FROM SAGE TO SAVED

ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥSH*T ITS GETTING REAL

There are moments in life you don't see coming—like a slap from the universe you weren't ready for. One day, Felix just woke up and decided he hated me. No warning, no fallout, just silence where our bond used to be. The small tether I was clinging to—gone. He gave his heart to someone else, his girlfriend, which I always knew was bound to happen, but somehow I thought I'd still get a piece of him. Not romantically—never that—but the behind-the-scenes version: the tea on who he was seeing, the little glimpses into his messy world. That was supposed to be my reward. My twisted version of happiness.

Spoiler alert: I was delusional.

But here's the thing about me and Felix. People always assumed there was something more between us, and I didn't do much to stop it. He didn't either. I wasn't gay, not really, but I didn't mind playing into the vibe—it was fun, and Felix seemed to enjoy the ambiguity as much as I did. We were chaos in a bottle, and for a while, it worked. Until it didn't.

The cracks started showing when we became two completely different people. Felix, the weed enthusiast, versus me, the cigarette warrior. We both hated what the other loved, and it was like our differences started screaming at each other louder than we could.

And then came the girl. The first girl I kissed, actually. You wouldn't believe it, but it was Felix who dared me. "Do it," he said with a laugh. And I did. I was drunk, reckless, and for a moment, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Except it wasn't natural—it was borrowed chaos, a temporary thrill. And somehow, I kept going back to her. Each time, Felix would smirk knowingly, like he'd unlocked a part of me I didn't even know existed.

But the connection we had—the one that made us, us—was already slipping through my fingers. We didn't date; we didn't need to. It felt like we'd broken up without ever being together. I held on to the fragments of our friendship, hoping it would be enough. Spoiler alert: it wasn't.In the absence of his attention, I spiraled.

Parties became my sanctuary. Alcohol turned into medicine. Girls gravitated toward me, their boyfriends watching with barely concealed irritation. And I didn't mind. If Felix wasn't going to give me the attention I craved, I'd take it wherever I could find it. Clubs, drinks, random encounters—it all blurred together into one long escape from a reality I didn't want to face.I drank until my ulcers screamed louder than my thoughts. The pain would knock me out, but I didn't care. Waking up the next morning felt like a punishment I had to endure just to do it all over again. I was reckless, lost, and completely numb. I wasn't living—I was surviving.

The one constant in my life was my mom. She was my lifeline, my last thread of sanity in a world that felt like it was falling apart. I'd call her, crying about how much I hated people and wanted to be alone. She'd listen, her voice steady and warm, grounding me in a way no one else could. She'd tell me stories from back home, bits of gossip and humor that pulled me out of my darkness for a little while.

She was my therapy when I didn't even realize I needed it. My medicine when the pain became too much.

But even she couldn't save me from myself. That would come later—long after I'd hit rock bottom, long after I'd burned every bridge I cared about. Felix, the parties, the chaos—I thought I'd lost everything. What I didn't realize was that losing everything was the only way I'd ever find myself again.And that's where this story really begins.