Seventeen and Invincible

I tried everything. I had tried everything and anything that I could possibly think of to make it stop hurting. I did everything I could to try and put out the fire that started somewhere in my stomach or my heart, but it was all to no avail. It scorched. It burned. It ripped me apart like an animal with jagged teeth and a case of rabies. It hurt.

The pain was so excruciating that it was like nothing that I’d ever felt before. It was chemical. It was physical. It was emotional. It was psychological. It was real. And it hurt like hell.

“No,” I cried softly into my pillow for the trillionth time. I’d tried everything, but it still felt like I was being smashed into a million little pieces. My throat was so dry that it was on fire. My eyes were so watery they could pass for Niagara Falls. “No.”

I’d walked home from Starbucks. I’d walked five miles. I’d walked until I felt that ache in my legs.

I had tiptoed up the stairs silently even though no one was home. I had opened my desk drawer to find that my most prized possession was gone. The exacto-knife was gone from its place in my drawer. It had been in the same exact spot forever and now it was gone and replaced with a note.
’I knew you’d be looking for this. So much for keeping your promise.’

I’d wanted to scream. I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs—so I did. I screamed until my vocal cords were sore. I screamed until I couldn’t produce sound anymore.

I started punching the wall. I punched until I was sure that I’d broken my hand.

I made myself sick, because otherwise the nausea and the disgust with myself would have taken over. I made myself enjoy the horrible ache of bile inching its way up my esophagus and past my lips.

I pulled at my hair and shouted at no one. I started grinding my teeth and scratching my skin trying to rid myself of some itch that just wasn’t there and just wouldn’t go away.

I curled up on my bed, trying to get somewhat comfortable. I tried everything. I tried every position I could think of to get comfortable, but none of them worked. And that’s how ended up the way I was now.

My arms were wrapped so tightly around my pillow that I was sure I was squishing the stuffing out. My eyes were resting on the seam of the pillowcase so that if I blinked away the tears I could see part of my wall. My legs were curled tightly against my chest. My hands were clenched into fists, ready to hit something. My thoughts were racing. My head was pounding. My chest was in flames. It all still hurt.

The fire wouldn’t be extinguished. The flames just coursed through my veins more quickly. My blood was like lighter fluid—making it burn quicker and faster and welcoming it like an old friend or a neighbor or a butterfly on the first flower of spring or the first rain after a month of excruciatingly hot sun

It wasn’t only that I missed him. The pain wasn’t just because I needed him here. It was because I asked him to stay. I hated myself. I swore I wouldn’t be that girl. I wasn’t going to keep him here against his will. I wouldn’t hold him back from his dreams.

But I asked.

I asked, and the boy who would walk on fire, climb Mount Everest, swim across an ocean full of sharks, and then walk across the still-burning coals from the fire, told me no.

I asked the one person who promised me they’d be there for me to stay and that person, the most important person in my life, told me no.

I pleaded for the one constant in my life to stay, just so I’d have some stability when everything else was changing for the worse, and that constant told me no.

I begged my best friend to stay; to hold me; to tell me it would all be okay, and he just walked away. He said goodbye and turned his back on me.

I asked the one person who had told me he was selfish all along, to let me be selfish just this one time, and he denied me that. I told him that he needed to feel what it was like to watch me walk away; to watch the person you trust most walk away, and he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t feel that one pain for me.

But maybe it wouldn’t hurt him as much. Maybe he just didn’t care as much. Maybe he was sick of being there for me. Perhaps he didn’t want to hold me close to him again and tell me the same lies again. Perhaps he was just done.

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I ignored every phone call. I ignored all of his texts. I ignored the fact that I’d cut myself off from the world.

I’d managed to drink half a bottle of vodka, but I felt the same. My mind wasn’t any more or less clouded or clear than it had been before. I’d managed to finish the bottle and come to the same conclusion.

Nothing would make it better. Nothing would make me hate myself less. Nothing would make him come back. Nothing could take this pain away—no amount of liquor, no number of pills, and no number of slices into my wrist would ever make it stop.

This pain was just too sobering.

“No!” slipped from my lips again. “No. He has to come back,” I cried. My heart felt like it was going to explode. It was beating so fast that I couldn’t sleep.

There was nothing to do. There was no one to call. There was no one to hold me. There was no one to make me feel better.

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“Shh,” he whispered, his lips brushing across my ear. “Just calm down. It’ll be okay. It’ll all be better soon. It isn’t going to hurt forever.” I shook my head because he was wrong. It would hurt forever. Nothing could make it hurt any less. I asked him to stay. He promised if I asked, he would stay.

He lied.

He was no better than the boy who held me in his arms now.

“She’ll be mad you’re here,” I whispered, resting my head on his shoulder. “She’ll be furious that you’re here. Won’t she?” He shook his head, pulling my back closer to his chest, tightening his arms around my waist.

“She knows he’s gone. She knows that you and I aren’t anything anymore. She understands.” I nodded, rolling over in his arms and burying my face in his chest. He was soft and warm and his voice was soothing, but he was second best and he knew it. “She knows that you love him and so do I.” I shook my head. “Don’t deny it,” he whispered. “You always have, and that’s okay.” I shook my head again. “I knew from the moment I met you that you would never love me the way you loved him. I knew from the first time you smiled at me that I could never make you smile the way Garrett did.” I nodded, conceding. It was true.

Evan never made me feel the way Garrett did.

“Tell Ariel I said thank you.”