The Edge Of Never (Jelsa)

Chapter 3

The day when everything changed was yesterday. That itch in my brain compelled me to get up. And so I did. It told me to put on my shoes, pack a small bag with a few necessities and grab my purse. And so I did.

There was no logic or any sense of purpose except that I knew I had to do something other than what I was doing, or I might not make it through this. Or, I might end up like my parents.

I always thought that depression was so overrated, the way people toss the word around (a lot like the L-word that I will never say to a guy again for as long as I live). When I was in high school, girls would often talk about how they were 'depressed' and how their moms took them to a shrink to get on medication and then they'd all gather around to see whose pills they wanted to try out. Depression to me meant three words: sadness, sadness and sadness. I saw those stupid commercials with the cartoonish figures moping around with black clouds constantly raining on their heads and thought to myself how people are really laying this depression stuff on thick. I feel bad for people. I always have. I never like to see someone hurting, but I admit whenever I heard someone play the depression card, I'd roll my eyes and go about my business.

Little did I know that depression is a serious disease.

Those girls at school had no idea what it really means to be depressed.

It's not only about sadness. In truth, sadness really has little to do with it. Depression is pain in its purest form and I would do anything to be able to feel an emotion again. Any emotion at all. Pain hurts, but pain that's so powerful that you can't feel anything anymore, that's when you start to feel like you're going crazy.

It bothers me immensely to realize that the last time I actually cried was that day at school when I found out that Tadashi was killed in that crash. It was in Hans's arms that I cried. Hans, of all people.

But that was the last time I ever shed a tear and that was a little over a year ago.

After that, I just couldn't anymore. Not over my parents' divorce, or when Olaf got sentenced, or when Hans showed his true colors, or when Anna stabbed me in the back. I keep thinking that any day now I'm going to break down and bawl my eyes out with my face buried in my pillow. I should be puking from crying so much.

But it never comes and I still feel nothing.

Except this sense of breaking free from it all. That itch, although vague and stingy, compels me to obey it. I don't know why, I can't explain it, but it's there and I can't stop myself from listening to it.

I spent most of the night at the bus station, sitting there waiting for that itch to tell me what to do.

And then I walked up to the counter.

"Can I help you?" the woman said blankly.

I thought about it for a second and said, "I'm going to see my sister in Idaho because she just had a baby."

She looked at me awkwardly, and I admit, it felt awkward. I don't have a sister and I've never been to Idaho, but it was the first lie that popped into my head. And she had been eating a baked potato. It was sitting behind the counter in a buttery bowl of foil and sour cream. So, naturally Idaho was the first state I thought of. It doesn't matter where I choose to go really, because I just don't care.

I thought, once I get to Idaho I'll just buy another ticket to somewhere else. Maybe I'll go to California. Or Washington. Or, maybe I'll just head south and see what Texas is like. I always imagined it a giant landscape of dirt and roadside bars and cowboy hats. And people in Texas are supposed to be some kind of badasses, or something. Maybe they'll stomp the crap out of me with their cowboy boots.