Misconceptions 》Styles

19.00

        I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think, speak, or even blink. All I could do was stare. My body went limp and Rider tightened his grip to keep me from falling, an easy smile spreading over his lips. He was smiling, and my heart was shattering. He was smiling, and the room was spinning. He was smiling, and my world was falling apart. I felt my face heating up. I realized how revealing this hospital getup was. I realized that he could see me, really see me. My stringy hair and my pale complexion and my chapped lips and how hideous I looked, how fat. My bottom lip starts to tremble, and he’s still smiling, holding onto me with his stupid, stupid blue grey eyes staring into my aqua colored ones.  

        The last time I had seen him was while I was running, in a hallucination. He told me that I was even worse than I was before, that no matter how hard I tried I would never be enough. That I was revolting, an ugly fat slag. But that was a hallucination. He hadn’t really said those things.

        But he thought them. I knew he did. I could tell just by the way he was staring at me.

         I suppose the last time I saw him, really saw him, was that day in the field. Where the snow was falling and I had rosy colored cheeks because I was happy. Because I thought someone loved me so it was okay to eat again. It was okay to be normal. But I was so wrong. Because that day, seven months had gone to waste, a seventh month relationship had been torn to shreds, amounted to nothing. Because for me, it was the best seven months of my life. But for Rider, for the boy I had fallen so hopelessly in love with, he was done. The bet was over, he got his money, and he was tired of stringing me along.

         In that moment, I am filled with rage. Once again, Harry was able to destroy me even when he wasn’t around. He was everywhere. Everywhere that I looked. I couldn’t escape him. He made the bet with Rider, he set me up. He made me fall in love and then he broke my heart and he ruined me just like he always does. God, why wouldn’t he leave me alone? Why was Rider even here?

         Nurse Fields has halted behind me; she’s standing there gaping like an idiot, wondering why we’ve stopped. She whispering to herself and looking around the room, trying to figure out what was happening. But she doesn’t matter right now. I don’t care about her and her preaching about how I can get better because I’m so strong. I don’t care about the employees calling me and every other patient in here crazy bitches. I don’t hear the quiet chatter or the screaming or feel the people relapsing around me. Because I can’t stop looking into his eyes and before I know it, before I can even realize what’s happening or can stop it, there’s tears streaming from my eyes. I’m crying and my body is shaking and God, I’m so sick of crying. It’s all I’ve been doing lately in front of everyone, in front of too many people. I hated it. I hated looking weak, but it’s what I was. It’s what I always have been and always will be.

        Laying on the grass, pointing out the constellations.

        Going to the bookstore every month just like we did on our first date, reading paragraphs aloud in ridiculous voices to strangers, making our own stories.

         Planning a future because we were in college and we were so young and we were infinite and we thought that we would last forever. But we wouldn’t. I just didn’t know that. I thought we had forever, but Rider was counting the days until he could get rid of it. Of me.

         Burying each other in the sand and going for walks and planning where we were going to Uni around each other. Holding hands and staying up talking until four in the morning and Rider pelting stupid rocks at my stupid window to get me to come downstairs so we can sit outside on the swing and talk and stare at the sky.