Nameless // h.s. au

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

*Hunter*

I was thirteen when my first panic attack stole the breath from my lungs and the color from my cheeks. I was fourteen when I self- diagnosed. I was fifteen in my heart when I was dragged to therapy where a middle aged woman asked me what was wrong with me and for once it wasn't my mother.

But somewhere between the first time I was awake at two a.m. hyperventilating telling myself I would never be good enough to when I was sitting on an uncomfortable couch in a building that smelled like mothballs and nauseating perfume- somewhere between those I learned how to force a smile and wear long sleeves in the harsh humid east coast heat.

There was a concert and I had had this crush on a boy in my year, who in fact was going to be at said concert. You see- little naïve Hunter had fallen head over heels for this boy who had convinced me I wasn't good enough- that I meant nothing. And little naïve Hunter didn't know yet that falling head over heels for someone is a very dangerous game to play when you already have to wear long sleeves in the summer heat because of words that weren't meant to be spoken.

So when this boy who had completely enthralled me with his awkward charm and his stupid jokes showed up to this festival with a girl of his own who he had claimed to fall head over heels for himself- it was a harsh blow.

Little naïve Hunter thought it was a sick joke- until I saw them kiss when the streamers fell and the song that started out slow and had progressively gotten more climactic hit that one note that always got stuck in my head. Indeed it did get stuck in my head that day along with the image of the boy who I had fallen head over heels for kissing someone that wasn't me.

But you see that was how it was meant to be. There was no big mistake involved. He was hers and she was his and I was irrelevant. I had made the mistake of believing that I could interfere with something that he described as infinite love. Cliché as it may be.

So I pulled my sleeves down a little further and I had to paste that smile on with a little more glue and going to school to be reminded of it got a little harder, but it was meant to be- I told myself that up until he dumped her for another girl- so what is meant to be in the end? Right?

For little naïve Hunter the more she had to pull down her sleeves the more naïve didn't fit her title. It also faded when she smoked her first joint and had her first taste of straight tequila to numb the new found pain that develops when you initially lose the naivety. Her first heart break was just a contributing factor to the later numb girl who walks through the streets of New York with a head full of thoughts and a heart full of fractures.

The part of myself that never faded away with cannabis and tequila and petty heartbreaks was that tiny affection I would always have for those who I thought of when I pulled my sleeves down just a little more.

My boy with hazel eyes and black hair found me when I hadn't quite gotten rid of the habit of carrying the affection around in the darkest corners of myself. That's why no matter how much he hurt me I would never leave- and he knew it but he loved me so he only acted on it when he didn't love me as much as he should've. But that's who he was half into the bottle so I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he did love me as much as he should've and there wasn't any question about it.

He did love me.

I know he did.

It just took a while to wake up from whatever dream that was.

But we don't talk about that anymore because it's just as scratched as the album that he left behind and the letter that matched is just as scratched.