Sometimes I feel like everybody's moving forward except for me. Like we're all running this race of life, but I never trained for it. I never even tied my shoes- I just keep tripping. Falling down- down- down- but never once able to hit the ground. Because no matter how far I fall, it seems that I can always fall farther.

Aileen walks slowly through the grass, the cold wind whipping threads of hair into her face. She calmly takes her wild strands and rakes them behind her ears.

Aileen can't hear her feet as they trample the dead leaves and grass beneath them- music overwhelms her senses. She listens to the songs that make her feel good. The songs that make her feel confident. The songs that tell her to hold her head up high, but they only drag her down. She knows she's not the girl they talk about in those songs. If she ever was she doesn't know where that girl went. That confident girl who didn't take shit from anyone. That confident girl who always looked for the good in every day- who always saw the sun. That girl was lost, and she didn't know if she would ever return.

So as her music tells her to walk with a bounce in her step, Aileen angrily digs her phone out of her pocket and brings her finger down on the pause button. She heaves a sigh of relief, not knowing if she could have taken one more second of that stupid happy music when she was so far from anything good. Those stupid songs that told her everything was going to be okay when everything was falling apart. Nothing was okay.

As Aileen walks through her neighborhood, she pays attention to every crack in every sidewalk, every brick on every house, every leaf on every tree. She pays attention knowing that any time could be the last time she would see all of it.

Aileen's feet go on autopilot as she continues to walk. It's too quiet. She puts on music. She knows depressing songs are only going to worsen the state she's in but how can she care when they're the only things that let her feel something other than weighted? How can she not play them when her eyes have been dry for so long because she won't let herself cry even though she needs to- how can she give a fuck when they're the only things that let her feel anything?

Aileen realizes where she's going once she's halfway there. When she looks up and sees the houses surrounding her, it doesn't surprise her. It never surprises her. If she doesn't think she always ends up in the same spot. Always in the same neighborhood, too afraid to go down the street she knows only leads to pain. And happiness. And every emotion she's ever felt.

When you drive down a road enough times, you get used to it. You get used to every sign, every view, every lane. I remember this road I used to drive down. We would always make a U-turn about halfway down, until one day when they put up a sign saying we could no longer turn there. But it was too late. We were already partway through the turn so we had to follow through. We kept coming back to that road. Kept making the same turn. It was only second nature. It didn't get us anywhere though. We were traveling backward. 

***

A/N: Hi y'all, thank you so much for reading! This is the first part of my next short story, I'm going to try my best to add a chaper every day until it's done, and most of them will be longer sorry this was so short. This story is going to be pretty vague about the details because I want my readers to be able to fill in the blanks themselves. It makes it more personal. You're not going to really know what's going on at any given point because I'm not going to come right out and say it. This is my first time trying something like this so if I'm not doing it well please don't hesitate to tell me and give me suggestions on how to make it better!

If you liked this chapter please consider leaving a vote/comment and don't hesitate to give me critiques because I will gladly take them! Thank you so much for reading <3

-Sunny <3