"sometimes being free means choosing to stay."
Haley Sloane Wilder is ready to leave her hometown the moment her bank account strikes the right digits.
With a year left to reach her goal, Haley is barely hanging on as she struggles to live in this...
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334 days. About 11 months more and I'd be out of here. I glared at my phone, as if doing so would minus off a couple more days. Right. Who does that.
I'm just going to take this time to have this imaginary conversation in my head now to introduce myself and my life.
In case you're curious, let me just put it out there that I really, really hate this town. I mean sure, I grew up here and I smiled a whole lot doing that but hey, I was a kid. Which kid of a sane mind wouldn't smile when there's food in front of you? Free, I might add.
I grew up with my best friend Lana Carter. You know the saying where soulmates don't just limit to lovers, but to friends as well? I would say that Lana was mine. She was one to shine so brightly even when she was diagnosed with clinical depression half of her life. Seriously? Her heart was the kindest, as if really made out of pure gold. Honestly, we were such an odd pair. She was pretty much an opposite of me, both appearance and personality wise. The most striking difference was our hair - mine was boring brown while Lana's was this amazing shade of platinum blonde.
While Lana was the friendliest and bubbly, I avoided human interaction. Mainly because of a childhood trauma which, up till now, I'm still struggling to remember. Whatever it is though, it somehow led to me getting a panic attack whenever I come into physical contact with a random human I don't know. Which explains why I try to avoid physical contact all together, with the exception of a few people.
I'm also the most forgetful person and I start to panic whenever I forget something. When I say panic, I mean I feel like the world is ending kind of panic. What a dramatic way to live life, right? Thank goodness for Lana really, for starting me on the habit of writing everything I need to remember down on post it notes and put them together in my mini notebook. Which saved me a lot of panic.
Lana was my light, but I failed to save her when her light faded away. I don't think I can ever forgive myself for that. She left us 2 years ago. Which turned me into this current 17 year old who hates the whole town and is only left with one friend named Flora. She used to hang out with both me & Lana pretty often back then.
Come to think of it though, I'd probably still have come to hate this town even if Lana were to be still here, because I'm simply an angsty teen filled with hate for the world.
I'm kidding, the town's just that horrible. I've been working a night job to save up and leave this place since she left.
And then there was Lucas, my lovely, charming childhood sweetheart. This is supposed to be the part where I say that my life is filled with sunshine and rainbows and everything good because we fell in love and we're going to live happily ever after. But well, I did say "supposed to be".
Lucas was a huge part of my life as well, being Lana's attractive brother. To add on to that, he knew me as well as Lana did. See, a cute cliche romance thing bound to happen there. For a while, that was exactly what we were. Happy and cringeworthy.
Until Lana left. That turned us into people who somehow just couldn't stop hurting each other. In other words, a toxic relationship. Another reason for me to hate this town.
Let's come to the final reason - I'll always live in fear and pain as long as I am in this town. Somewhere along everything, this town became such a suffocating place to live in. I have this feeling where the longer I stay, the more baggage I'll receive in this town. I'm extra thankful too towards my dad who is extremely understanding about my decision to leave, although I'm worried about leaving him all alone - my mum hasn't been in the picture since I was two. I can barely breathe here, even.
I don't think I want to continue living like this - merely surviving.
Of course, I'm still hesitant on leaving behind all of these heavy memories. These are things that are a huge part of me, after all.
Despite those tiny bits of doubts, I still know that heading for a new, clean start is the right direction.
