"I've been thinking, what happens if I get killed?" I ask.
"You...die, you know?"
"Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'd take my last gasping breath, pull in all this oxygen that will never hit my blood as it leaves my body, taking life with every thump of my heart, but what happens after."
"D’you mean like heaven and hell, or what?" he says.
"No...See, I'm scared the police will see my messy room and my mom will read my diaries and cry because I’ve been sad more than I've been happy. I don't want that."
"You're human. That's part of being human. You're sad so much so you can really hang on to that happy feeling when you get it."
"But I never can get it enough."
"No, I suppose you can't."
"But you know what I do?" I say.
"What's that?"
"What I do is I write this shit on my walls, I draw hearts and suns and write LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! In all caps and exclamation points, just like that, and I just hope she thinks that I know I'm loved. But see, I really don't. I hear it all the time, but I feel shit. I mean, I'm right, aren't I?”
"I—"
"Just say yes."
"You want me to say yes..?"
He doesn’t understand again.
"Yeah," I say.
"Yes."
Wrong answer.
"I'm unlovable, and that's all I can ever be. I don't want my mom to know I feel like that, that I know what she's been hiding from me as best she could. I don't want to police to see my messy room."
"You're loved—"
"No, no I'm not. I'm like coal, hard and dark and rough to the touch. No one could love that."
Then I find that people don’t quite like to hear that.
So I say,
"I don't need you anymore."
"Why, because you're happy? You're not fucking happy. You wouldn't know happiness if it sat next to you on a train."
He’s mad now.
So I tell him how it is.
"What, am I hurting you? You don't know what hurt really is. You think feelings are pain? How about you take a day in my life, then we'll talk."
"Please, no -"
"You're afraid it'll hurt too much? You have no idea. Try living. See what that's really like. Life is pain. Actually trying to live is pain. Breathing is pain. Sitting there in agony with needles in your arms and nobody can do a fucking thing about it! That's what hurt really is."
I feel bad now, but he needs to know.
"Wait—" he starts,
But I have to finish.
"You don’t do anything. You're too scared to try, that's what you are. You're afraid."
"I am." He says.
He has nothing to be afraid about.
"Imagine living and feeling the ground's uncertainty under every step you take. You need the blood and the hunger and anything to fucking keep your mind off of the nothingness that might be under your next step!" I shout and yell at him.
"But—"
"You can't live without me. You can't live with me, actually. I stop you from living. You need me to show you how to live." I spit.
"You're right. I'm too afraid to live." He says.
I can’t take it right now.
"You're too afraid to love." I state.
"It's ruined me."
"No sweetie, I've ruined you."
Because that’s what I do best.
YOU ARE READING
Stealing Pulse
Teen FictionThis is a story about me. My life as I see it. I tell it in the first person and it is written like a diary entry, only more intimate. I don't hold anything back, so prepare yourself for the raw, uncensored, and compassionate story of what its like...
