It was ironic, I thought as I lay on my stomach in my room later on, once again staring at the familiar story webpage. It was ironic that, immediately  after I was diagnosed with depression, I felt happy. I was happy when I was talking to the boys. Yes, admittedly anxious too, but happy nonetheless. So why had I been content then and now, now I felt as if the walls were closing in on me? Maybe it's a delayed reaction. Or something like that, anyway.

As usual, I had no legitimate reason to feel anxious. Amazingly enough, I had managed to get home before Mum arrived- mere minutes after I had walked into the house, my phone had pinged with a text from Mum informing me that she was stuck in a traffic jam and wouldn't be home for at least another half hour. And now I was lying on my bed, writing Inside my Head while surrounded by piles and piles of unread novels, which usually calmed me.

But, now that I thought about it, it was obvious as to why I felt so...empty. Isolated. Alone. Mum was due back any minute now, and who knows what she would do. She was becoming more and more unpredictable by the day, and Dad was still working long-hour shifts, so I still hardly ever saw him. Dylan was still away, and although she had texted me yesterday saying that she would be back tomorrow, it felt like waiting for the Universe to end.

I rolled over onto my back and, after hitting the back of my head on the forgotten computer, stared at the celestial poster that had been in the same place ever since I was nine years old. It was covered with information about black holes, neutron stars, red and white dwarves, gamma rays, dark energy and even the Big Bang, the Beginning Of Everything. It was in that moment that I realised just how big the universe really was. Earth is part of the Solar System, which rests on an outer arm of the Milky Way. The galaxy we call our own is part of something called a local group, alongside the Andromeda galaxy and over fifty dwarf galaxies. But our local group is only one in thousands that make up the Laniakea Supercluster, a huge community of local groups as well as our own; and that itself is one of the millions and millions of superclusters that make up what we call the Observable Universe. And that is just the Observable Universe. Think how big the Unobservable Universe is. I didn't like thinking about that. I was just an infinitesimally small disturbance on the vast, infinite expanse that was time and existence.

As brobdingnagian as it was, even I knew that the Universe was not going to last forever. Around one trillion years from now, the Universe would begin to end. The order of the stages of self-destruction go as follows:
1.All the gas clouds that stars develop from will be exhausted and will begin to decay.

2.The remaining stars and suns will die.

3.Black holes and supermassive black holes (the centres of large galaxies- the one in the middle of the Milky Way is known as S50014+81) will evaporate through a process called Hawking Radiation.

4.In the end, only a gas of photons and light particles remain, until even this decays.

As a result, the universe is dead forever.

I thought about this a lot.
The room seemed to shrink even further, trapping me in a bubble of my own instability as I felt beads of sweat squeeze out of the skin on my hands. I suddenly became aware of every death-related thing in the room; the photograph of Jack on my desk, the scalpel with it's blade gleaming, the short, red dress I had worn to the funeral and had never had the heart to throw away, even though I had grown until it was at least four sizes too small for me now. Chains of numbing cold bound themselves tightly round my waist, wrists and legs, and I rolled off my bed, shaking. I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror, and saw a skinny, violently-trembling girl whose greasy blue hair hid her face like that of a shy child's.

"Don't cry," I snapped at myself sternly, curling my hands into fists to stop the shaking. "Crying won't solve anything." I took a deep, shuddering breath and, with a seemingly-unnecessary amount of effort, hauled myself up off the floorboards. If I hid everything well enough, the OCD, the anxiety, the scars, I could pretend that everything was fine. As long as I kept up the charade, no one would ask any questions. Which was what I wanted, right? No. I didn't have the slightest inkling of what I wanted. Hell, I didn't even know how I felt about a person I had known all my life, who had always, always been there for me, and I her.

After I had calmed down, I refreshed the webpage again as I tried to think of ideas for the chapter, without success as usual. The two main characters had just fallen in love after a time skip in the story, so I should've been bursting with inspiration, but I wasn't. I never seemed to be doing what I was supposed to at the moment; I thought of it as 'being a teenager wrong'. What's the point in carrying on, anyway? You'll never get it published. They've seen so many stories about this type of condition, they won't even bother to read your 'book', if that's what you call it. You'll get rejection letter after rejection letter, only they won't stop at number twelve like they did with J.K. Rowling. They'll just keep on coming. Suddenly I couldn't stand it any longer.

"Fine!" I yelled, clicking and typing frantically to get to the page I wanted as my hands shook, with rage this time, not fear. "Fine! I'll just give up on the whole goddamn story, shall I?! Is that what you're trying to tell me, brain? That I'm a failure? Well, you're late, because I've known that for a long time, okay?" I didn't care who heard me now. A flashing red message popped up on the screen that screamed:  ARE YOU SURE THAT YOU WANT TO DELETE YOUR STORY?
I hesitated for a fraction of a second. If I clicked 'yes', I would be undoing two years and countless chapters of hard work, work I usually loved doing. Do it. It's not as if anyone will miss the story anyway. I hesitated. Was I really that willing to so carelessly throw away that much work? All three hundred and sixty-four pages of it? I had been especially proud of the length I'd managed to make it, even though it had taken me a log time to get it to where it was now. But now, writing it seemed to give me more stressful pressure than excitement. So maybe I'll  be better off if I do delete it, then. I'm sure that I have a backup copy of it somewhere, anyway. Besides, they were right. It isn't good enough.

Of course, as soon as I clicked 'yes', I regretted it. I shouldn't have done that, I should  not have done that... I thought miserably as I examined the hard drive files for an extra copy, which turned out to be in vain. I found nothing. Stupid, stupid girl. I could picture an entire concert hall of grim-faced people, their sarcastic applause at the imbecilic decision I'd made reverberating through the room. My eyes subconsciously flicked up to look at the Star Wars calendar that hung above my desk, and I froze. December 23rd. The day before Christmas Eve. And the day before Dylan's return. I thought I'd be pleased, excited, nervous maybe, but I felt nothing. She had loved Inside My Head, and I couldn't face her after she found out what I'd done, despite being her best friend. I felt as isolated as if I were stranded alone on an island-Penny, Ava and the others had all gone to tropical islands like Emma's parents to spend Christmas in the sun, Dylan, well; I'd thought about her so much that there wasn't even the slightest chance of forgetting where she'd gone, Mum was still treating me like a long-time enemy, Dad was at work from eight till ten every day and Tom and Oliver had each other. 

I couldn't think of a way to make it all end. The fear. And the pain, both inside and out.

Unless...