Torn

Chapter One

It’s usually when everything is going well that things tend to start falling apart. You know what they say, the higher you climb, the further you have to fall. Well that’s how it started for me. Things had been pretty shit for a long time, not that you could tell from looking at me. Even on the most difficult of days you could guarantee I would have my face on; thick black eyeliner, even thicker mascara and crimson lips. Slightly edgy but oozing class more than anything. People knew not to fuck with me like that, and those who did never made the same mistake twice. The sad thing is, I’m not a bitch and I’m not cold-hearted. I’m just isolated from the rest of the society. I don’t feel like a have a place here but despite my reservations, here I am desperately clutching at the edge of reality and trying to make a life for myself.

I thought about running. In fact, I think about running a lot. Just grabbing a bag and getting on a train, seeing where it takes me. A one-way ticket to anywhere. A new start where I could be anyone. Nobody knows me there, I could be somebody. Every time the thought crosses my mind I find myself smirking at just how naïve I sound. You can run as much as you want, you can keep running forever, but you can’t run from yourself no matter how far you go. Not that I would have a clue where to go anyway. I haven’t got the money to jet off around the world and build a new life for myself. I wish I did.

I thought about giving up altogether. In fact, I think about that more than I think about running. I know it’s not what people want to hear. Most of them awkwardly change the subject, give an overly false smile and tell me it’s just a phase and I’ll be okay. They’ve been telling me that since the beginning, and every year I look back and remember those lies; the false hope they pumped me with. Those are the lies that left me this deflated now. Here I am, barely an adult yet with more experience than most people over 10 years my senior. If I could change it, I wouldn’t. My teenage years may have broken me beyond repair and ruined any future I could possibly have had, but they also gave me the strength I needed to survive. That’s what I’m doing; I’m not living, I’m surviving. Anyone can take too many pills, step off the edge of the tallest building or hold a gun to their head, but carrying on, that’s what takes real courage. Not anyone can do that.

For the first time, in a very long time though, I finally feel like I’ve got something to cling to. A reason to stop running and to step back from that ledge. The past will always haunt me, but I’ve finally come to accept that I can’t run forever because my demons can run too and no matter what they fill always catch up with me. This is the start of the rest of my life; right here, right now.

Well actually it all started about two months ago. The wind was aggressive, desperately trying to wrench my umbrella from my vice-like grip. It might have succeeded too, had it not been for the fact that my icy numb fingers had frozen fixed around the handle. It was going to take a chisel to prise them open. Rain was lashing at the backs of my legs and I was probably covered in diluted mud splattering by now. In all honesty, I’d given up caring. I would have still been in bed right now if I’d had my way. The things people do for their so-called friends. So here I was looking like complete crap in the middle of London. Alright, I’m being melodramatic, the weather wasn’t quite that bad, but still, who wants to be trekking around London in the pissing rain when you could be at home watching shit on tv and drinking hot chocolate. Certainly not me.

Anyway, it was just a day like any other. I kept an eye on the clock, counting down the minutes until I could get back on the train and head back home to my reclusive solitary world. Minutes slipped by the sand in an eggtimer, painfully slow, almost tormenting me. I’d barely even put my face on this morning and the rain had completely fucked with my hair. I shouldn’t even be out in public like this. Actually, I just shouldn’t be out full stop. I always used to tell myself that with a full face of make-up I could face the world and anything was possible. Nothing could touch me because nothing could break through the war paint. Nobody could see through the masquerade I put up. But what happens when the mask has cracks, when the real me starts creeping through? What happens then?