Random Short Stories/Written Ideas

"Dear Diary"

She shook her head, bringing herself back to the now. Where was she? Oh yes.

It's fine. I'll just keep hoping that never happens. Praying never got me anywhere.

The insult left her feeling somewhat worried, but she shoved that down and silently apologized to a god she didn't quite believe in. Not entirely, at least.

The spiraling continued, pushed further by my father. His hurtful words, his yelling, nagging, bitching, constant complaining... They all added up, dragging me towards a ledge I so very wanted to leap off of.

Her anger had grown into a beast during the days she'd tried to remain calm and silent, something she could barely chain down. She knew that her mother called this self-control, but is it healthy? Isn't this a form of repression?

Whatever it was, she'd started doing it during her relationship with a troubled being. It was her way of impressing him, and showing him she wasn't someone that flew off the plank at every little thing.

Look where that got her.

She thanked him for teaching her restraint, that being the only good thing to come from their relationship (she knew that was a lie, but she refused to think on it further. He didn't deserve her attention). Her temper had somehow grown shorter, yet stretched on for quite a length. At times, she wanted to commit physical acts of violence, occasionally considering stabbing a knife into the counter in the kitchen or her own hand. Sometimes she imagined herself smashing a bowl on the floor, or over her fathers thick skull, after a particularly rough day.

She's even told her friends she felt like breaking something. She didn't know of they knew how serious she'd been at the time.

Her mood had significantly lowered, but her music kept her from drooping too far. She peered at her phone, huffing to herself. Masks, by Fight the Fade. How fitting.

She changed to another thing that had added to her poor mental health.

So many events that I'd been looking forwards to had been canceled. The pandemic has taken so much from us; from me. I was so excited and hyped up to see one of my favorite bands play in my state, which was an event I was especially looking forwards to after what had happened in July. To know that my father lied about the tickets being sold out to my mother, and to us, threw me into a whirlwind of fury and sadness.

It's silly, she wrote. I feel ridiculous for feeling upset about this. Why had I thought it would help with anything? It'd only made things worse for me. Why do I hope for anything anymore?

Her mind grew fuzzy for a moment, and her eyes were locked on the page, yet saw right through it. What was the point in hoping for something so small when it could be ripped away from her at any moment? What was the point in hoping for anything? The bad things that have been happening far outweighed the good. Sure, she'd seen a comedian that she loved, and saw a movie she obsessed over in theaters for the first time, despite having watched it on tv multiple times before. But those were only miniscule things compared to the shitty happenings in her life.

Her glazed over eyes cleared, and she realized she'd drawn a line on the page in her foggy state. She flipped her pencil over and got to erasing the line angrily.

She was beginning to feel too tired to continue, but she couldn't stop now, else she would never finish it. That's been happening a lot more to her, lately. She'd start something, then never finish it.

There was a written work that needed to be added to, and so many pieces of art to finish, but no motivation to work with.

Where had it all gone?

Even with her current obsession with pirates, she was slowly burning out.

She had a feeling she had her very own slice of a lovely pie called depression, she just didn't know how big of a slice it was. She was certain there were other problems weighing into it, as well, but lord knows she'd need to be officially diagnosed before she drew conclusions. God forbid she took when she knows and put the pieces together on her own.

A big issue between friends happened. A disagreement that was blown up further, and I'm not sure how much I- She paused again. If her sister read this, she wouldn't understand. She'd make an assumption and take the other person's side instead of trying to listen to what [REDACTED] had to say. Despite the amount of evidence she'd piled up.

She erased the comma, all the way up to "and," only stopping at "further." She turned the first comma into a period.

I felt sick for the majority of the problems brough on by the disagreement. I was reminded of the few times I was put into a scenario where I had to pick a side. It's never fun to disappoint friends.

She didn't have to pick one, though. She kept both her friends, and things continued normally once the situation was calmed down, and a solution was found.

It still bothered her, though. It put a lot of strain on her, physically and mentally.

She moved on.

Something else happened after that. Something big. A terrible scare. I think I almost had a self-induced panic attack, one caused by repressing my own feelings so that I could keep a friend calm. It was the most terrified I'd felt in a long time. It's a bit fuzzy, though. I know I'd gone to a childhood friend, one I'd grown up with as an online friend, during those moments of bone-deep terror and panic. I hadn't known who to go to at the time, and my family were out of the question.

I would have broken down in front of them if I talked to them about it. Especially my mother.

She trusted her mother and sister, but she didn't trust herself to remain calm. Did her rattling, shaking, accelerated heartbeat, and roiling stomach count as calm?

She supposed it didn't.

I think my father hit the dog. She suddenly jumped topics.

The dog has been getting into more things lately when left unwatched. I think it's because he misses my brother, who's gone off to college. He sleeps with my father now.

Pops keeps leaving him out in the living room at night, though, because of his own selfish reasons. We'd take him in our room, but there's three of us on a single bed, and there's not a lot of space as is.

On one particular night, very recently, mum warned him that there was food left out still. Sauce, to be exact. She'd warned him, and he didn't listen.

[REDACTED] was steadily growing more heated as she wrote, her handwriting becoming more illegible.

The dog got into it, and my father was pissed. He screamed at the dog so loud, it woke my mother. My sister was in the bathroom, and I was getting up to go out there and confront him about leaving the dog out there without listening. My mother told me to sit down and stay out of it. It's fine. That's fine. But while he was taking the dog back with him, both my sister and I heard a noise akin to him slapping the dog, and hard. We were both pissed, but couldn't do anything about it.

She stopped writing, frowning. But, after shaking her head and realizing how much she rambled on and on, she continued.

Seems I went into more detail about that than everything else. But that's fine.

She seemed to use "It's fine" and "that's fine" quite a bit. Almost as though she were trying to tell herself that.

To wrap this up, I've been struggling with my sleep more. Nightmares are becoming more frequent, and more detailed. I woke up crying this morning, and harbored the feeling that something was waiting just outside of my blankets, waiting to strike, the other night. Maybe these are a product of the state of my mental health.

But it's fine, she said again. I can deal with it.

She stared, wondering if there was anything else to add. When she thought of nothing, she closed the book, and set the pencil aside. She'd filled two pages with her rambling, and decided that she was satisfied with it. Her hand was aching, but she just shook it out.

Hopefully, the weight that has settled on her shoulders will lift a bit more. She was too tired to feel much of anything right now, and just wanted to do a bit of reading before bed. Maybe check her cookie game.