Trust Me. I'm Lying - (SLOWLY EDITING)

Tears Were Easier: Chapter 37

"Your first love gets you raw and open and naive and strong. Your first love gets the secrets that you never even knew you were meant to keep buried away. Your first love teaches you that love isn't reckless kissing and hands all over the place, that it's actually about learning and understanding and compromise and feeling so happy you might explode.

Your first love teaches you loneliness, teaches you about endings and goodbyes and emptiness. Your first love makes breaking an arm sound like a walk in the park. Your first love promises they won't forget you and you believe them until you see them kissing someone else on the street that you used to meet.

Your first love makes you bitter. And your second love makes that bitterness go away."

—Excerpt from a book I'll never write #167. 'Talk about your first love?'; 'I feel like the second loves don't get enough credit.'

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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN:

Tears Were Easier.

"Okay," I said out loud. I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to breathe normally. In through the nose and out through the mouth. They would be here any minute. "Okay. Isabelle, we're okay. We are okay."

I had snot under my nose. My mouth was a pale pink color. My whole face had the overall appearance of someone who had just had an encounter with a ghost. I had been shaking so bad I pulled a jacket over my pretty dress, but it still didn't work. I opened the faucet and splashed my face with water, staring again. "Okay."

"Breathe, Bells," I told my reflection. The outside mimicked the inside; I both looked and felt like shit. Heartbroken. It was practically summer already. Why was I shaking like I was standing in the middle of a blizzard? I noticed my bottom lip beginning to shake again. "Just breathe."

I did. I washed my face again, just to be sure. Made my ponytail over. "Okay, okay. We are okay." I took an Advil for the throbbing on my head. I took the water bottle from my bag and drank it hole. Filled it up. Stared at my image anew. "Okay. Pull yourself together."

I pinched my cheeks to put some color into them, taking a deep breath. I started pacing around my room, making my hands into fists to stop from shaking. Pull yourself together. I rubbed my eyes, my face, sat on the bed and got on my feet again. Pull yourself together. I glanced out the window, jumped when I saw the car. I was still standing there when they opened the door. I spun around and started.

"Bells," Jess. She pulled me into a hug first and I could already see the question forming in her eyes when she was pulling back even before she said it out loud. Please don't say it, please don't say it— "Are you okay?"

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Wow, I was really at loss for words today. Don't cry. Instead, I saw Jessica's eyes start to fill up with tears. I opened my mouth again and that was when Chris pushed Jessica back.

There was a time after my Dad left that Chris hugged me a lot. All of a sudden, when I least expected it. We were watching a movie or in the park or attempting to make cinnamon rolls when she would turn around and just give me a small hug, or a kiss on the cheek and tell me she loved me. Looking back on it, I would say Chris thought I needed them at the moment.

I wasn't sure why, but this hug reminded me of that. Chris held on tightly, so tightly she made me forget the other reason why I couldn't breathe. I kept my mouth closed, and laid my head on her shoulder. She doesn't know I hate it, so she whispers, "I'm so sorry, Bells."