The Art of Letting Go

Ch. 1

"Feel what you need to feel and then let it go. Don't let it consume you."

As I opened the door to my house, it was dead silent. Perfect, I thought to myself. I quickly made my way upstairs being sure to miss the squeaky spot on the 3rd and 10th stair in fear of waking up my parents. As I entered my room it was just as I left it, dirty as hell. But I had no motivation to clean it. So instead I just picked up a random pair of jeans and a pink sweater off the floor and walked into the bathroom.

I looked at myself in the mirror as the water heated up. His words rang through my head. "Slut" "You whore" "You'd be a better fuck if you'd just lose some damn weight"

I quickly shook the thoughts out of my head and hopped into the shower, determined to leave before anyone else woke up. I had even taken my morning run at 5am so i could be ready to leave the house by 7, when no ones up yet.

When I got out of shower, as I was getting dressed the pain hit. The pain from last night that I woke up with every morning, some mornings it being too unbearable to even walk. I took my jeans back off and looked at my thighs noticing that they were purple. Fuck. Tears pooled my eyes and without me noticing my father walked into my room.

"Hey sweetheart, come down for breakfast would you?" He said as I flinched back. There he was, looking me up and down with that sickly sweet smile on his face as if everything is normal. How does someone just let something go that fast?

As he finally left my room, I hopped up and trudged behind him wiping away my tears in the process. I took a quick look in my mirror on the way out to make sure the fact that I had had another sleepless night last night hadn't shown through my makeup while I was crying.

I drove to school and pulled into the seniors parking lot. After taking multiple deep breathes, I had finally built up the courage to get out of my car. As I walked to my first period, calculus, I saw Oliver and Ethan, the two most popular boys in school laughing with one of their friends. God I wish I had friends like that. 3 periods later I went to the library for lunch since I had no one to sit with, and eventually after 4 more uneventful classes, it was time to head home.

After a long day at school, I headed home, immediately putting on my running clothes and shoes. My pink nikes were waiting for me right at the door so I slipped those on and headed out. I decided to run to the park and go around the track they have, since the park is only a 10 minute run from my house. As I picked up speed, my nerves started to settle, and soon I was running at a fast, but steady pace. I ran around 3 laps around the park track before bumping into someone. They were much bigger than me so of course I went flying. The person, who I could now see was a boy, ran over to me. He was around 6'2 with blonde hair that he was running his hand through as he approached me. Oh shit, that's Oliver. As in the most popular boy in school, holy shit he's jogging towards me.

"Hey are you ok? I'm Oliver." He said reaching out his hand to me. I flinched back out of instinct and looked up seeing his eyes full of concern.

"Yeah sorry I ran into you, I'm Oakley. I think we go to the same school." I said my voice wavering a bit trying to play it off.

"I figured. I know I've only known you for like, 2 minutes, but will you be my running partner? My brother hates running and I really don't like going alone." He said.

I was a bit in shock considering I had known this guy for literally less than 5 minutes, not to mention I was still trying to comprehend how and why Oliver White was talking to me.

"I'll take that as a yes." Oliver said a grin spreading across his face. "Now running partner, I will be walking you home since it's getting dark, and since I, um, knocked you to the ground and all, I'm offering a free piggy back ride."

He had a genuine smile on his face, so I figured that though this was strange, I could at least let him walk me home. "Ok." I said in a quiet voice. He then pulled me up off the ground but before he could put me on his back, it all came back. The way he would touch me. The way he'd throw me to the ground if I didn't listen, the way he threatened to kill my mom and younger sister. So I struggled out of his grip causing me to stupidly fall to the ground again as tears started streaming down my cheeks, and I stood up and tried to run back home.

"Hey! What's wrong princess? Come back!" Oliver shouted as I was slowly brought back to reality and slowed my running pace. "Hey hey hey, please don't cry. I'm sorry. What happened back there?" Oliver asked.

But I couldn't explain it to him. So instead I wiped my tears and said, " I'm fine, see you at 5am tomorrow morning for running. We'll meet here."

Oliver looked at me for a minute, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion before nodding. We walked back to my house in silence. Oliver waved at me as I walked inside, and I saw out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't turn back fearing what would await me inside.