Fighting For Life

~ Chapter One

I gasp, shooting up from the warmth of my bed. Sticky sweat trickles from my forehead down to the bottom of my chin, as a shiver runs through my body. I take in deep breaths as I lay my head back down on the pillow that now feels like rock. My eyes left wide open. There is no chance I will be able to sleep now, but that is not something new. I haven't been able to sleep properly for the last three months. I've began losing hope in gaining peace and tranquillity, even when I shut my eyes. It feels as though I am going to be permanently haunted by these bittersweet memories. Memories that once brought joy into my life, but now are tormenting me from the inside out, leaving me dark and broken.

I look up at the ceiling, yawning as I observe the white dull crack. I'm exhausted, but no longer have the guts to shut my eyes and sleep thinking I will dream of riding down a rainbow because all I can dream of no is Hell.

I cringe, lifting the blanket to cover my face as the sun shines brightly into my room. There was once a point in my life when I loved the sun in my face. Summer was my favourite season but it is now coming to an end and I haven't gone out once. I've lost contact with my friends. I'm not ready to face the world – not ready to face reality. These four walls have become my new friends. My confidants, they've witnessed my lowest and worst. I've kept myself caged in this room for the past three months. I dropped out of college. I mean what was the point? I only decided to go to college for one person but he isn't here any more so why should I go?

Evan was everything I wished for, he managed to give me every possible happiness in the world. We were happy. He has received a scholarship for basketball and I took English literature in NYU. He managed to tiptoe into my heart and steal it. But now he is gone... forever and he's taken my heart with him leaving me cold and callous. I never planned on falling for Evan, it just happened. In the end, he left me the same way he had found me... emotionless.

Our meeting was extremely cliché and typical. I was the bitter and bitchy queen bee in school and Evan James was the new student. We got paired up for a project and that's when I slowly started to fall for him. Having lost my father at the age of fourteen, I was broken and when Mum remarried a year later it shattered my heart completely. I never understand how she could marry another man, especially after all the stories she used to share with me about her and dad being soul mates. They would always tell me how they ran away from home just to be with each other. Mum would tell me that when I found the right man, I would never want to be with anybody else. That was how she felt about my dad. She could never imagine her life with somebody different, and that if anything was to happen to my dad nobody could ever take his place. But look what she ended up doing, she married a vulgar man who has been beating me since took his first step in my house. Since that day I haven't been able to forgive my Mum. Whenever I have looked at her it has been with hatred and complete disappointment.

Stay strong.

Just stay strong Holly.

After Evan was gone, after God taken him from me, people that come to pay their respects and condolences would repeat these words over and over again. In all honestly it didn't help me, not at all, in fact it broken even more.

What people did not understand was that Evan was my strength, Evan was what made me human. He brought the real me out, without him I am just an empty shell. Not only did I lose Evan but in the process I ended up losing my closest friends. They left me to fend on my own, they let me to pick the pieces by myself. Once again I was all alone.

It's quite ironic really because for some, being alone is a blessing. Some people strive to be alone and away from the world. Whereas those people that have actually lost someone will understand the real meaning of being alone. It doesn't bring you peace or happiness, in fact it slowly eats you up from the inside until you become numb to the world and don't want to live any more.