Stardust & Smiles ✅

Chapter 20: Familiar Bruises

"We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry"

~Age 21, one year before~

Hey guys. I'm truly so sorry for this long pause.  We had some family issues and then I got really busy doing a musical these past two weeks.  I'm back now and with break coming up I should be more active, and hopefully finish this book before the end of 2021! Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me and this story and I hope you enjoy!

⚠️TW Warning⚠️: Sexual Assault, Abuse
——————————————————————————————————————————
My relationship with Lewis lasted for just under a year.  It might not seem like that long of a time, but it felt like an eternal prison. 

Except I know I put myself there, locked the door, and threw the key out to a grinning Lewis on the other side of the bars. 

Despite some of the worse times, we did have good times.  Good times that were only just slightly colored with malicious undertones.  Good times that maybe I didn't want to have. 

Like the time he convinced me to ride on his motorcycle.

Well, less convincing, more forcing.  But I needed to loosen up, have more fun, stop being so uptight and worried, right? 

At least that's what he told me. 

But goddamn it, even before I'd resigned myself to even just touching that death machine, I knew that there was no scenario where I actually had fun on a motorcycle. 

I guess God took pity on me and swerved the truck away just in time.

Sometimes I wonder if it would have been worth it to have died in that crash.  If for the sole purpose that Lewis and I would be eternally separated. 

All I saw were the disapproving eyes of my friends, of Liam, the one person I wanted approval from the most.  Not even in a romantic way.  I have always and will always value his opinion and it only hurt more the deeper I slipped into my relationship with Lewis. 

It was a cycle that tore me apart.

Lewis would guilt me into doing something I didn't want to.

Liam would disapprove. 

I felt like I had to prove myself.

Lewis was there with another "opportunity". 

"Show them what you're made of," he'd say.  "They just don't like me because they know I'm helping you grow and they can't stand to be left behind."

After about two weeks of dating him, my anxiety shot up. 

It's stress from work.

It's the perfectionist in me wanting the relationship to work out.

It's that time of the month. 

I knew I was a coward, hiding from the truth, but I was so ashamed with myself that all I could do was cover it up more. 

I cried every single night. 

I barely slept, and when I did my dreams were restless. 

I gained some weight, which of course Lewis didn't hesitate to point out in his sarcastically subtle, backhanded way. 

I lost too much weight. 

Nothing was ever good enough for him. 

I guess if one good thing was ever going to come out of that painful time it was my book, my baby.