Easily broken

32|| What could have been

Payton

It's been a few days since the funeral and I have been coping how I usually do. By that I mean I've been in my room the majority of the time. No matter what is going on, if I'm hurting I'm hiding. Matti has tried his best to get me to just leave the room but I've been so stuck in my thoughts. I can't help but be paralyzed in the sorrow that I've been feeling.

The hardest part about feeling myself slipping away is the fact I know I can't be pulled back. People try and people fail. I just seem to be stuck in a constant loop of sadness. Happiness is only ever temporary.

"Payton please open the door" Matti is knocking at the door again.

"I can't face the world yet, babe" is all I can say

I wish there was a way to explain to Matti that I'm mentally stuck in this place. I know he's trying but he'll never fully grasp the depth of the issue. He'll never understand the weight of my thoughts. The way I get completely lost in the numbness of it all.

I feel pathetic for actually believing that my life could turn around. That Matti was the missing piece to this forever broken heart. That I could leave my habits behind me and start fresh.

I hear the door knob turn and see Matti's face. He held up his hand with a key in it "I will not let you go back down that rabbit hole. You're done facing these things alone." Tears immediately form in my eyes as he walks closer. "Baby, I know you're hurting and it hurts me that you're hurting, but I need you to not shut me out."

"I don't know how" I say softly as I look up at him. He reaches the bed and grabs my hand.

"Well for starters, don't lock me out of your room." He says with a soft chuckle "listen, you've come so so far from where you were. You are so strong. And I don't doubt for one second that you can get through this."

"I'm pathetic. My mother wasn't even a good mother! Why am I crying over her?"

"Payton, maybe you aren't grieving what you had but what you didn't have. Her dying might have made you realize that she never stepped up and so you're grieving who you wish she was."

He's right. I'm grieving who my mother should have been. What I should have had. What I never had. As much as life was getting good there will always be a reminder that my life wasn't fair. I didn't have what I needed.

"It's all so stupid. I should've had a mother. A real mother. Not whatever the hell she was."

"I wholeheartedly agree with you, Payton but the truth is you didn't get it. You can either stay stuck on that fact or you can move past it and realize you've gained so much more. Payton you were hiding your face from everyone a few months ago and now look at you. They tore you down but you have been building yourself right back up. Not everybody is able to do that."

Matti has a point but I still don't understand why. Parents are such a big part of people lives and I got two shitty ones.

I hope my father is dead somewhere. He doesn't deserve a funeral, but my mother. I like to believe she was just scared of my father even though I'm pretty sure that wasn't it.

I know she was scared of him but I also know she genuinely didn't want me. Maybe my father had some impact on those feelings but it's not like she did anything to fight it.

"I shouldn't be here" I say

"What?" Matti says a little more concerned than before

"I shouldn't be here." I repeat "My parents shouldn't have conceived me. I shouldn't have been born. I don't care how far I've come the life I lived as a child was not fair. What is the point of continuing in this pain? The pain that is forever apparently."

"Payton, don't say that. Your life is so valuable. This pain is only temporary, you know that."

"No, Matti, I don't know that. This pain has been here since I was born! What is temporary about 18 years? This pain is never ending and all I want is for it to end."

"You were just stuck in an environment that didn't help you out of that pain. You are in a better environment now. Full of people who love you and would do anything to help you. Payton, the pain can be gone."

"I don't know Matti... I am just not sure how much more of this I can handle." I put my head on his shoulder and start crying harder. None of this is fair. What am I supposed to do with all this anger and pain I have inside?