Adolescent

20.

I jolted awake for the second time, covered in sweat even though I was shivering. For some reason, anger and hurt flared from deep inside. I knew there was no way in hell I was getting back to sleep. Looking over at Hayden, fast asleep on the other side of the bed, as slowly and quietly as possible, I slid out of his bed and went down to the hotel's gym, stopping only at my room to grab a change of clothes and pull my unruly mass of hair into a ponytail first.

Internally, I thanked myself for booking a hotel that had a professional-level gym that even had a basketball court. That was where I headed. I grabbed a ball from one of the racks on the sidelines, stretched extensively, and started doing drill after drill, making shot after shot. The sound of the ball hitting the floor kept my mind off of everything.

It wasn't too long before I ditched the ball. After that, I just ran from one end of the court to the other, over and over, ignoring the pain in my oxygen-deprived lungs. As soon as my foot touched one line of the largest painted rectangle on the court, I sprinted to the other. I did that over and over, even after my legs began to scream for mercy. It went on for hours, until I collapsed onto my knees in the center of the court, right on the half-court line, the pain that had taken over my senses becoming too much to take.

My chest burned. My muscles ached. My injured knee throbbed. My head painfully pounded in synonymous rhythm with my racing heart. And like that, everything crashed over me again. Physical and emotional pain coincided so strongly that I let out a whine of agony and anguish. Tears flowed freely, torrentially, once more, like my body wanted to become dehydrated, like all of that crushing pain would escape through that hot saltwater.

The burning in my chest became real in two senses, as I drowned in my agony. I couldn't claw my way to the surface of this infinite abyss. It was like being held under in a lake of blood - hot, thick, suffocating, inexorably pouring into my lungs, drowning me. I couldn't escape from it. This feeling, this sensation of drowning, it was a long time coming. And I couldn't surface from it, because every time I tried, I just plunged deeper. Deeper into my unending abyss of pain, suffering, and instability.

My body curled into itself, leaving me in a shaking ball. Inhuman sounds escaped me as I tried to resurface from my tsunami of agony.

Why did I have to tell him?

Why didn't he respond when I'd asked him that all-important question?

Why did it hurt so motherfucking bad that he didn't?

Why couldn't I just be fucking normal?

Why did I have to be so damaged that my past sent someone who actually cared running from me?

What the fuck did I even do to deserve my level of pain and suffering?

Maybe it was just me. Just how I was that automatically made the universe want to make my life hell. I could see it. I was too cocky. I was too talented. I was too intelligent. Something just had to offset all of that, even if I was almost never enough for myself. Therefore I just had to have scars too deep to fade, and a slight, hidden loathing for myself. Yeah. That was it.

I ripped the bandages off of my wrists and slashed my fingernails over the scabbed-over punctures, joining them as two bleeding gashes, one over each wrist. Over and over, I scraped my nails across my arms, reopening scar tissue, creating even more bleeding cuts because I deserved it.

I sat there, shaking and crying and bleeding and telling myself that it was fault and that I deserved all I got because life would've been too perfect otherwise and that maybe if I'd been enough for myself everything would be okay. I sat there, drowning in blood, as my own welled up and slid down my arms. I sat there, and for a second wished that Jess hadn't found me that fateful day nearly a year ago and that my muddled mind had gotten what it'd wanted just so I wouldn't have to feel myself being burned alive by the scorching inferno that was my inner torment.