Numb

The sadness in her eyes broke my heart, but it wasn’t like I could do anything about it. This was how I had become. It might hurt her, but it would have killed me to stay the way I was. The pain was becoming a constant present in my life and being the way I am now was making it bearable, if only slightly. She looked at me with begging eyes. “Please!” she pleaded, tears filling her eyes. I was at a loss. How could I make her understand that this was the only way? I looked down at my feet, fumbling with my hands in front of me. I could feel my own tears starting to gather. As I said nothing she sighed. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” She spoke softly, her voice breaking slightly towards the end of her sentence. It hurt more than anything I’d ever felt before, especially coming from her. But deep down I understood. I understood, but more than anything I had seen it coming. Guilt consumed me, but I couldn’t change. This was the new me and if she couldn’t accept that then I was bound to lose her. It had always been like that, but I understood. I just had never expected it to happen with her too. I nodded at her, but never looked up. She pulled me into a tight hug, before turning around and walking to the door. She opened it and I could feel her looking at me, but I couldn’t meet her gaze. It hurt too much already. Once again she sighed, then turned around and left. She was gone and never coming back. The thud of the closing door pulled me from my trance and I broke down into tears. That was the day I lost her; the day I lost my best friend. She was the last person in my life that cared about me. Now I was truly alone.

The days that followed I didn’t leave the house. I couldn’t handle being around other people. I think it had been a week before I went back to school. I don’t know exactly how much time had past because the days had started to blend together. From that moment all of my days were the same: go to school, go home, sleep, repeat. The more time went on the less I felt. It was as if my emotions turned off. At night, I barely slept, because of the nightmares. I kept my family awake so much they decided to take me to the hospital. The doctors kept me there for a week, but since they couldn’t find anything wrong with me, they ended up sending me home. Not knowing what else to do, and for my younger brother and sister, my parents decided to rent out a small apartment for me to stay at. If I’d felt alone before, it was nothing compared to the way I felt then. They were my parents after all. Having your own parents abandon you because they don’t know what to do with you anymore is the most awful thing that could have happened to me.

That was when I lost the need to live. I was alive, but I wasn’t really living. I was doing everything to stay alive, if only barely, but nothing more than that. I became like a ghost, or that is what they called me at school anyway. I hadn’t seen the sunlight in weeks since I didn’t go outside anymore. I barely ate, because I didn’t feel the need to, so I was starting to look like a skeleton. My lack of sleep, made my eyes look bloodshot and I constantly had bags under my eyes. To say the least, I looked probably at least as bad as I felt. At school, that was the only thing said, when they talked about me. No one ever approached me, besides the main group of bullies. They, on the other hand, took every opportunity to come talk to me, even though I avoided them as much as I could. They were the reason for what happened. They had taken things to a whole new level. They scared me or at least they used too. Now, I just didn’t care anymore. It wasn’t as if I could feel anything besides the numbness. The only thing that got a slight reaction out of me was seeing my former best friend joining them, laughing with them and becoming their friend.