LOVELORN

18|Breaks & Advice

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I STILL forced myself to go to school. I didn't want to be in that house anyway. Instead, I used school as a way to ignore everything else. It was the root of so many of my problems, yet it was the only thing that could distract me right now. How fucking ironic.

Zora knew something was up. I'd been forcing smiles and acting as normal as I could muster up. But it didn't fool her. As much as I didn't want to pull away from her, I also didn't want to drag her down with me. So I still came over and we went about things like usual. Well, except for her constant begging for me to talk to her. I dismissed all her attempts with an 'I'm fine' and I could tell my lies were wearing her down.

She'd give up eventually and by then, I'd actually be fine. I would get better. I had to. Even if it was just to not cause any more worry. She didn't need to know I was self-harming again or having daily panic attacks. It'd stop. I would stop. It was just what I needed to deal with everything right now. Temporary. It was temporary and there was no need for her to be scared for me.

Everything would be okay, right? My parents had mainly been ignoring me again. I would stay out of their hair like I always had. Avi hadn't been fueling them with defensive comments about me. He'd just continued playing into the role of the perfect son. Their attention was on him. If I made myself scarce, they could pretend I didn't exist. Everyone got what they wanted.

I had only talked to my brother when necessary. We'd exchange brief words here and there. Maybe he'd finally given up on me. Or he was giving me space. Either way, I was fine with it. For a while there, I almost thought we could rebuild our relationship. But maybe we were just too different. The type of siblings who would grow up and lose contact with each other. I was having a hard time caring. A hard time caring about anything. Apathy. I wasn't unfamiliar with it.

I was so jealous of mentally stable people. The fact that people just went about their normal lives without their minds working against them was wild to me. I'd struggled with my mental health since I started school. My childhood had thus been heavily impacted by how shit I felt on the inside. Becoming a teen only made it worse. I'd only gotten a diagnosis of depression and anxiety when I was fifteen, but I'd had symptoms for many years before that.

The weather was getting more bleak with every day and the hours of sunlight were lessening. There were so many things I liked about the colder seasons. But as much as I appreciated winter, my mind didn't. The lack of sunlight was maddening. Going out to run wasn't as enjoyable either. It was too cold and dark outside whenever I had time to go run.

December was going pretty shit.

Winter break wasn't far away and I couldn't find it in me to be excited about it. The temptation to spend the entirety of it rotting away in bed was high. Typically, Zora would spend the first half of the break away skiing and the second half at home. My parents always took one week off to visit India, so we were away at the same time. When we were both home we'd drag ourselves out to do activities or spend the day in the comfort of her home. Some of my favorite memories stemmed from those days. This year, she was going away as usual.

But alas, school was not yet over for the term. December had been incredibly stressful. Teachers always thought it was a great idea to push everything to the last few weeks of the term.

Today, Avi was driving us home. We all needed to study and while I'd tried, I could hardly focus at Zora's house, and neither could she. So we hadn't spent as many weekdays together recently. Though I still visited quite a lot, just not as much as when the workload was less.