I Won't Call This Hell

"Lynnette," My name was being called close by. I heard it again, louder, more agitated than before. "God dammit, Lynnette! I know you aren't asleep! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What?" I snapped away for a moment, looking up at my friend across me. I had been staying at Sophie's mom's house for the last few days, doing nothing more than lying in bed while Sophie was at school and her mom, Regina, worked on typing up her novel downstairs in her office.

"I want to know what's wrong with you. I need to know, Lynnette."

"There's nothing wrong, Soph. I told you, I just needed time to relax and get away from my parents..."

"I'm not stupid, Lynnette. God, do you think I'm that fucking stupid? There's more to this, I know, I can tell. So can Mom! So just tell me what's going on."

I looked up at Sophie. Her school bag was sitting next to her on the foot of her bed, where she was sitting, legs crossed under her, staring at me. "I don't want this to be the way it was with my parents. I don't want to scream at you."

It was quiet again, for a moment. She laughed once, "You better not scream at me, girl."

"I, um, quit school. After John dumped me for the tour, I guess. I couldn't focus in class and my grades went down even more than before, but I tried to try harder, harder than I had before but it didn't work and I gave up. I just…need some time, you know." I looked up at my friend again, internally flinching at her dead stare.

She raised a sharp eyebrow and I sighed, launching into a more detailed description of “what the hell is wrong with me.”

"So, what you're saying..." Sophie said, wringing her hands and looking at her lap. "You're upset because John broke up with you..."

Again, I felt a pang in my stomach. I was so weak.

"You're heartbroken," she said, quietly. The pain rushed through my stomach. Heat burned up my throat like bile. I put a hand to my lips, pressing down hard and trying to keep everything down.

Sophie was still looking at me. I watched the words form on her lips, hating them as she whispered them to me. Not hating he r- never hating her; just hating the truth of it all.

"Now you understand, don't you? You understand what other girls have felt, what all your exes have felt. Now you know, right? You know what it was like when you broke up with them, when my dad left my mom, when I went through that nasty break up last year."

I watched her stand, slowly walk towards me, pull my shoulders close to her and squeeze. "Everyone goes through it. Everyone." She pulled away slightly, forcing me to look at her. I stared at her, quiet.

"Now, like everyone else, you have two choices." Again, I watched the words fall from her mouth. And again, like before, she said what I already knew. But as she said it, it seemed to make sense. Finally.

"Get over it or do something about it."