yes, this is the prologue I mentioned in my warning, and yes, it contains some serious trigger warning stuff. if you're not good with that, i'd advise you skip this as it is very almost a one off.

00 || Release

"I am important to her. She comes and goes. 

Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.

In me she had drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman

Rises towards her day after day, like a terrible fish." 

~ Mirror, Sylvia Plath

•••

'Imagine a mirror that could reveal your personality. Would you dare to look?'

I wouldn't have. Not back then.

I was still in the city then, a horribly busy place. And after all, Jane had only been gone a few weeks.

It was no surprise what had happened next, being honest. 

It was the night after her funeral, and I was still a stupid little sixteen year old. I wandered into the flat around six, angry with just about everything and everyone, and in complete denial about the fact Jane Durran may have been dead. 

She had been my only friend, Jane. I was popular, yes, in that look but do not touch way. But I had good grades, and a good reputation. I didn't smoke, I didn't do drugs, I rarely drank, and I never dallied around with boys (or girls). I was smart, and I wasn't classically pretty. If fact, I was rather unpleasant in every way, but I wasn't about to stop. And that was that.

But Jane shoved her way in and broke those rules, the ones that dictated that I would be the kid who everyone had heard of but no one really knew. And against my will, I had grown to both become dangerous protective and reliant on her. 

That had been my first mistake.

And despite my watchfulness, despite the fact I was supposed to look after her, look after everyone, she was gone. 

That had been my second mistake. 

My third, that night, was walking in in my black dress and pulling the first brown bottle I could lay my hands on out of the cupboard and into my mouth. Whiskey scorched my throat as my eyes slid shut and my legs gave out beneath me. I sat in that modern leather armchair and knocked back bottle after bottle of alcohol, while my friend's face swam before my vision, just out of reach of saving. 

My intention had been to forget her, but to no avail. She haunted my every move.

It was the first time I doubted my belief that she wasn't dead.

So I got out of the chair in my hazy state and stumbled down the stairs and out the apartment block door. The cold city night didn't affect me, despite my thin little dress, warded off by the whiskey in my blood. I wandered down the streets, feeling empty in my stomach. Worthless. Useless.

Guilty. 

Somehow I ended up by the riverbank. Water had always drawn me, even in this uniquely drunken state. For once, I wasn't thinking of grades when I thought of failure, but of my very existence. I had failed Jane, just like I had failed my Mother all those years ago in way no one understood. Just as I failed my Father every day. Just as I was failing him now.

It wasn't that I wanted to die; not at all. No one understood that afterwards. 

It was simply that I wasn't that pushed about living.

The thing was, I used to think that if I ever saw that mirror, I wouldn't be surprised by what I saw. But now, I realised, I was a whole lot badder than I had ever believed myself to be. After all, everyone whose lives I touched seemed to get hurt. 

So when I started to slip on that river bank, I didn't think I'd do much good in trying to help myself. I didn't think it would do anyone a whole lot of good. 

And so, I was underwater, and oddly enough all my swimming certificates put together couldn't help me survive in this intoxicated state. The thought of how I didn't want to die like this did run through my mind, but I didn't quite have the energy to do anything about it. 

The dark water closed in on my lungs, the oxygen was leaving my body faster than I could think. My vision blurred and went. My mouth sagged open and water flooded in.

And that was that.

•••

Or so I thought.