After discovering that her boyfriend of three years is cheating on her with his girl best friend, Yasemin Hogan knows she can do way better than a little material revenge. Julian broke her heart, she will break his.
By fake dating his enemy.
Elija...
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TW : binging, anxiety issues, mourning
I didn't know when exactly I started having anxiety attacks. If I had to give a time period, I would say that they started in the months following the death of my parents.
Losing them both at the same time will surely remain the most painful experience of my life. They were gaping, hemophilic wounds in my heart: the blood flowed, abundantly, bathing each of my days with a metallic, bitter, and cruel flavor.
I had been followed by a psychologist since the age of fourteen, whom I still met for monthly appointments. She had quickly identified my anxiety as a remnant of my post-traumatic stress disorder that had lasted for several months following their death. This anxiety was itself translated into panic attacks with the only two known causes identified to date:
My fear of failure. This feeling of losing control, of being drowned in homework, exams, people's expectations.
Then a list of triggers, violent reminders of my parents' death.
Visiting them at the cemetery.
The announcement of the death of a loved one.
Feeling alone for too long until I felt abandoned.
Being abandoned by someone I love.
Long car rides.
I had developed many coping mechanisms for my anxiety attacks, including breathing exercises and trigger avoidance, but they were with me every day of my life. They hung over me, constant threats. Anxiety held my hand every morning. She had her body glued to mine and was only waiting for a moment of weakness to tighten her long, feverish fingers against my neck.
Summer had given her time off but she was so happy to be able to strangle me again.
Going back home, I had one of the worst nights of my life. I had poured the equivalent of a river's worth of water into tears, my soul shattered by two messages. First, my Aunt Laura, the only family I still had in this country, who had taken me in when my parents died and whom I had reluctantly left to settle down alone for college, as her brother and sister-in-law would have wanted me to. She was already inviting me to visit her for Thanksgiving and asking me about Julian, whom she had come to "tolerate" after complaining several times about his shallowness, too. I was so unprepared to explain the current situation to her and see the sadness in her eyes. To hear the "I told you so". I wanted her to think I was happy and fulfilled away from her.
The second message was from Amanda, telling me that no matter what happened between me and her son, I was always welcome at her house and that was the stab in the chest that my body needed to fall apart for good.
Being so weepy and sad made me want to punch myself. To spill my own blood. I was pitiful. Crying over a man should never happen.
With my self-esteem at a standstill, I automatically needed some external validation, so I spent the month of September studying, even trying to get a head start on college classes. The first exams weren't until late October, before Halloween, but I participated in class as much as I could, answering teachers' questions and offering to read my work at the end of class.
