It was Sunday today and I woke up at almost nine in the morning to our neighbor's dog madly barking for some flipping reason.

Damn, the throat that canine was gifted with. I sighed, unable to fall asleep again, and rolled out of my bed.

After I brushed my teeth, I headed downstairs. Dad was on the sofa reading the newspaper and Mom was probably out in the backyard, gardening or something.

"Morning, " I mumbled, walking past my Dad and he just nodded with a smile.

I settled on a bowl of cereal not in a mood to fix a proper breakfast.
I was almost about to finish it when Mom came in. "Hey, I had saved you some hash browns we had for breakfast."

My mood instantly brightened. I freaking loved hash browns. "Well, I can make some room for it."

"Of course, you can." She laughed and got me a plate. "Stop staying up so late at night, it's unhealthy." 

"I compensate for my sleep in the morning, so don't worry about it," I said.

"It's still not the same as a good night's rest," she replied before she disappeared out the back door again.

The rest of the day quickly passed by unproductively, lazing around, reading books, and jamming to my favorite music. It was my typical Sunday plan whenever I needed a mental reset. I hardly got out of my room, kept my cell switched off and would go completely underground for a day.

I was always on top of my studies, determined to give my best every step of the way. I trained and worked out whenever I had some free time. I always made sure to keep myself busy. Because the silence when I was sitting alone and idle was unbearable. It felt like drowning. 

You don't always need water to feel like you are drowning. You could be drowning in your own mind, in your own fears and insecurities.

Someone once said that 'you need to drown to remember how good it feels to finally breathe.' But what if drowning had become a part of your life? A part of you? What if you forgot what it felt like to breathe?

Since everything that had happened last year, my mind has been a dark place that I found myself constantly running away from. My friends would say that what had happened was too much to be bottled up and pushed aside, they would say that I was still in denial, that it was not healthy.

They were right. I knew that, but awareness was not acceptance. And I didn't know when I'd be strong enough to accept the truth. 

Denial was not a healthy way to live, but it has been a strong factor for my survival. Because in the end, no matter how unhealthy, it let me breathe.

But my own fucked up mind wasn't my only enemy or problem in my life.

Since my dad quit his steady income-bearing job, to pursue his dream of having his own restaurant, things have been quite shaky at home. It's been months and the restaurant was still in the process of being set up.

We weren't quite as financially stable as we used to be. Mom, of course, supported his decision back then, but sometimes when the going gets tough, she had her doubts.

My Mom and Dad were both equally strong-headed, so when an argument striked it never ended well. And now that my Dad was home more often than before, it was worse. There was no use of picking sides because they were both mostly right in their own way and neither of them were willing to compromise nor understand the other.

With time I learnt to distance myself from these daily arguments, sometimes when it got worse I locked myself in my room, played some loud music to drown out their voices and pretended everything was okay.

But sometimes I just lost it and even with time it never got easy.  I didn't have any siblings to share this with. So I had to learn to deal with my own shit alone.

All my prayers, unheard. All my attempts to make things right, discouraged and failed. I had given up. And somewhere along the way I had perfected the art of crying in silence. Suffering in silence.

I sometimes felt lonely but I was not a loner. My best friends meant the absolute world to me. But opening up to them and telling them how I felt was sometimes harder than it seemed, because I didn't really get it myself.

I had it all, great friends, a bit of popularity, I was not that shabby to look at and my parents gave me everything I wanted, but it was all like a distraction I couldn't dwell on.
There was a piece of me that was missing, so I was in a struggle to make myself whole. But constantly failing at it.

It was frustrating really.

So, Sundays were mostly my time to figure things out, make plans for the upcoming week, study and do everything that was in my control right now and excel in it.
Or sometimes maybe just chuck out all that and just sleep in all day long.

And today I felt like recharging myself, mentally, so I decided on nice long walk to my favourite place.

After I pulled on a hoodie, I chose a playlist on my phone, plugged in my earplugs and started walking down the street until I reached my favorite spot. I had named it as the endpoint. Because it quite literally was.

At the far end of our street, there was an off-road leading to a patch of woods, once on one of my walks, I decided to explore it. At the end of the woods, there was a small lake and further across the lake, you could just see the thick forest stretching out endlessly. It was the perfect place to watch sunsets.

When I reached the off-road, I saw a jeep parked at the edge of the woods. As I came up closer, I spotted someone sitting in it, with their head resting on the steering wheel. I recognized the person almost immediately, and I took a step forward to make sure it was who I thought it was, but I accidentally stepped on a twig making it snap sharply.

The person immediately shot his head up and turned around. That was when I was sure it was him.

Tyler.

I felt my gut clench when I looked at his face. Something was really wrong.

His bloodshot eyes looked at me and hardened. He looked distraught but scary at the same time... and it was unnerving. 

"You shouldn't be here," he quietly said, raking a hand through his hair and that was when I noticed his busted knuckles.

"What's wrong?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Nothing," he answered, in a flat tone and started his jeep to leave.

"Hey, don't go. I can leave," I offered, somehow feeling guilty for intruding.

"It's fine." He shook his head.

Then he put his jeep in reverse, turned around, and just left without so much as another glance at me.