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Songs:

Invisible~5 Seconds of Summer

"I am told to stay strong, keep fighting; but they don't understand... I've already lost."

Unknown

~Em's POV~

The next morning when I woke up in bed, I didn't feel the same way I had last night. Despite having a clean room, clean laundry, and proper hygiene, I still felt like maybe the best option was to let the whole cycle start over again. So I woke up at 7 am on a Sunday morning and stayed there. I resisted the urge to get up and pee, ignore the pleading growls of my stomach and the dryness in my throat. Unable to bring myself to move.

For hours I was trapped with nothing but my thoughts. Reece would be home today. I might have been clean for 24 hours now but I knew that the second I saw her face I would do it again. Even thinking of her makes me want to. No matter how much I wanted to stop, I just couldn't. I can't stop the one thing that's slowly killing me. Another side effect of being hit with the metaphorical train.

Sometimes when I'm laying like this, unable to so much as move, I think about how many other people the metaphorical train hits. All the stories that your parents tell you, in hope that if it does hit you you'll talk to them about it. All the success stories at assemblies where an Australian middle-aged white woman who calls herself a 'motivational speaker' drones on and on about how bad her life was and how she got hit by the metaphorical train and how it can happen to you. Yes. You.

The thing is when you're a perfectly happy 13-year-old, listening to this stranger's suicide story you don't believe that it can happen to you. The truth is every outcome can be a turning point. You never know what is going to affect you or by how much. The train can hit you and you'll never see it coming.

The longer I sat and stared at the glow in the dark stars on my ceiling, the more I felt like the train was coming back to me. The first time the train comes around it's gentle, unbearably depressing but at least you can still find it in you to put on the act. The act that the train never hit you in the first place. Sometimes this works, sometimes the train only hits once. You put on the act, no one ever knows that anything was going on and everything works out.

But sometimes the train comes again. It hits you and whatever walls you managed to build up. The act is gone. Your happiness is gone. Everyone knows that you were - in fact - hit by the metaphorical train. Obviously, I had been hit by the train twice now. Once when Reece first rejected me and again when she told dad about Henry and me. 

I thought about how now I had some walls again. After last night my dad is convinced that I'm doing better. Or at least has high hopes. I know that now he's going to try and get Reece and me to talk. And I know that if we do, I'll be hit for the third time.

The thing about being hit the third time is that it's not the same as the others. Yes, the second time the train tears down your walls, and yes the third time it will tear them down again. But there are some things that you don't keep behind walls. Things that you keep in something stronger. Secrets encased in musty cement bunkers, a secret bunker, of course, abandoned by everyone but you. The third time the train hits it will tear down everything. Your walls. Your bunkers. But most of all your happiness. My cement bunker included one thing. My struggles with self harm. As I finally rose out of bed, that one thing was going to be the reason the train hits me again.

When it comes to the third time you have two choices. You can either let all of your secrets free and live with the outcomes or you can not. You have a choice. Let someone else hit you with the metaphorical train. Or hit yourself. Before I could even think about my decision I felt myself detach from reality. Leaving my own body to watch everything that I was about to do. Every little detail. Slowly, I began to lose control of myself, unable to prevent anything that I was about to do.

I began to panic, knowing everything that was about to happen. And knowing that ultimately, I had no control over any of it. Tears began to flow down my face as I saw myself reach into my backpack for a paper. All I could do was soak the paper I was writing on as my tears began to become even more vicious than before.

Dear Reece,
I'm sorry I ruined everything. I could have done better. I could have listened. And I should have. I'm sorry that I made things so hard for you. I'm sorry that I couldn't see through my own emotions and into yours. This was all my fault and I'm so sorry that I ever hurt you. I just want you to be happy.

Dear Dad,
I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for ruining the perfect picture of a family that you worked so hard to build. I'm sorry for making the last few months a literally living hell for you. I'm sorry for telling you lies and keeping secrets. I'm sorry for being such a massive fuck up. Please tell everyone that I love them. Know that I love you. And tell Reece that I still love her, even though she can never forgive me for all of the mistakes I've made.

As for the few secrets that I've still kept from you. I'm sorry. You'll find out soon enough and I'm so sorry that I didn't let you help. Right now, I know that the world is going to be a better place without me in it. I'm so sorry.

~Em


"When you feel like giving up, just remember the reason why you held on for so long."

Hayley Williams

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