Summer

Linger

People were staring.

Ashley was cutting me to pieces with her sharp gaze and all they could do was stare. Like we were on some kind of fucked show and it didn't matter what happened, as long as they got to watch. It didn't matter that I felt like I was falling to pieces. It didn't matter that I couldn't seem to breathe under the weight of her stare, telling what I already knew. That somehow I had fucked up. I wasn't sure what I did or what was coming next. What I did know was her hand, reaching and digging into my arm as she dragged me across the house.

"You are so fucking dead." Ashley hissed as we pushed past people, her arms shoving them back without a care in the world, not caring if they stared at her like she had lost her mind. Because what they didn't know is that she had lost her fucking mind a long time ago. I didn't know her before, we never crossed paths before I was thrust into the spotlight. But I had heard stories about her.

How she used to hide in the bathrooms at parties, and cry until there was nothing left but dry eyes and empty feelings. The way the girls watched her made her feel like nothing else. But there was also spiraling, the boys who shoved her into the backroom and treated her like she was a stain on the carpet, her mom praising her for finally living up to what she was supposed to be, and the walls she had to build up to avoid the snarky comments written everywhere.

Slowly she lost her mind, letting people think what they wanted to think. The halls became her weapons of hurt and the place where she lashed out most. The boys that were supposed to be in awe of her, started to become what hurt her most. And she lost counted of how many times, sliding over the brick wall behind the school, how many times she lost feeling and told herself no fucking more, can't fucking do this anymore. But she couldn't stop herself. Bright, gleaming eyes and the promise of more in his backseat, her skirt hanging off her legs and whispers of what could begin again. The cycle never ended.

That was until this one guy, we never heard his name. Never saw him. Just that he was somewhere out of town, and she fell hard, harder than she ever had. It was before we met and I remember hearing about her gushing over him in the halls. How different he was, that he was the most outspoken person she had ever met, she was so in love. We thought it was love. It wasn't. Because this is high school and love rarely ever makes it out alive here. It's always so brief and fleeting, like a whisper floating and flying away before it's ever spoken out loud.

What we did do know was Ashley changed after that. Her eyes were bleak, there was no life left as we all struggled to figure out what happened. Why the prom queen was becoming twisted and sinster. And that was when we met. After her heart had shattered, believing that the world had deserted her. I somehow found myself caught in the middle of all of it.

We were supposed to be friends. But I was never her friend. I never got the chance because she never let me. She never let anybody. We were all a game to her, something that she could play and toy around with to make herself feel better. It was why she tried to make me into her. An experiment, fucking with Brent knowing how I felt and taking his virginity before I could. Just to make me bitter like her.

What she didn't know was that I couldn't be anymore fucking bitter. My life was sour and everything smelled foul. All she did was give it one more reason to fucking make me grind my teeth and smile.

That was why I felt numb now. Her fingernails digging into me were supposed to make me hurt. But I was so tired, so over everything that it felt like nothing but air. My heart was struggling to breathe and I had to force my mind to stop focusing on the person it wanted most. But his name was a sound so bittersweet that it ran over my tongue and flashes of what we were, running through my mind. I wanted to forget him. I wanted to cry. I want to curl up and drink and scream and most of all, I just simply wanted him.