What I Wish You Knew | ꪜ

Prologue

Three years ago
Hayley's POV

I want to die.

Every night I back into a wall, and my legs never feel heavier.

Reluctantly, I allow the weight to reel me down like a rusted anchor hanging off a ship, and when I tug in hopes of setting myself free, my hands entwine within its pernicious embrace. Every tug is like an incision that needle and thread can't close, so I coax it with words of affirmation, a kiss, or maybe my deluded perception of a perfect tomorrow. But hot, crimson-red blood trickles down my shivering hand, and sometimes it cries out to me, especially when I fail to catch it before it sinks into the carpet beneath my feet, disappearing forever.

No matter what I do, it throbs painfully, and I sit with my back to the wall, allowing that blood to flood the walls of my lungs until I'm hunching over, begging for air.

My frigid fingers, often lost under the waves of an opulent blue sea, climbs the walls of my chest and to my neck, where I lie to myself, convinced that if I grasp hard enough, my airway will expand and, out of my mouth the rest of my blood will sink into the carpet, lost within the memories of those I love most.

This time when it wails in despair, I ignore it.

I'd rather not drown in my sorrow, even if it means I spill blood.

But the journey from beneath the ocean's depth to its supposed serene surface is daunting. Its pulse drags me down with every thump until my feet touch its solid bed, and there, I'm comforted by a false sense of security where warmth and peace have no home. In the rare moments when I open my eyes and allow the salt water to burn my wounds, I realize that I do not want to be there.

So when the ocean finally breathes, I allow the momentum to drag me upward, away from the dark abyss. Then my face breaks the water's surface, where I satiate my hunger for air. But, above me, the sun does not shine, and the sky greets me with its grey mist of hardship and despair. And when the ocean's cold fingertips graze my skin, it confirms that spring, summer and autumn are far, not near. Then I wish that the sea had taken its last breath, unwilling to cough me up from its roaring belly because then, I'd never have to lie in wait for the crisp warm air, the smile of the sun, or the whistles of a dove over my head. Because when I wait, I'm always just left with disappointments.

And I descend back into the ocean.

I don't know what I want in this life.

I bounce back and forth between the rays of sunlight peaking overhead and the looming darkness that enfolds my discombobulated head. I lose my sense of direction, often unable to differentiate between the two. The illusion of sunlight illuminating my dissipating shadow is the darkness stripping what's left of my humanity.

Stripping me of my will to laugh.

To smile.

To cry.

To feel.

To die.

I don't want to die.

But I don't want to live either. 

~~~

When humans are born into this world, they don't have a choice as to what family they are born into. They don't know what parents they are to call mom and dad for the rest of their lives. They don't know their gender, social class or their health status. Why is that? It's because we are all born into this world without any knowledge as to how our lives will turn out.

Up until the age of eighteen—unless circumstances permit it—human lives will remain as it was before the day they were even born. When my tiny hands grasped my mother's finger or when I said my first words, rode my first bike and hit puberty, my life has always been the same.