Give me Time

1.

Chapter 1:

Life is a bitch. Let's get that settled.

Life causes pain, tears, heartbreaks, everything possible to tear you apart until you can't stand it anymore.

Life can drive you insane. It can take you to the point where everything hurts and the last move you want to make in your little chess game of life, is surrender. Give up. Let go. Say fuck it and just swear to a life of even lesser than mediocracy if that is what it takes to be left alone for a damn minute.

That is not how it works in this game though.

Everyday you hear constant reminders and "encouragements" that most of the time, come out more like persuasions than anything else."You can't give up! You have to be strong and fight each and everyday!"  They say. Everyone busting their ass to build you up and if you show the slightest bit of anything besides constant fight for your life, you might just falter and die because you aren't fighting hard enough.

So, the constant fight for my life is what I do. Less for me now, and more for the people who are scared of what will happen if I don't. But today, and very few other days,  is one of those times where I do say 'fuck it' and I do say 'it's too hard' and I simply give up. No one talks about how much the "encouragements" make you want to quit. Living to fight is not quite living at all.

Call me weak, say I'm a coward, I don't really care anymore.

I'm tired.

***

Mornings have been tough for a while now.

Before my dad died, he was my motivator. Woke me up for school each and every morning, made me breakfast, encouraged me to do well, get good grades. He was my best friend and wanted nothing else but for me to have the best life I ever could have. It seems nowadays that its pretty hard to find a child with a completely loving family that would do anything for their kids, but that's exactly what I had when he was around. 

So mornings aren't quite the same for me. They're a bit lonely actually.

Wake up in an empty house, get ready, skip breakfast, skip past the pill case on the counter, grab my keys, and make the routine walk to my dad's old baby blue bronco. It's pretty much the same drill everyday.

---

I pull into the parking lot of my school with hardly anytime to spare (cutting it close has always been my thing) and go straight to my locker to find a tall blonde girl standing in front of it.

Luckily she's my best friend.

"What do you need Ell?" I tried to say nicely but it still sounded like I snapped at her. I didn't mean to be rude, but I just get easily irritated in the morning and she's blocking my locker. Class starts in 2 minutes.

She furrows her eyebrows at me and proceeds to stare daggers into my soul.

"First of all you're late and almost missed the bell for the 3rd time this week. Second, you didn't take your meds this morning." She stated and I sighed putting in the combination to my locker.

"Lyla! You're screwing yourself more every time you skip them. You have to stop doing that. And I know you think you can try and hide your mood changes on days like these but you can't hide them from me. You know I see through that Bullshit." Ell yelled with concern lacing her eyes. I can't deny I have a very amazing best friend who cares and it's great. Ell has been there for me since I was 9 and a lot has happened in these 7 years that I'm really glad she was there for. She's always helped me get through everything and I'm grateful for that. She'll just never understand how it feels to be completely controlled by medication.

"I'll be fine."

"You're pushing it Ly."

Did I mention she also doesn't deal with any of my bullshit?

I close my locker after getting my English textbook for my first class of the day and walk towards first period, Ell catching up next to me.

"So we're done talking about the meds right?" I asked as Ell caught up and walked beside me.

"Actually we were talking about your inability to help yourself more-so than the meds but whatever. On another note, do you remember Landon Cage?" 

Landon Cage, the stereotypical golden boy. He was a skyrocketing 6 foot something, had blonde hair, hazel eyes, and seemed like a walking mystery... If you weren't his close friend, you never knew much about him besides the fact that everyone either wanted to be him or be with him. He was the star football player for the school and his spot as quarterback was very important for the team. I had talked to him a few times and he was in most of my classes. It just sucked that he was the epitome of "popular". This dude was known by EVERYONE. A blessing and a curse if you think about it.

"Yeah what about him?" I reply to Ell. This wasn't an odd question for her, as she knows everything about everyone and if something is off, she would be the first to realize it.

"He's still not back. Today marks a month that he's been gone. Junior year ends in next month! I guess he's not coming back at all." Oh yeah. I forgot to mention a minor detail about Landon. He hasn't been in school for a while and no one knows where he or his parents are. Not even his best friends.

"So? Why are you counting the days he's gone?"

"Don't you think it's a little weird that he just disappeared?"

"I don't really care to be honest, It's not my place." I say, shrugging my shoulders. Everyone has their own story and as weird as it is that he just left with no warning, I am the last person that should be dwelling on where he went. "This is my class. I'll see you at lunch Ell."

"Bye. OH WAIT." She yelled and ran back to me.

"Remember to pick me up tonight!" Ell pokes a finger in the air at my chest. I rolled my eyes and laughed at my best friend.

"Ahhh yes another school event, thank you for reminding me. Now bye."

I wave and walk into my classroom.