Summer

Lightning

After dancing together for the longest time I tilted my head and whispered in his ear that I had to go to the bathroom. He whispered back the way to get there and despite my body protesting, I wretched myself away from him. Every step away from him was like torture and I fucking hated myself for it. It was all just starting to become too much. Whatever we had going on was being too intense, it was like I couldn't breathe without him and that wasn't what I wanted. But at the same time I had to wonder, did he feel the same way?

I slipped into the crowd, lost sight of the one person who was slowly becoming everything and I noticed my head started to grow less fuzzy. The fog cleared and made everything start to tilt upside down. Almost if I couldn't tell if I was relieved or starting to panic that we had just shared something. Something that could shatter the delicate line we were tiptoeing around. And in my head, I tried to see the outcome of this but it was all fuzzy and all it did was make me feel sick.

I found the bathroom quickly as I pushed through more people, but in reality I didn't actually have to go. I just needed a minute to breathe. A second to adjust and just breathe, it was all such a mess and what I wanted was to dive right into it. I wanted to tell my father to fuck off and run off with Ace. But there were so many complications, starting with I was terrified of my father for obvious reasons, and ending with I loved Ace and I was sure he didn't love me.

I glanced at myself in the mirror, bags weighed heavy under my eyes and my skin looked pale, like scary fucking pale. No wonder he thought I needed help. It looked like my face was falling apart and slowly decaying, like I was rotting from the inside out. I tried to touch it up with some makeup before I came here but it didn't help me look less damaged. Just a little prettier on the outside, as if that could fix everything and put it back in place. It didn't, it never did and never would.

It was just what they expected of me, to not look like I was fucking falling apart at the seams. Making myself beautiful as they pulled the strings to see the reaction they could make. And watching it all untangled around me as I stayed silent, knowing that pleading for them to stop would do nothing. So I let it all unravel.

I let my thoughts web, spin and collapse until there was nothing to settle my exploding mess of a head. The lights were twitching all around me and I could feel my body shake. My mouth in the mirror looked like it was twisted, lips sealed so that I would never say a word. I would never say a word. Fuck, fuck, and suddenly everything made it impossible stand up, the walls spinning and oozing, whispering that I lied, I lied.

I knew it was the room spinning, the way he made me feel making me feeling like it was all closing in because before I could stop it, before I could control was what going in my mind I slammed my fist into the mirror. Glass exploded and shattered all over the floor as blood dripped down my elbow but I couldn't feel anything. It was all numb on the outside to counterbalance what was swirling around on the inside.

I huddled on the floor, sobbing as I wished I could stop what was happening. But the thoughts wouldn't stop and I felt physically, emotionally sick as I saw the same image in my mind over and over. What I did wanted to spill out but I knew he'd hate me afterwards. He'd look at me like I was somebody he didn't know. Like I had done the one thing he could never forgive, and I'd know why, we'd both know why.

That wasn't what I wanted, what I wanted was the look he gave me as he tucked the flower behind my ear, almost as if we could more than what we were. As if we could actually be happy figuring it out together. But no because here I fucking was again. In this position, crying to myself because I couldn't figure out my emotions or what to do next.

I felt myself start to spiral, climb into a dark corner of my mind I didn't want to slip into and all it did was make me cry harder. I wanted to lift myself off the bathroom floor and walk back to where he was. I couldn't, my body was tied to the same spot and I felt so alone, like there was nothing to pull me back to where my heart was waiting for me.