Trying to live #Wattys2024

Chapter 37

Summer before Junior year

Dear Diary,

I'm officially saying it again - I want to go home. Just two more weeks and I can finally leave this place. How many teens will die here before something happens? There is a police investigation going on and I overheard two workers saying that the kids that died were drug addicts. Somebody smuggled drugs and they died of an overdose. Look at that, I'm in a place where young adults come or their parents drop them off to get rid of their addiction, their problems, - to make them humane again, to make them sober again. And now something like that happens, when this place should have been safe.

I'm just so done and confused about everything. Maya seems unbothered by all of this and I wish I am too but I can't. I can't figure out why she isn't concerned about anything when she could be next. Maya is a drug addict, a big one. She gets easily aggressive or mean but she has a soft side too. Her softer side comes out when she talks about the guy she likes. Every time, she talks about him, it reminds me of Henry. Maya's crush is her first love and I don't stop her when she speaks about him. It seems as if that boy is the only person that makes her happy. When she speaks about her family - her mom, dad or twin sister - there's always this unfathomable expression of hate and disappointment on her face.

But I get it. I mean, every girl wants to fall in love and at some point they do. The feeling of your heart beating for someone else, the dreamy eyes, the imaginary scenarios playing in your head and the happiness of seeing that person is a wonderful feeling. It's something that swells up your heart and you think there will be no one else and there might be no one else. And I see all those things on Maya's face and I'm suddenly glad that she has someone she can hold onto in this place and with whatever is happening here.

She needs someone and if I'm not that person, there is someone else out there for her. And I really hope, when she gets out, she tells this guy how much she likes him. And I hope also, that this guy has the same feelings for her because I know he must have a soft side for her after hearing her stories.

I'm also glad that I have this person in my life.

My first love Henry.

The only guy in my life I have given my heart to and the love I feel for him is just different.

The beginning of junior year

Dear Diary,

I guess with first love comes the first heartbreak too. I never thought that I would experience it, but I did. I also never thought that Maya will never experience both of them. I mean, she loved him or I believe she did but she never gets to tell this to her crush. As if my own heartbreak isn't enough, I get to bear hers too and it just breaks my heart more.

I always thought that Henry and me would be forever. But forever is just a word. It doesn't mean anything unless you make it something. Henry and I didn't make anything out of forever. We broke our promises and it hurts.

I really thought that there was something special between us. That we were different from other couples but we weren't. We were like everyone else. Your first love doesn't mean anything and maybe we were meant to fall apart.

But no matter how hard I try to figure out what made us the people we are, what made me hate him so much that I just want to slap him, what made me question everything we were - I just can't.

Because if I think hard enough, if I try to see through all of the events, I know what lead us to this breakup.

Me.