Shine (A Harry Styles Fanfiction)

One

Which is worse: To feel absolutely nothing or to feel everything in such extremes to the point where it hurts you?

On one side, if you feel nothing at all, then you can't feel pain. You can't feel the anguish and despair that always goes hand in hand with life, no matter how hard we try to deny it. The struggle to get through a tragedy would never be yours and the sorrow that accompanies loss wouldn't be yours to feel either.

But then you also couldn't feel the good things, or the rare things, as I've come to know them. Things like joy, happiness, and love. These are the things you could feel if you were to choose to feel everything in extremes rather than not at all. Things that come in sudden, spontaneous spurts that you have only a glimpse of before they are sucked back into the darkness that you would also have to endure if you chose the 'feeling path'.

That is the inevitable consequence for feeling such things; they are always taken away and leave you even more broken than you were before they came. You know why? Because you've become dependent on it.

You've become dependent on the object or person who makes you feel happy, and once it's gone, so are you. Like life is trying to punish you for evading its cruelty, even temporarily. You have to learn all over again how to become independent and how to get at least back to the sorry mess of a person you were before. And even then you're a mess until the next trap is sent, in a form of a person or anything really, to make you feel okay again until you suffer the same devastating fate as the time before, because that's the thing with humans. We never learn.

So, which is worse? In my simple opinion, not feeling anything is more bearable than feeling absolutely everything. But, like most things in this twisted, cruel life, you don't get to choose. Someone somewhere makes the decision for you, and in the case of Alexandra Tucker, whoever they are made the wrong one.

-

(Alexandra Tucker, May 6th)

Collapsed. Destroyed. Pulverized. Shattered. Demolished. Ruined. Wrecked. Me.

All synonyms, all representing the same thing. I am completely and utterly broken. Even now, a month later, after the funeral where I saw his face for the last time before it disappeared into the ground while his family wept over their dead son. The steady tears that were supposed to be sliding down my cheeks just weren't there. I sat there completely still and unable to do anything but watch, trapped in the 'zombie mode', as I heard my mother call it, that I'm still in now.

At least I think I am. I can't be quite sure. It's like I'm under some sort of enchantment; I see and hear everything, but I don't process it the same way I used to. I'm still trying to decide which way is better. I guess the reason I'm like this is what makes the other way the clear choice. Unfortunately, that is a choice I don't have.

So for now I am stuck in this state of depression, for lack of a better word. Not even my brother can get through to me. We can have a conversation, but not like the ones we used to where we could crack jokes and make fun of each other. I can't even remember the last time I laughed or smiled. A real one, not that fake grimace or forced chuckle I've put on for anyone who pretends to care.

"Alexandra, wake up," a sharp voice cuts through my deep train of thought. Was I asleep? I don't think so, but lately the line between conscious thoughts and unconscious ones has been blurred to the point where it almost ceases to exist.

"Oh, good, you're awake," my mother walks in front of me, forcing me to look at her in her perfectly tailored jacket and skirt. Her red-lipsticked mouth is pressed into a hard, thin line and her eyes are cold and show no sympathy. Not that I expected any from her, I guess I've just grown accustomed to the pity in people's eyes when they look at me. I hate it, the pity, so it is somewhat refreshing to see what looks like disgust in someone's stare. At least it would be if that someone wasn't my own mother.