I saw this coming. I swear on my life I did. And the self-loathing of not listening to all the
warnings will stay with me forever. All the regret, all the tears shed—even the smiles and stupid
laughter—could have so easily been avoided. The remnants of every piece of my heart, glaring
up at me from their shattered place on the ground way beneath me, easily absorbed my tears. As
much as I stubbornly willed them not to, the shine from the streaks laughed in my pained face
from within the mirror.

How could I allow it to come to this? My heart’s been asking this question for weeks, and
I assumed that the pain seeping through the cracks was its way of finally gloating that it was
right. And for once, my heart and my mind—the two natural born enemies since the dawn of
time—finally agreed. I was an idiot. He didn’t flip my world upside down because he tried. I
allowed him to. It was my own fault. I did this. I didn’t pull away when I saw all of the red flags,
which I still could’ve done before there even were any.

But telling the truth by blaming myself wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

I was pissed, and I was going to do the one single thing I was always taught to do: tear
apart his memory until it was as horrid and marred as the frozen soul he possessed.

How dare he have the nerve to tell me that he was falling, or even remotely interested in
the fathom of us, of there even BEING an us? How dare he get my hopes up for months,
knowing full well what would happen, probably matching each event to the day? The blood
flowing through my brain bubbled as soon as the sight of his evil, gorgeous face invaded it.
Great. Now he had to follow me in my own head at every second? What kind of a monster was
he? My fists clenched and unclenched, closed and opened, strangled and released over and over
until I felt the blood slipping between my fingers and praying for my body to stop shaking. But
since when did I ever listen to anything other than my own stupidity? It was my mistakes that got
me here, I’ll gladly admit that. I didn’t heed their warnings, I turned my back on all the help
offered to me, and I kept forgiving the devil as he kept showing his true colors and barely ever
saying that he was sorry. I tensed even more, if it was possible, as all the pain came over
me at once as I remembered his voice speaking every beautiful lie and soft blow to the heart,
brainwashing me as each day passed. This made it impossible to ever turn back to the life I had
led before, the simple one with my best friend and no one else. It was just us against the world,
until the day everything changed. She met him, the outcast, the blimp on the radar.

The one that had me so desperately in love with him without so much as a single gaze.

I couldn’t handle this. Their relationship always did have me on the edge 24/7, always
ready to coach another fight from the brink of collapsing into dust. All of the heavy pressure and
responsibility somehow managed to sprint its way back to me, leaving me gasping for breath and
just a simple, merciful idea of where I stood in the likes of sanity. I’m only fifteen years old, why
in the world was I resorting to the cursed “L” word at such an age? Wasn’t I always the one who
kept telling my friends that we were all extremely too young to even think about being in love
with someone? I guess that racks the list up to a multitude of flaws for my wellbeing, including
hypocrite. Now I knew that he wasn’t interested in being with me because I was doing something
wrong, but how many new defects will I find before I just up and assume that I was never meant
for life in the first place? He was dead to me now, but I couldn’t help but think that if I was this
damaged, was I really meant for anyone? Not many people were looking for a project these days.
That was a breed that had pretty much died off years ago.

My life was over.

And it was all his fault.

Had it not been for him and his stupid blue eyes, silk hair, and smooth skin over shapely
muscles, I wouldn’t be gripping the edge of the bathroom sink with bloody fingernails right now.
It was his fault that with one word, I prolonged my suffering and allowed him to continue using
me like a dishrag. Because of him, I was numb again and unable to trust the most concrete
facts, such as two plus two equaling four. Because of him, I had alienated myself from the rest of
my friends to the point of them having no idea what I had been through in just two long months.

Because of him, I had proved myself dead wrong about not being able to feel anything
for anyone. I put everything I had into my friendship with him, so blind to the fact that he would
never be willing to return any meager portion of that.

I wanted him dead. My heart was pounding the blood into the veins in my arms as if
supporting the notion, standing behind me with every violent decision I wanted to make. I looked
at the mirror, imaged the glass on the ground in pieces with a massive shard standing out to me. I
imagined it in his heart, splitting it completely open and exposing him for what he really was. A
demon, most likely the devil himself in all his bloody revelation. A smile crept onto my lips.

I’ll dream up that story later.

The anger was still there, as it would be for some time unknown to me right now. That
was what I couldn’t stand the most. I knew I was in pain, in agony, in love over a stupid
freshman that wasn’t worth my breath, but for how long would I scramble for common ground
like this? I can deal with everything else down the road, hopefully shoving it into a part of my
brain that I’ll never have to access again and wait for it to disappear completely. But time? That
would always remain a mystery. No matter how hard I tried to fight it, no matter how hard I
pounded at the doors of fate, I knew it was up to me to decide how long I hold onto the baggage
and let go to maybe, just maybe, forgive him.

How could I do that and keep onto the life he made me feel?

I didn’t want to go numb again. I didn’t want to feel alone anymore. I didn’t want to walk
the halls of school every day, knowing I’d see the face of the boy who ruined the very foundation
I walked my life on. And if that was too much to ask for, maybe I could close my thoughts with
this: I didn’t want to be in love anymore.