Hiraeth

27

After my parents died, there was rarely any happiness in my life. Of course, I had my grams and Olivia, but other than that, nobody else was there for me. After the whole Shane incident, all of my so-called friends stopped communicating with me. Everyone called me a whore because Shane spread rumors that I had fucked him and then fucked his best friend.

Obviously, I tried to tell them how wrong they were, but when have people ever believed the girl over the boy.

Never.

Every day was the same. Because I just finished college, I was able to avoid any torment college would bring me. So every day, I would wake up, go to my first job, then go to my second job at the bar and hope that the people I used to know wouldn't show up. But then again, when has luck ever been in my favor.

At least 4 days every week a few of them would come in, if not all of them. It was your usual posse of friends. We consisted of 6 people, well 5 without me. 3 girls. 3 boys. When they showed up to work, I tried to ignore them. I tried to treat them like regular customers. I tried to get other workers to serve them, but no matter what, by the end of the night, I was always standing in front of the gross bathroom bar with mascara running down my sweaty, tired face.

When my parents were alive, I did everything I could to make them proud. They always told me I was a people pleaser, and I guess I was. After they died, I didn't stop trying to make them proud. I knew that everything I did, would reflect how they raised me and who I truly am, and I didn't want to let them down, so I worked just as hard as before, to make them and my grams proud.

That's why I never told grams about any of this. I knew she loved me with all her heart and would do anything for me, but I just couldn't bring myself to it, because that would mean I messed up. I would have let them down. I knew if I told grams she would have believed my story, and would have taken me to the police, but everyone knows that cases like these just get brushed off, so I saved everyone some trouble, and just kept it to myself.

And the memories and any anger or sorrow I felt for that night, got pushed deep down in me. I tried to bury it, but in reality, it was the fuel that powered me to strive to do my best ever better. To show Shane and everyone else, that I wasn't just some girl who you could take advantage of and believe you ruined her life. I wanted to prove to them that I was stronger than them. That I wasn't just some trash they can throw out on the street.

So I worked and worked and worked. And I avoided and ignored any pain I felt for that day, until I forgot about it. The fake smiles I put on every day, soon didn't feel fake, because it had gotten to be such a regular thing for me to do, it just came without thinking. My life was an endless cycle of distractions. And in the process, I forgot who I was. I couldn't remember the things that made me happy anymore. I couldn't remember the things that made me sad anymore. I couldn't remember the things that made me angry anymore. I was just simply numb.

It was the risky things that always made me remember how to feel again, even if it was only for a split second. I was able to crawl out of the empty box when I pricked myself with a needle, or when I touched the side of a hot pan. When I touched the tip of a hot lightbulb, or standing on the edge of a cliff.

When I stood up on the motorcycle as Leo was racing down the street singing to Cigarette Daydreams.

And right now. As his lips trace a line from my jaw to my neck, as his hands roam my whole body, I feel something. I feel the danger of this act. I feel how risky it is for me to open up this part of me again. But I finally feel again. And I don't want it to stop because I'm ready for it. I have closed off that part of me for too long now, scared of what's going to happen. But right here, right now, with Leo, it feels right.