandparents their favorite granddaughter no longer remembers how to smile and feel it be genuine? How do you tell your best friends, the only people on this Earth who have learned to love you when you can't even do that yourself, that every intake of oxygen makes your lungs hurt and your breath hitch because maybe, just maybe, if you stop breathing even for just a few seconds, the universe will grant you your deepest desire and whisk you away to the land no living thing knows but greatly fears.

Everything hurts.

It hurts to breathe. It hurts to bathe. It hurts to get dressed. It hurts to brush my teeth. It hurts to style my hair. It hurts to change clothes. It hurts to eat. It hurts to be social. It hurts to call my family. It hurts to see others happy. It hurts that I don't understand my emotions. It hurts to be this numb. It hurts to always be tired. It hurts to be so close from happiness yet feel it brush its way past me. It hurts to think. It hurts to have people worry because, how can they care when I can't? It hurts to pretend. It hurts to be inside my mind all the time. It hurts to exist. It hurts to wake up.

I just want to sleep and forget to wake up.

I want to fade into the universe. I want to forget I ever existed. I want to burn my memories, my mind, my skin. I want to turn everything about me to ash and disintegrate like I was never there to begin with.

I want my mommy.

I want a hug. A sweet, tight, honey-coated, sugar crystalized, cotton watermelon, lemon yellow, dandelion pure, clear skied, smile that slits my face in two, fuzzy, motherly hug.

     I want to see my mother smile again, to not only hear her warm laugh inside my head. To not only feel her arms embrace me in a ghostly reminiscent dream. To not only wake up in a cold sweat with the dread of my actions dripping down my skin, burning through my veins, eating at my brain matter, and reminding me that she's no longer here. She's dead.

     I don't deserve to be unhappy.

     I don't deserve to be happy.

     I don't deserve to afford emotions when she was so overwhelmed with them they drowned her into oblivion.

     I don't deserve Lilly.

     I don't deserve Kurt.

     I don't deserve Harry.

     Poor, sweet, pining, puppy Harry.

     Too good, too oblivious, too dumb to know his own worth.

     Maybe they won't notice if I simply disappear one day, forever.

     Maybe they won't care.

     They don't care.

     They care too much.

     How can I feel so loveless when I know love surrounds me?

     Why do I yearn for the only thing I can't have when I'm being showered by it?

     They don't understand, and they never will.

     I did this to myself. I deserved it. I should've know. I should've been smarter. I should've run. I should've yelled. I should've fought back.

     Now the memories will haunt me until I'm rotting in the ground. They'll stay stuck on my skin, my lips, my hair. They'll bruise my thighs, my neck, my cheeks, my ego.

     I'll never escape them.

     I'll never be free.

     I'll live with the knowledge that I deserved it, I did it to myself. And I must either accept it it or be ruled by it forever.

I laughed today, and it felt genuine. He bust his head open with my floor. I felt bad, but I laughed. He was so pale I almost thought he was seriously injured, but then he cursed and I felt myself sigh relieved.

It's funny how he does that, finds a way to make me forget about everything. He smiles and I float. My problems become lightweight.

But my heart becomes heavy. Because he's interested, he's trying for something I'll never reciprocate. No matter if I forget my problems with him, they're still there. They still lurk in the corners of my thoughts, in the rolls of my tongue, in every tab, syringe, pill, and drink I take.

     All it takes is a little more. Just a few more milliliters, a few more downers, a few more shots. And then my consciousness can say goodbye to my body.

     I feel bad for the day they find me and I'm no longer there. I feel bad for whoever will find me.

     I hope it's painless, I've already dealt with too much in my lifetime. I want it to be peaceful, like falling asleep.

     I want it to be unexpected. One day I'll forget how many pills I took and never wake up.

     I hope it isn't Lilly, I don't want her to find me like that. I wish I could just die without hurting anyone.

     How can I die without hurting anyone?

     He offered me food.

     How do I tell him I can't even eat? I'm too nauseous. I can't accept.

     But just a nibble won't hurt– No!

     No food.

     Just control.

     Control.

     Control.

     Fading...

     He was talking but I wasn't listening. All I could think about were his dimples. I bet there's a whole world inside them. Miles stretched with strawberry fields, kaleidoscopic skies with cotton clouds, a gooey, silver moon just out of reach, and a swimming pool where I can dip into and thread through his honey words.

     He doesn't understand it hurts. He doesn't see the bruises. He talks too much.

     He doesn't talk enough.

     I need to listen to something other than my thoughts.

     I need that hug.

     One day, Amaya.

     One day...