TMBT II: UNBREAK ME

Chapter One: How to Be a Miscreant

So, we are here! The first chapter of TMBT Book Two. If you are here on this page, wave your hands in the air as you shout 'MY FANSSSS'. 😍❤️

I'm so excited to start this. And hence, no long talk. Without much further ado, let's get into it...

~ACHA~

Christmas, last year, was not the same.

And, it still remains a mystery how time seems to slow down torturously when you are living your worst nightmare. Imagine that moment you are hiding in your closet, hands shaking while you tremble in the darkness of your cover and watch in anxiety as the 'figure' from the creak beneath starts to morph from a hazy shadow to a distorted, three-horned beast. In that moment, two seconds feel like an eternity of damnation.

In other words, this past few weeks was a long-suffering, living Hell for me. And, everything, each and everyone of the awful consequences that I was forced to live with for the entirety of the holiday stemmed from that night.

That cursed night of the Christmas party.

Only now did I fully understand the pain of losing it all, everything: from your own will and your sense of self worth, to the people you care about the most and the basic respect and human decency that you are entitled to as a person. Even your mind as a whole. I had lost it all in one night. Everything. Everyone. Even myself.

Most painfully still, her.

"The body of an unidentified teenager, presumed to be a girl, was found in the Crown River, early on the morning of the New Year, at exactly 4:45am. Sources say that she may have jumped off the Crown bridge—"

I threw my phone against the window.

In what seemed like an uncontrollable rage from nowhere, I acted out again. Ignoring the shattering sound of the phone as it scattered against the blinds, dividing itself into two on impact as my fists were busy, slamming craters upon craters into my bedroom wall.

For days and days, it was like this. Few times, it was the broken glass from the mirrors, windows and even the screen of my television that littered the tiles. Other times, it was my own stuff – furniture, bedspreads, souvenirs, picture frames, gaming consoles and more – pushed and thrown in frustration and fury onto the ground, and from time to time, it was my own blood stains on the white walls of my room, which remained permanently on it as a result of me denting the walls with the knuckles of my bare fists.

"It is unsure how long this girl was in the river, but debates are being raised on blogs and social media pages concerning not just her identity, but also if she is dead or alive—"

Needles were in my brain. That was the most logical explanation to the unbearable pain that shot up like an emboli in my head every time I searched up on this particular topic. This was my routine, everyday. Searching all information about this girl they talked about. Punishing myself like this to the point that I knew all the words that came out of the reporters' mouths, to the point that they recited itself in my head even after I broke my phone again.

With hands on my head and lips that quivered and produced sounds akin to incoherent sobs, I imagined everything. The worst case scenario. And, as delusional as it may have sounded, the best too. Because denial was an easier option when you knew that you could not stand a certain kind of pain, when you feared how much accepting the reality of a matter will scathe you, body and soul.