Without You, There is No Me

He holds my hand the entire way home. His grasp stays loose, but I’m not complaining. We finally get to my house even though it’s not far from the park.

He hugs me, tightly after thanking me for joining him and I return it and breathe in the scent of him. It feels like forever when he pulls away, but I don’t want it to end.

I keep my arms around his neck, hoping he’ll finally take things where I want it to go. And he does, he puts his hand on my cheek and leans in and presses his lips to mine gently.

My heart feels like it’s going to explode and I don’t know exactly how far to take things. I mean, we’re on the front porch. I think he knows how nervous I am, because he keeps the pressure the same throughout the kiss, until I tighten my grip on him and pull him closer, if possible.

I didn’t want it to end, but it did because a few moments later my parents pull into my driveway. My dad honks and Vic pecks my lips once and leaves before I can say anything.

And that’s it.

~

“What’s his name?”

“Vic,”

“How’d you meet him?”

“Therapy,”

That’s how my dinner panned out, back and forth questions from my parents. It was awkward to say none the least.

“I don’t understand, one day you hate everyone in therapy and now you’re kissing someone from
therapy. Please explain this to me.” My dad says.

“Well first of all, I never said I hated them, I said I hated therapy.”

“You’re not getting out of this.” He replies.

“Getting out of what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You shouldn’t be kissing people on the front porch!” he yells.

“I don’t kiss people on the porch; I kissed Vic who I really like on the porch. That’s it!” I yell back.

“Since when do you like him?” he asks.

“Since we met, I don’t know! Jesus dad it’s not that big of a deal! I’m sixteen years old and I can kiss a guy if I like him!”

“You never have before!”

“Aren’t you guys the ones that want me to leave the house and make friends? You want me to be more social! You want me to be happy! He makes me happy!”

I was pissed and acting like any other sixteen year old bitch at this point. I left the dinner table and went to my room, locked the door, and went into my bathroom.

I took out my razor blade I hid so many weeks ago and stared at it. It had been so long since I’d hurt myself and now that I was thinking about it again it made me want to be sick.

I hugged my knees and started crying. I took a deep breath and put the razor blade to my wrist.

Maybe I wasn’t happy after all.

~
Right before I slid the blade across my wrist, my phone started buzzing. I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath before answering.

“Hello?” I croaked.

“What’s wrong?” Vic asked.

“Nothing, just having a bad evening,”

“Because of me right?”

“No, no not because of you, my dad and I got into a fight.”

“Over what happened earlier today?”

“Yeah.” I whispered. It stayed silent for a minute.

“Do you want to stop hanging out?” he asked suddenly.

“No! No, god no, just because my dad got mad doesn’t mean I want to stop hanging out with you. No,
no.” I started crying.

“Calm down, calm down listen my dad just got home and I have to go I’ll call you right back ok?”

“Yeah, ok.”

~

He doesn’t though. I make myself sick from crying that night and my mom hears. She lets me stay home the next day and all I do is look blankly at the television screen. My mom comes home on her lunch break, I tell her I don’t feel like eating and I know that makes her upset.

~

He doesn’t call the rest of the week and he skips group therapy. I start to get panicky and I worry that I may have lost the only person I actually give a shit about.

~

It’s been 9 days since I’ve talked to him. I’m not doing too well.

~

I have to go to one on one therapy now, because group therapy just isn’t cutting it anymore. Vic is not talking to me and it’s killing me. I know something is wrong with him he wouldn’t just not call me.

~