*ON HOLD* The Way Up

Chapter 1: Stage Fright

Acid, no, poison—that's what saltwater tears are. They are poison.

Saltwater tears are the kind of tears that you try to hold back. They are the kind you end up trying to rub away with your fists, but your fists have skin that's coated in salt. Dust and debris get into your corneas, and you get this stinging sensation that hurts so badly you wonder if you'd blinded yourself in the process.

I knew better than to stop all emotions. Trying to stop those tears would be futile.

After all, they always seemed to get me in the end.

But, instead of learning my lesson, I kept rubbing incessantly. Looking down at my fists, I noticed they were covered in my charcoal black mascara and eye liner. Once a symmetrical picture, now my face was looking more like a mistake Salvador Dali had tried to fix. I rubbed my eyelids until pain shot to the back of my skull. The fragile muscles acted like a spring that was compressed too quickly, then ricocheted out to do further damage.

I looked in my car's makeup mirror, the light drew attention to the red that was kissing the edges of the whites of my eyes. I'm not used to looking at myself with brown and red eyes. Crying was to be done privately, not under the scrutiny of a car mirror.

Glass-like lines followed my cheekbones down to my neck as if they were permanent ink. My face looked infected puffy, rash-like, as if a swarm of bees had stung it. Needless to say, I was not a pretty crier. It was as if all hell broke loose up there, and it did, and my life too was falling apart right at the end of it all. I was parked in the back lot of my school crying my eyes out, how much more broken could life be?

I took out a makeup wipe and started to work, getting all the goop off, hoping that cold wet cloth would calm the redness of my skin.

I was a delusional person, much like the rest of my family. Because that's what we optimists are, we subscribe to a lifestyle that faults people for being sad, or depressed, or angry because emotions aren't supposed to see the light of day. At least, that's how I viewed it. Plenty of optimists are happy. Plenty of optimists are just hiding behind a veil of depression. Smiling through pain as if it never existed in the first place.

My mom and I were the second, we were the optimists that talked. A lot. We talked and talked and never really got to our problems because that's why I was sitting in my car on a Friday afternoon, two hours after the final bell, crying.

Unintentionally chattering my teeth from cold air still circulating in from the outside. I turned on the heater to find it no match for such a blustery day. Cold air seized my face in powerful surges. I reluctantly placed my spectacles on the bridge of my nose, snarling my nostrils in disgust. Even my eyes weren't good enough.

I knew exactly where I was going the second my foot let off the break, the café.

Teeth clenched; I remembered this morning. Papers were flung onto my desk. A detention slip nestled under them. I had been handed the school handbook, a couple of flyers, and a pamphlet that had my name on it and the words "SET UP A COUNSELING APPOINTMENT TODAY!"

The therapy had done nothing. I wasn't expecting a Hail Mary now.

The reason for this disruption of my class time was I had told the school that I had given my friends answers to a history test, even though I hadn't.

My punishment, along with a laundry list of other tasks, was to retake every single assessment from said history class, attend a study session before school every morning, and because my mom had been called, she had let me know that I would be banned from prom. I was stupid to believe covering for my friends would lead to any less of a punishment.