I nod and then walk over to my car. When I get in, I let all the anger and hurt spill out in the quiet comfort of being alone. I punch the wheel with all the anger I have inside me.
“Where are you when I need you, Camilla? I’ve needed you for so long, and you aren’t there! You just…left me! I hate you for leaving me!”
The tears make it impossible to see in front of me. I sink down in my seat and throw my head back on the seat. I just want to drown in it all. I’m so tired of feeling like this. Feeling angry, and scared, and numb…so…numb. What would it feel like to just float away like she did? To leave this world. Is it less cruel where you go after? Or is there just as much pain there?
“Are you still hurting?” I ask nobody…but she knows I’m talking to her. I’m always talking to her.
“I just want it to stop hurting. I want the voices to shut up. I want to be loved in a way that doesn’t hurt.”
I stay there for a while, just sitting in my thoughts before I pull myself together enough to drive home.
When Simone calls after school, I’m curled in bed, fighting back more tears. “Harper texted and told me you got into a fight,” she says worriedly. “Are you okay? What happened?”
I tell her everything, the words tumbling out fast and full of heightened emotions.
Simone sighs deeply. “God, Lydia, I wish I was there. I hate not being able to protect you from this stuff.”
I swallow hard, clinging to the one thought that I keep going back to. “I can’t wait until we move away for college. Do you think things will be easier then?”
“I do,” Simone whispers. “Just hang in there. We’ll get out of this.”
Eli shows up not long after I get off the phone with Simone. He doesn’t say much, just holds me. But when I feel his touch, the flood of insecurities hit me, filling my mind with questions and doubts.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I whisper, forcing the words past my lips. “Eli…do you really love me? Or do you just feel bad for the weird girl who might spiral if you break up with her?”
Confusion and a little hurt flash over his expression. “Why would you say that?”
I finally tell him what Mary said—minus the part about him talking to other girls—and he shakes his head, cupping my face.
“That’s ridiculous. I love you, Lydia. You’re everything to me. I hate girls like her, just sad and jealous. She doesn’t understand us. She doesn’t understand you’re it for me.”
His kisses silence my doubts, at least momentarily. I let myself give in to the passion, needing desperately to prove that I’m enough, to erase any lingering insecurity in both of us.
Sex has become this tool of validation that feels like it works less and less every time.
After he rolls off of me, panting, and throws away the used condom, he pulls me close, whispering softly against my neck, “You’re the best I’ve ever had, you know that?”
Warmth floods me, soothing the ache, pushing away the darkness a little.
We stay curled together for the rest of the night, watching movies and just talking.
In this little bubble, nothing hurts, and nothing’s wrong…
16
Lydia
Simone keeps turning my face towards her, trying to finish my makeup as I keep looking over to Harper and Katie, trying to talk about our plans for tonight.
“I’m still jealous y’all get to go to prom together without me,” Simone says, pouting.
“I know. I actually didn’t want to go without you,” I tell her. “If it wasn’t for Eli, I wouldn’t be going at all.”
“Well, I’m glad you are.”
She finishes up with my makeup and tells me to get dressed before she finishes my hair, so I don’t mess it up.
