One Stupid Thing

3-4:0:111

My lungs feel like they are going to collapse. I can't breathe. My throat physically will not allow me to. An insanely powerful pressure pushes down on my chest. Everything around me is dark but when I look up I can see light. Lots of it.

I move my limbs, struggling against the depths to swim towards it but the squeezing pain holds such a grip on me that I only continue to sink. Farther and farther down into the darkness.

I'm cold. Extremely cold. As if every ounce of life has left my body.

My lungs burn with an agony so fierce that I can't focus on anything else.

My eyes are heavy. My head is heavy. I struggle to keep myself awake. I can't give up. I have to keep fighting to reach the surface. But despite my mentality, my body no longer craves the will to live. My limbs grow limp and numb with exhaustion, the final breath of air leaves my body, and then the world goes completely black.

—

My lungs immediately fill with air. I gasp for it desperately, coughing and clawing at my chest and neck. I scurry upright, leaning against the wall behind me, and tucking my knees into my chest.

The accident. It's all flooding back and festering in my nightmares, taunting me in the one time that I am allowed to imagine anything I want.

I throw the covers off of me, completely drenched in a cold sweat. The only thing I want right now is fresh air. I need it. My head is pounding and I'm not thinking clearly when I step off the bed and immediately crumble to the floor, wincing as my ankle buckles beneath me.

I am terrified and utterly helpless. I can't walk. I can't see anything. I'm like a newborn baby that can't even fend for itself. I feel the least like myself that I ever have.

Still in complete shock, I roll over and push myself back so that I am leaning against my bed.

And then I cry. I cry and I mourn and I grieve everything I haven't gotten the chance to yet. I shove my face in my hands and cry out for the mother I always needed growing up that isn't here to mother me. I cry out for this god-awful disability that has forced me to be someone I'm not. I have never wanted to depend on anyone.

My eyes and nose are streaming as I completely fall apart right here on the floor of my new bedroom. My face is completely raw from constantly rubbing the tears and snot away. My lower lip is bleeding from biting it so hard. My chest holds an indescribable pain that I have never felt before. I clutch a hand over it as if it will make any difference.

I hold onto the memory of seeing the light from the bottom of the river. I remember what it was like to see. It's different from those who were born with their blindness. They never had to adapt to such change. Me, however, I will always cling to the sense of sight. It's cruel and it's painful and it's just downright sickening.

I still can't breathe. The air is flowing in and out of my lungs so fast that it never gets the chance to enjoy the effects.

A creaking sound from an old floorboard immediately snaps me out of my head. I sniff and drag a hand underneath my nose. "W-who's there?" I ask pitifully. Sarah left the door wide open last night, insisting on it so that she could check in on me without waking me up.

The lack of response tells me everything I need to know.

"Please. Please just go away," I beg him. "I can't, I can't do this right now." His presence only makes things worse. I feel so embarrassed and so vulnerable at this very moment that it's crippling."Please!" I cry out. JJ doesn't walk away. Instead he crouched down beside me, wraps his arms around my trembling frame and pulls me into his bare chest.