Summer

Live

There was so much to want, so much to understand but like always I had reached too far and came back with nothing.

I felt so exposed, so open to what everyone was thinking about me. Trying to help Duke had pushed out the inner demons that I had tried so hard to hold back. It was her on the floor, but now I blinked and it was me. And every spiraling thought was collapsing all around me, roaring into a life that I had rightfully given them. I didn't know how to stop them. How to catch my breath when there was no one under me.

There was nothing, just an empty pulsing that reminded me of everything I lost, of everything I did to hide. Pretending the lies I protected were mine to keep. They weren't, but I had kept them anyway. I never had a choice, almost nothing I've ever done was my choice. I followed along with what they all wanted and buried myself deeper, so deep until I lost who I was and became this twisted, unruly person I couldn't stand to look at.

Who was she, who was I to try to become something else? I was no one. Just a girl who walked the halls hid herself at home and pretended that it was okay. That it was fine, brushing off what they said. I'll be what you want me to be. I'll give you all what you want, but it will never be enough. None of it will ever be enough.

Because I'll never be enough.

I wanted to be her once. To live the life that she lived, love the pictures she was in, and ignore how lost I was feeling in that moment. It was supposed to clear that feeling away. I had everything a girl could want, why was I still feeling this way? Feeling lost, angry, and insecure all the time, even when I was supposed to be happy. But how could I ever be happy, when everyone wanted me to be someone I wasn't?

Sometimes I missed when it was just me. When I had no one, my parents didn't care if I existed or died and I could do what I wanted as long as I stayed out of their way. I would go outside and pretend that I wasn't alone. That I had people that cared about me, and wanted me to be their friend. Little did I know that friends weren't what I thought they would be. But that was before.

When I tried everything to get my Mother to notice me, she made it clear that I meant nothing to her. I would watch her sometimes, remarking on how beautiful she was and how much I wanted her to love me. Then there were those rare nights when she'd come downstairs, drunk and high to talk to me. It was never anything I wanted to hear, but it was something. And I would always take whatever I could get from her.

"Don't ever fucking get married." She once said to me, laying on the couch with her hand across her face. "It's a nightmare."

"I won't." I was so in awe of her, I would have done anything she wanted. But I also had seen how my parent's marriage had destroyed them both and I never wanted any of that.

"He just fucks with me." She sighed deeply, moving her hand to look up at the ceiling but not at me. Never at me. "Plays these games. I don't know how much longer I can do it for, might have to pack up and go."

"And you'll take me with you?" I was trying to grasp these little moments, knowing to her they were nothing. But to me they were everything. And I was terrified of my Father, he was the last person I wanted to be alone with.

I waited patiently and hopeful for her answer, but she wasn't listening anymore. No, she was walking back upstairs and I was forgotten again. I didn't need to know the answer to understand. There was no chance she'd ever take me with her.

"Where the fuck is she?!" I heard someone yell from inside the house and I stiffened. I knew that voice, and more than anyone what that voice could do. It was my Father, pissed that I had ruined his night. I quickly scrambled to find a place to hide before he found me. I didn't know what he was going to do once he found me, so that was why I decided to run, out the door. I closed the front door with a heavy, deep breath. I wasn't entirely safe, but it was better than being inside where he could find me easily.