I stared down at my burned arm. I had spilled some boiling water on it when making some tea. It was painful, but I endured. Pain was just an irritating thing I barely had to deal with, well, now anyway. I didn't used to be like that, but I learned that having pain hurt you was just saying that you wanted to get hurt more.
I've been in pain more times than I could count: the time when I dislocated my shoulder, the time when I was the guinea pig for a new brand of medication, the time when the anesthesia wore off during an emergency surgery caused by that medication, the time when I was mugged, and the time when he-.
I tried to cut myself off from that thought, but I couldn't. The memories of what he had done to me broke through the protective wall that kept them hidden out of my mind. No, he didn't molest me or anything like that. What he did to me was far worse than that. He caused me the worse type of pain, emotional pain. I felt tears on my cheeks as I drifted back to that day long ago.
Today was the perfect day. I had thought. High School was finally done and over. I would never have to walk through the doors of the educational system ever again if I didn't want to. I did want to, but just knowing that I didn't have to anymore was thrilling. I could make my own decisions as an adult now. It couldn't get much better than this.
I saw the old Ford pickup truck that I had come to love. He was behind the wheel, the love of my life. He drove up to me and rolled down the window. That was odd. Normally, he would come out and open the door for me. I wonder why today is different.
He talked from the window. 'It has been great knowing you, but I can't see you anymore. I'm too dangerous and I'll bring you into danger if you get any closer to me. I don't even know why I got involved with you. This relationship never would have been able to last. It was foolish. Goodbye.' I felt tears run down my cheeks and on the ground as he drove away.
That was the last time I had seen him. I didn't know what he meant when he said, 'I'll bring you into danger.' and honestly I didn't care about that part. He probably was just making up some excuse for dumping me so that it would seem that he was all noble and everything. He had ruined my best day ever, and all the days since. It had been two full years, and I still couldn't deal with it.
I had tried many ways to help me cope: drugs, alcohol, and even cutting. Nothing had ever even filled the tiniest bit of space in my heart that he had taken from me. My old friends used to try and occupy his place, but gave up when it just made me worse off. That's all anything I used to cope had done to me, made me worse off. It made me ashamed that I'm not strong enough to let him go. Eventually, I spiraled so far into the bottomless pit the doctors call depression that I tried to kill myself.
After that failed I just stopped doing anything to cope and immersed myself in as many distractions as possible that would keep me as far away as thinking of him as possible. It worked, sort of. I didn't go back to the way I was before he screwed up my life. I only managed to make an emotionless version of myself, without any happiness or sadness.
I know that if I ever saw him again I would try to win him back, or the few people who still considered themselves my friends would try to for me. Whenever I allowed myself to think about him I hoped that he'd see me as a shell of what I had been before and take me back. I will never get over him, and can't honestly say that I want to either. I hope one day I'll get him back, but until then I just be balanced on the edge of the bottomless pit.