"wasn't it beautiful running wild 'til you fell asleep? before the monsters caught up to you?"

-innocent, taylor swift

I needed help.

It was a realisation that I had made a long time ago, but had never cared to acknowledge. Help was for the weak, help was for the useless.

Help was for the broken.

I didn't want to acknowledge that I was broken. That I was all sorts of messed up. Putting a label, asking for assistance - it all just cemented facts that I didn't want cemented. I didn't want to know that, at the end of the day, I still wasn't strong enough to stop myself from crumbling.

I wanted to keep losing myself in the illusion that I was okay and could continue withstanding blow after blow.

I wanted to keep losing myself, until there was nothing left to lose.

Then, maybe, there would be something else for me.

Something better.

But I knew that I was just deceiving myself.

===

Dinner was always awkward.

Be it with Daniella, Benedict, or both, there was always something heavy in the air. There was too much unsaid between us. Accusations to be flung, apologies to be made, a sense of normalcy to be maintained - all of it hovered in the air, tense and oppressive.

On the rare occasions like this one, when Benedict actually stayed home for more than an hour, it was both frightening and relieving. On the one hand, I knew that Benedict would never do anything to me, and he wouldn't let Daniella do anything either.

On the other hand, I always felt like I had no right to be in the house.

Daniella could still somewhat stake her claim, considering she was still technically Benedict's wife in name. But for me? I was a product of Daniella's affair, and I had no right to call myself American or Benedict's child.

Still, I had to try. I held out hope that my parents were still in there somewhere, beyond Daniella's acid and Benedict's apathy.

I just had to reach them.

"Can we talk?" I said, hating how my voice faltered. "I... need help."

It was a struggle forcing the words out of my mouth, and they felt foreign on my tongue. After getting used to always relying on myself, it felt wrong to ask for help.

I had never thought the day would come where I would fall so far.

"With?" Daniella drew out the word, sounding both parts disbelieving and sarcastic. "I thought that you were all-mighty, too good for your lowly parents."

"I feel like I'm suffocating," I whispered, staring at the table. It felt surreal, and when I closed my eyes, I wanted to believe that when I opened them Cheri would still be here.

I wanted to believe that everything would be okay.

"I feel like nothing." My voice cracked. "Sometimes I feel too much and sometimes I feel not enough, but always, I feel like I can't connect. It's like being trapped in an aquarium. I can't breathe properly because I'm drowning, but I can see the world whirling on outside and I can't reach them because I can't get out and when they look at me they think I'm okay because they can't see. They can't see, and I keep getting pulled back under no matter how hard I struggle."

Silence.

Cold, heavy, coppery in taste.

Like blood.

My blood.

"Please help me," I whispered. "I can't continue living like this."

I could feel my heart beating.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

I wondered if I was breathing, because there was a tightness in my chest squeezing squeezing squeezing me and travelling upwards.

I wanted to vomit.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to breathe.

I wanted everything to stop, right there, before I could find out what happened next. Like pausing a movie.

Except this wasn't a movie.

In that moment, I felt so small. I felt like I was finally remembering that I was a child, sixteen, not yet mature enough to fight for my own. I needed my parents. I needed my friends.

I needed someone other than myself, because I couldn't stand myself.

"Felicity," Benedict began, eyes sympathetic. "We didn't know-"

"Oh, cut the dramatics," Daniella cut in, looking bored. "You're just sad. It's no big deal. Everyone gets sad."

It felt like everything had stopped.

There was white noise in my ears, static in my brain, anaesthetic in my blood. It felt like falling.

It felt like disappointment.

I had known that this was a possible ending, so why did it still hurt so much?

"It'll go away on its own," Daniella continued. "Just don't think about it. Be more positive."

Something in me broke.

"Do you think I haven't tried?" I burst out. "Do you think being positive is so easy? Do you think being positive is just smiling and going to the fabled happy place? Because it's not! It's not that easy, I wish it was that easy! If it was, I wouldn't feel the way I do, I wouldn't feel the way I do for years now! You say it like it's just something to be treated, something lesser than a physical illness! Why is it that when people fall, or get diagnosed with terminal illnesses, they're treated with so much more sympathy? Is this not like a cancer, too? It eats away at you, it eats away your emotions, it eats away your everything. It's not just being sad, it's being nothing! I feel like vomiting when I see food, I feel tired even when I've had more than enough rest, I can feel my whole body crumbling to pieces!"

"I can't take much more of this," I gasped out, and vaguely, I realised that I was crying, the numbness in me exploding outwards abruptly in a shower of emotions repressed for far too long. "I can't. I feel like I'm being strangled, and maybe one day I actually will strangle myself just to stop this feeling."

For a while, there was only the sound of my ragged sobs, and the resonation of my heartbeats through my body.

Alive.

So undoubtedly alive.

So why, then, did I feel so dead?

"You're ungrateful." Daniella said, tone matter-of-fact. "You ask for help, but you don't want to accept my advice. You're just being ungrateful and overdramatic."

It felt like a stab to the heart.

"How dare you?" I screamed. "You don't give a shit about me, and you still say that I'm the one in the wrong?"

"It's not like you treat me like your mother, anyway!" Daniella retaliated.

"Ha!" I let out a bitter laugh. "Do you treat me like your daughter? Do you care for me? Do you even know how miserable this feels? I can't count on my friends. I can't count on my parents. I can't count on anyone. All I have is myself, and I'm not even sure if I can count on myself! If I didn't care, would I continue trying? If I didn't care, would I swallow all my hurt and keep pretending that what we have is healthy? If I didn't care, would I still love you?"

I stood up, my chair crashing to the ground from sheer force. I felt like collapsing, but at the same time, all I wanted to do was run.

Run, far away, where no one could ever reach me again.

Run, to the end of the world and beyond, where nothing but death could touch me.

Run, everywhere but to the problems running after me.

"I can't do this anymore," I said. "I can't be someone who I'm not. I can't be who you want me to be. Not anymore."

Vaguely, I realised how lost I sounded. How broken.

Like it had never hit me until then, how wrong I was.

How I had no place in the world.

No home.

No one to love.

No one who loved, or even remotely cared for me.

I had nothing.

I was nothing.

And I didn't want to be anything anymore.

"Maybe, in a different life, I could have been something," I whispered. "Maybe, we could have been something."

Nausea rolled over and under my tongue, bitter and salty, like a reminder of the tears that were still falling.

I felt so useless.

So I ran.