I Won't Call This Hell

When we get home, I head straight for the stairs. I pull my knees high as I quickly climb them. My hair fell out in the car, somewhere between pulling my fingers through it and burying my head in between the seat and the window.

"Lynnette," My dad says, sharply. His voice softens as I grudgingly turn back to him, fighting the urge to raise my eyebrows high enough to force my hairline to recede a few inches. "Is there anything else, that you, um, need to tell us?"

I chew on my lip. I don't want to tell them anymore, but I do. "John broke up with me. A month ago. He left, with the rest of the band for a new summer tour. I couldn't do it anymore... I'm messed up. I, I might go back one day, to school, but not right now. Not anytime soon."

I turn again, walking slower than before. I shut my door quietly behind me, like I had earlier than afternoon. Only now there was nothing hanging out there. Nothing to hide.

I found my way to my bed, crawling between the covers, still wearing my dress. I looked around my room as best as I could from between the gaps of blanket. My iPod was lying in a plain sight, only a few feet from my head.

I didn't reach for it. I didn't want to drown out what had just happened. I didn't want to wade out into the water of his voice, lay back, and let it pull me under.

I wanted to relive every word that had just been said. The tone in which those words had been said. The taste of them in my mouth, the pain throbbing in my head, the realization at how weak I had sounded as they poured from my mouth.

I was weak. I was silly. I'm that girl, now, I thought. That girl who falls apart after a break-up, that girl I always pitied. I was that girl.

I was that girl.