"i hide and cower in the corner"

...

I don't know what I expected the next day to be like. But I definitely didn't expect this.

Victoria doesn't say much to me. She sits by me at lunch and during study hall, but always with someone else. She treats me like I'm an acquaintance. She's friendly, but she isn't really acting like I'm her friend. And this hurts me more than her ignoring me would.

I don't know why this surprises me. I don't know why it disappoints me. But I guess I do know, but I don't want to admit it.

I haven't been alone with Victoria since that argument that ruined everything.

The others treat me differently. People I don't know will ask me what's going on with Victoria and me, and I only shrug. I wish I knew.

My friends look at me differently. Sera and I have an unspoken alliance since that one phone call. Sofia is calculated, trying to figure out how she can pressure me into opening up without breaking me. Luke keeps looking like he wants to say something but never says it. And Cal sees me as a fragile thing that can be easily shattered.

I like Cal, I really do. But I'm not in love with him. I don't think I ever have been. Are you supposed to be in love with someone you've been dating for over a year?

This is why I have to break up with Cal. He thinks he has to protect me. And I'm broken, but I'm not delicate. I can handle myself. Maybe. I guess I haven't been doing a very good job of that lately.

But Cal is in love with me, so said Victoria once. He probably isn't anymore, if he ever was, but it's clear that he cares about me more than I care about him, in that way, at least.

It's just not fair to either of us. But I don't know how to break up with him, and I can't do it just right now. I feel like I need to find myself again before I do anything big like that, but that's going to be a while.

Sera helps a lot. Just knowing that someone is like me, that someone can still see me, makes all the difference.

But she's struggling with her own problems, and I can't ask too much of her. And not even she can go into my head.

I don't know what's happened to me.

The voices in my head are louder than ever, and I can't shut them out. Because they're a part of me, and if I got rid of them, what would be left?

The ghost of a girl, who was once on fire?

My old self, that I miss so much and would do anything to find?

Even more demons, more voices, who are even worse?

Or nothing?

I am okay, I tell myself. I am fixed.

But it's a lie. I'll never be fixed, not really. I am broken beyond repair, because I have a part missing, a screw loose. I have something wrong with me, and I can't fix it. I can't.

There is nothing wrong with me, I try to say inside my head. I am complete. I am fine.

But none of this drowns out the voices. No matter what I chant in my head, no matter how hard I try to block the voices out, nothing helps.

It's worse because Victoria's not really talking to me. It's always worse when she's absent. Without her, everything goes wrong and I'm drowning and I know it's all because she's not here to help me. And it's not her fault. How is she to know how dependent I am on her? And I'm a toxic person, and she's better off without me.

I want to be better, for Victoria, for Sera, for my parents, for Luke and Sofia and Cal and everyone and everything around me. But I can't. Everything feels impossible right now. I just can't.

I'm shattered. I've been trying to pick up the pieces, but it's impossible for me to ever be repaired. When glass shatters, there are tiny little fragments that you can't put back together. Even if you do manage to put it back together, it's never the same.

Everything is piling up all at once again, except it's the worst it's ever been. Victoria doesn't want to be my friend, my friends are worrying about me too much, and everything is wrong. There's nothing I should be shattered about, but there's still everything I'm shattered about. One big crack in a mirror or a window is preferable to a thousand tiny ones.

Sometimes I'll find a spark of happiness, sometimes my smile isn't s lie. But it never lasts. It feels like I go between happiness and emptiness, with flashes of happy, but eventually it always goes back to empty.

I used to be on fire. I used to shine and burn so brightly. But I'm nothing but ash now. Not even embers. Because embers can still burn again. But ashes are faded away forever.

I have a bit of a control issue.

Okay, more than a bit. When I was younger I would play with dolls and other toys, creating stories, creating a new life for myself, one that was perfect. But it was never perfect enough. Things never came out exactly how I pictured them in my head. I never had a doll with the exact right color of hair, or never had the perfect stuffed animal. So I turned to art. I would rewrite my story on paper, draw out the perfect setting.

But nothing is perfect, not my drawings or writing, and certainly not my life.

I want nothing more than to rewrite my life again, to draw a perfect version of myself. But I haven't drawn or written in so long. And I'm scared. I'm scared that everything has sucked out my ability to create. So I don't do anything. I want to create again. But I just can't.

As I go through the day like a zombie, talking only when I have to, feeling like a robot, I realize something.

All this time I thought I was fading away.

But that was a long time ago. Because I faded away way before this.

I'm faded away, and I have been for a while.