But I ran into my sister in the hall. Even though it was Thursday, she was getting ready for a night out with Kyle. She walked out of the bathroom right before I tried going in, half her hair curled. The other half of her blonde hair was pinned to her head, out of the way, and it looked like she’d retrieved the bottle of hairspray from the vanity’s cupboards.
Michelle instantly froze, still in my way. “Is everything okay?”
My eyes were watering; no, it should be obvious nothing was okay, but I wouldn’t hold it against her. I knew sometimes I made a big deal out of nothing, that my negativity got the better of me, but this didn’t feel like one of those times.
This…this felt like my whole world was crumbling down in front of me, and I couldn’t lift a finger to try to save it.
“I’m not seeing Calum anymore,” I muttered, forcing myself to push past her, get into the bathroom, and shut the door before she could ask me any questions. My shaking fingers pushed the lock—not like it did much; all you had to do to unlock it was get a butterknife and jiggle it from the outside—but it was at least some semblance of privacy.
“Bree, what happened?” Michelle’s voice spoke through the door.
All I was able to say was “Go away.” She might’ve responded to that, but I tuned her out, reaching an arm into the shower and turning the water on, as hot as it would go. I pulled the curtain closed and let the water heat up as I shed my clothes, piece by piece.
The hot water would fade my hair, but at this point, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything. That was the nightmare of my life—when I did finally care about something, it never ended well. You’d think I would’ve learned not to hope, not to expect anything other than crashing and burning.
But, for whatever reason, Calum and Mason had made me feel things. They’d given me hope, and now I felt crushed because, like I knew it was, in the end it was nothing but pointless.
Once I was free of my clothes, I stepped into the shower. The air was already thick with steam, the water scalding. I gave the showerhead my back, bending my head as I finally let the tears out. Crying only gave massive headaches after you were finished, but that’s what my life was, so I was used to it.
The utter hopelessness, the pointlessness…everything sucked so much, and it was only made worse because I knew I shouldn’t feel like this. I shouldn’t be so impossibly sad all the time, but I was. I was, and simply trying to be happy, pretending to be better, didn’t do shit. When someone was missing an arm, you didn’t tell them to just grow it back. Things didn’t work like that.
I buried my face in my hands, my shoulders shaking as the sadness poured out of me like a waterfall.
What sucked even more was the fact that I’d really had fun with them. I’d really felt myself falling for Calum and Mason, even though I knew the entire time I shouldn’t let myself. Why didn’t I put more walls up? Why didn’t I push them away, stand my ground, refuse any more dates? Why didn’t I tell Mason that I would do everything for the project and that there was no need for him to come over or me to go to his place?
I’d been so stupid, this whole time. I pretty much put myself in this position, knowing the risks, knowing what the future held. It was awful seeing small glimpses of the life I could have if I was normal, if I wasn’t so…me. If I wasn’t me. I’d been fine in my little bubble, but now that I’d seen the outside world, felt the warmth blossoming in me from a man’s kiss, how was I supposed to pretend that everything was fine in my little bubble?
Suddenly my little bubble felt constricting, too small, too uncomfortable. My bubble felt foreign, like I shouldn’t be in it at all. Which, of course, was ridiculous, because it was my bubble. I’d made it, I’d built it as I grew up, knowing I wasn’t like everyone else, feeling awkward in social encounters and letting everyone else put in the effort. My parents thought I had friends until high school graduation, that my friends had lost contact with me when they went to colleges that were far away, but they were wrong.
You see, I’d long lost them, because there was no point in trying to keep them. I knew they would go away after high school, so in my mind, it was better to cut the cord sooner. The same went for Calum, and I knew it would be the same for Mason, too.
It wasn’t like I wanted to say goodbye to either of them, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep them happy. They’d see the real me, and then they’d realize I wasn’t worth it.
I couldn’t say how long I stood there, crying, letting my doubts get the best of me, but it was a long while. My skin grew red from the hotness of the water, and I eventually sunk to my knees, sitting on tub below. I wrapped my arms around my knees, pulling them close to my chest, and my whole body shook with the emotion I felt.
I hated feeling like this. I hated knowing I shouldn’t be like this. How could it be that everyone else was happy with their life? How could they just wake up and look forward to things? How could they encounter something awful and then bounce back like nothing happened? That would never be me, and I hated it.
Time didn’t matter as I sat there in the shower, lost in my internal sorrow. However, when the hot water began to feel not so hot, I knew it was time for me to get out. Get out, dry myself off, throw my clothes back on, and go the fuck to bed. Let this stupid, horrible day be over with already.
Mmm. I kind of felt that way about my life, but suicide was never an option. I might be miserable, but I didn’t want things to just end. There was nothing I feared more than the nothingness that surely came after this.
Heaving a trembling sigh, I turned off the water and got out. The mirror was fogged up, but I didn’t need to see my face to know it was puffy, that my eyes were rimmed in red. I was no longer crying, but to anyone who saw me, it’d be more than obvious. Mom and Dad were in bed by now, which was good—and I bet Michelle had left sometime during my shower.
I’d be as alone as I could possibly be.
I turned off the bathroom light before stepping out. Didn’t do a very good job at drying myself before throwing on my clothes—they stuck to me in places they shouldn’t, but I didn’t care. The hall was quiet and empty, as dark as a hall could be in the early night. Not a sound came from my parents’ room further down the hall, and I stood there, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness before I walked.
Instead of going to my room and throwing myself onto my bed, I decided to head downstairs into the kitchen, to get some water. My head was already starting to hurt from all of my crying, and truly, there was nothing worse than a pounding brain inside your skull.
All the lights in the kitchen stayed off, the house eerily silent until I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it up with the faucet. Once the water was off, I took a long swig from the glass. A window sat just above the sink, and I stared out of it. From it, you could see the side of our yard, and a bit further away, our neighbor’s house.
This was my life. I had to suck it up. Pretend to smile and be happy, at least make everyone else happy. Who cared if I wasn’t?
While I was lost in my head, car lights flashed in the windows in the front of the house, like someone was pulling up. I left my place near the sink, my fingers hardening their hold on the glass as I went to the living room to peer out.