so alike, so in love | h.s

prologue

She wasn’t supposed to be sitting there, by the old bridge that crossed the roaring river below, the water dark and freezing cold. But there was something oddly fascinating about it to her, it was like she was drawn to the old bridge and the roaring river. The bridge was high, the water was deep and there were rocks sticking out at many places. And it was then that she thought of how easy it’d be to just jump, she’d be gone. She couldn’t possibly survive a jump like that, much less the strong stream of water and the sharp. dangerous rocks. Aubrey sat there, her legs dangling off the edge and the sleeves of her hoodie clutched tightly over her hands, shielding herself from the icy weather. It was raining hard and it was freezing, the kind of weather that she’d grown quite accustomed to during her seventeen years of life in Doncaster.

Aubrey, for some reason, thought of how much she hated her life; of how no one liked her and how she was still bullied at school somewhat. Of how her parents always compared her to her damned younger brother who seemed to be the perfect child in every way imaginable. She thought about the days when she’d just lay in her bed, listening to music and trying her best shut the world out - or the days when she’d skip meals just to be thin for once in her life. To satisfy other people. more than herself. She hated being the chubby kid, the one no boy wants to date because she’s fat, ugly and her eyes are tired and dull, her lips chapped. Aubrey never was beautiful, anyways. Her green eyes seemed too big, her skin was pale and her hair was always messy and it was impossible to get it to look even the slightest bit decent. And Aubrey was fat, she was the opposite of everyone in her school, she was ugly and fat and apparently stupid too -  not to even mention unwanted. Aubrey felt like a failure, in many ways. She felt like she’d failed her parents by becoming the person she was, and now she was failing herself too. Not that she cared, though.

Aubrey once was the happy kid that always smiled and was friendly to everyone, and now, when she’d turned seventeen only a few weeks ago on September 16th, she did not smile anymore. She’d somewhere along the way lost her smile, her happiness, even her ability of being the slightest bit friendly. But no one really cared, or seemed to notice. Aubrey felt like she was invisible, like no one saw how she had changed. Or maybe she hadn’t, perhaps Aubrey had always been like this, she had just never noticed it herself. Her hair was swirling around in the wind, settling all over her face that was soaked by the rain and, though she would never admit it, her tears.

For hours Aubrey just sat there, pondering every single sad moment of her life that had ever occurred. She thought of how she started cutting two years ago, when she was fifteen. Of how she stopped eating around the same time. Of how she never had the best friend everyone else had, how she never had anyone to share secrets with, no one to have sleepovers with. And it was sad, it was so goddamned unfair that some people just have lots of friends while some people. including Aubrey, didn’t even have one friend. But who had ever said the world would be fair? It wasn’t like you always got what you wanted, everything you desired for. But it would have been righteous for Aubrey to have even one friend, a person she could trust and a person she could vent to. Because right now she had no one and Aubrey was falling apart and no one could see it. It was partly because Aubrey had learned to shield her sadness with this dull and emotionless mask, hiding all her emotions.  But it was also because no one paid enough attention to her, no one ever asked her how she was doing. Not even her parents, or her brother.

It would be such a peaceful way to go, Aubrey thought. It surely would not hurt that much, she would probably hit her head on a rock, pass out and then drown. She wouldn't feel any pain - drowning would be peaceful. Well, it would maybe hurt somewhat, but after that bit of pain she would never have to feel pain again, she would never have to look another person in the eye and take whatever insult they were throwing at her. She would never feel the aching pain in her gut when she hadn’t eaten in days, or the gnawing pain in her heart when people called her ugly, fat, worthless - or the shredding pain of simply being invisible to even her own parents. It would all be over, if Aubrey would just dare to get up and take a single step forwards, towards the raging, cold, dark water below. Just a single step, a bit of pain perhaps, and it would all be over. She would be gone and much, very much, happier.