Two weeks had passed since El's book had been shown to the whole world. She had been sent home, although she had to visit her therapist every other day. Her mother hired someone to even watch her through the whole day while she was gone. El wanted it all to go away, to die down. She blamed Josh, she could feel herself hating Josh every day it carried on. The constant news reporters on her front lawn, the stories flooding the news channels and most of all, the false stories.
People believed that El had faked it all, or that she was a drama queen who just wanted attention or that she had a boyfriend who had just broken up with her. Endless false stories, all getting more outrageous. So the moment El's mother knocked on the door with a paper with a news channels imprint on the very top left hand of the paper she wanted to rip it to shreds. Her mother had forced her to go.
***
"Hello everyone, today we have the El with us. I've been told by some sources that there is a man in your life. Is that true?" El blinked for a few seconds.
"A man? Are you talking about-" she quickly cut herself off. This isn't what she wanted to do. "What is the point in all of this? I didn't want to be here." El looked around searching for Josh in the crowd. For some reason he wanted to be there for her.
"Well, uh, I suppose to raise awareness."
"Everyday I wake up crying and wishing I had died. Do you want the truth? I wish I hadn't wrote in that journal because now it's haunting me. Let me guess, you're going to ask me if that man in my life is someone I like." She made direct eye contact with Josh as he nodded, telling her to go on. "Love will not save me. One of these days you will forget all about this, just like everything else. On that day, you will never know that I killed myself. Nothing and no one can stop me. Not you, not Josh and definitely not love."
Getting out of her chair she stormed off of the stage, the audience was silent. Josh called out for El, ignoring his calls she ran down the long dark hallway until the tears running down her face had forced her to stop.
YOU ARE READING
I Should Feel Like:
Short StoryEl never thought as a kid playing with her Barbies that she'd become like this. El never thought that she'd have to write down her feelings to let them out. El definitely didn't expect them to get out for the whole world to see, especially when she...
