Three years ago, a character developed on the pages of this blog that I didn’t really expect, or understand. After ten chapters the story was left hanging. I didn’t have the experience or knowledge to finish it then. Three years later I’m walking in the footsteps of my character. The narrator of Meant to Be has been sitting since February of 2012 waiting for someone to understand her, to pick up her story and continue it and now I do. I haven’t been through everything that she went through, and for the sake of realisticness (It exists. I asked Google :P) and the need to feel a kinship with my character, I may change her circumstances… just a little. Hopefully this time around I get further than ten chapters.
I haven't yet proof read this re-write of chapter one so it may have mistakes but let me know what you think. Better? Worse? :)
Loneliness fills me now and my body shakes uncontrollably. I’m not sure if it’s the tears that are now falling, sobs racking my frozen body, or the cold. My feet and hands are starting to numb.
Fresh sobs rack my body, now that they are finally coming they won’t stop.
Kelly and I were best friends since the first grade. Sharing secrets, sleepovers, discussing the hottest guys or our new crushes, shopping, we’ve done all the things that best friends do. Has it really been ten years? It seems like forever and yet like yesterday that we were shy little girls, both new to a huge and terrifying school with an unfamiliar class of kids who all knew each other. And we just clicked from that first day, inseparable ever after that. Rarely did you see one of us without the other. We completed each other.
It was nearing a month now, living like this, questioning every last word that she said wondering if it was all lies, since she had betrayed me.
Betrayal.
I will never be able to think of that month the same way I did before this year. I used to love October, it meant Halloween. Candy. Trick or Treating and as I grew older, usually a bonfire with friends. It was also the month that my birthday fell in. Mom always made it special for me no matter how old I got.
October? What happened in October again?
Guilt floods over me. I’m not taking my own life. I have to get up, gotta keep fighting. If not for me…
I wonder why I even considered suicide as an option. I can’t feel my body parts. They all feel separate like they don’t belong, like someone with no knowledge of human anatomy just glued pieces onto me that are the wrong size for my body.
I feel so helpless. Maybe I can just rest here for a moment.
But stubbornness kicks in and I drag myself a few more steps before I collapse again. I feel like I have gone miles, why am I not nearing the house? I waste frozen energy looking back where I came from. I’ve hardly moved. discouraged I berate myself for looking. You can’t give up! You have to make it back to the house! I try to convince myself but I’m too tired. I never thought I would stoop this low, I’ve always been a fighter, never thought I could just give in.
Help!
My eyes are closing again. I try to keep them open but I can’t.
Trying not to concentrate on the pain in every inch of me, lying totally still because even the slightest jarring is excruciating. But even lying still I ache. It hurts to breathe. I hold my breath as long as I can but eventually my oxygen starved lungs beg for air and I gasp it in, hurting even more than before.
I haven't yet proof read this re-write of chapter one so it may have mistakes but let me know what you think. Better? Worse? :)
Chapter 1
The frigid air is unwelcoming as I step out into the unfriendly December night. Wind tears at my jacket trying to send me shivering back inside. It’s icy arms encircle me, intending to freeze the life out of my body. I’m hardly aware of the weather though as the wind whips and slices my face like frozen knives. I don’t mind the physical cold surrounding me, in fact, it’s ‘almost welcome. I wish it could take my mind off the dull knife of ache mutilating my heart.
Questions fill my mind until it feels like my head will literally explode. Emotions I can’t name. I beg the tears to come, to wash away the pain. They refuse. My eyes are dry and my heart continues to throb with ache.
Why? Why me? Why the pain?
The wind snatches the bitter questions from my lips and spits them back in my face.
How is it possible to hurt this bad? I wonder. Each time I hurt a little more, I’m a little more surprised at the depth of the intensity of the aching pain. Is there such a thing as relief? I’m descending into a never ending pit of torture, each level deeper makes me look back at the level before and wonder if I actually hurt then because if I did, it was nothing like now.
Moonlight glows on the untouched layers of snow surrounding me like fluffy white blankets. They reach out to my soul, inviting me to just lay down, let them tuck me in.
What if I gave in to them, let them lull me into to that dreamless sleep They’re promising me. A sleep that would last for eternity?
I become aware of the fact that I have walked nearly the whole length of our long drive. I’m tired of walking. I’m tired of life. I lie down in the snow next to the deserted highway. My eyes close against the immense dark evilness and hate of the world around me.
It doesn’t happen how I think it will. No fading into darkness, my pain slipping away as I drift into a world of nothingness. Instead I feel the chilling wetness of melting snow seeping through my clothes. My bare fingers and toes only in street shoes are throbbing with cold. My wet jeans are clinging to my legs turning them into icicles. Is this really the best way to go? I begin to question the selfishness of my decision and that’s when Self Pity takes my hand, cradles my head in her lap and brings back the memories, memories leading up to why I’m here.
The hurt has been building and building inside of me, tearing at my heart, shredding me.
Danny’s death only two weeks ago, he was in the infantry posted in Afghanistan and was shot in combat. Everyone tried telling me that he died serving his country, protecting us, protecting me. That I should be proud of him. I can’t see it, no matter how hard I tried, at his funeral I couldn’t feel patriotic. That night I wrote in my diary,
Danny’s death only two weeks ago, he was in the infantry posted in Afghanistan and was shot in combat. Everyone tried telling me that he died serving his country, protecting us, protecting me. That I should be proud of him. I can’t see it, no matter how hard I tried, at his funeral I couldn’t feel patriotic. That night I wrote in my diary,
For all I care, America can go to hell! Patriotism is a joke! I’m proud of my brother because he died for something he was passionate about; our country. But I can’t share his passion and I can’t feel proud of our country. All I feel is the biggest loss I have ever felt and hate for the war that took my best friend from me and a God that allowed it.
He died a week after his 21st birthday.
Now it was just mom and me. Dad had left shortly after I was born.
Loneliness fills me now and my body shakes uncontrollably. I’m not sure if it’s the tears that are now falling, sobs racking my frozen body, or the cold. My feet and hands are starting to numb.
I once again sink back into Self Pity’s lap, allowing her to remind me of the things that feel as if they are ruining my life.
Kelly.
Fresh sobs rack my body, now that they are finally coming they won’t stop.
Kelly and I were best friends since the first grade. Sharing secrets, sleepovers, discussing the hottest guys or our new crushes, shopping, we’ve done all the things that best friends do. Has it really been ten years? It seems like forever and yet like yesterday that we were shy little girls, both new to a huge and terrifying school with an unfamiliar class of kids who all knew each other. And we just clicked from that first day, inseparable ever after that. Rarely did you see one of us without the other. We completed each other.
A smile tries to curve my lips, they feel thick and nonexistent. My face is cold. Clumsily I reach up to feel my face. A million needles stab my cheeks. The nerves in my fingertips are too frozen to feel. It feels like someone else is touching my face with lifeless fingers.
“Why?” I whisper again into the chilling blackness. “Why did you do this to me Kelly? I thought we were bffs!”
It was nearing a month now, living like this, questioning every last word that she said wondering if it was all lies, since she had betrayed me.
I had told her my biggest secret, something I hadn’t told anyone, not even Danny. Within a week, the whole school knew. I had felt her pulling away lately, little by little she was leaning towards the ‘in group’ the head cheerleader hated me so I wasn’t welcome but one of the jock boys, Phil, took a liking to Kelly, thought she was pretty hot so they had let her in and she had been hanging less and less with me.
And now this.
Betrayal.
She was kissing up to me again though, I was her little charity project since Danny had died. She wanted to be part of my life again and part of me ached to let her back inside and trust her again. To forget this had happened and be friends again.
But the bigger part of me pushed her away, knowing that I couldn’t trust her, refusing to try. Even after ten years. How could something like this shatter our friendship? I kept trying to convince myself that maybe it was for the best, but the stab of pain every time I saw her, didn’t feel like it was for the best. The loneliness that engulfed me. Everything was dark and scary and painful.
October.
I will never be able to think of that month the same way I did before this year. I used to love October, it meant Halloween. Candy. Trick or Treating and as I grew older, usually a bonfire with friends. It was also the month that my birthday fell in. Mom always made it special for me no matter how old I got.
The tears have stopped and I’m no longer shivering as much. My whole body still hurts though and I can’t think clearly.
October? What happened in October again?
Oh yeah. My birthday.
I suddenly am aware that it’s snowing. Giant, heavy, wet flakes adding to the cozy white blanket all around me, their weight pins me to the ground. Or is it the snow that feels so heavy?
Guilt floods over me. I’m not taking my own life. I have to get up, gotta keep fighting. If not for me…
I try to sit up, I roll over slowly and push myself unsteadily to my feet. My legs are unbending iron poles connected to solid blocks of cement. I didn’t walk that far did I? I can make it home… have to make it home. The line repeats over and over in my head as I leave Self Pity next to the icy imprint that my body made. She’s reaching out to me calling my name but I fight her off. Must make it home… my my whispers.
I wonder why I even considered suicide as an option. I can’t feel my body parts. They all feel separate like they don’t belong, like someone with no knowledge of human anatomy just glued pieces onto me that are the wrong size for my body.
I stumble a few more steps before falling to my knees. Hot tingling pain shoots up my arms and tears scald my cheeks again.
I feel so helpless. Maybe I can just rest here for a moment.
But stubbornness kicks in and I drag myself a few more steps before I collapse again. I feel like I have gone miles, why am I not nearing the house? I waste frozen energy looking back where I came from. I’ve hardly moved. discouraged I berate myself for looking. You can’t give up! You have to make it back to the house! I try to convince myself but I’m too tired. I never thought I would stoop this low, I’ve always been a fighter, never thought I could just give in.
I can’t go on!
I lie down again, unable to will my body one more step. I want to get up. I want to make it back to the house, to warmth and safety, but I can’t. I can’t move a muscle.
“God!” I whisper into the stillness around me. “I haven’t talked to you in a while, but please don’t let me be responsible for taking this -” I’m spinning, sinking, no longer feel so cold. Warmth rocks me in gentle comforting arms. I open my eyes once more, painfully bright light looks me in the eyes and a roaring engine pounds in my ears. I reach out, or at least I think I do, towards that light that looks like hope and scream against the wind,
Help!
Darkness wraps around me then and I swirl almost dizzily into nothingness.
I have no record of time while in this state of nothingness but I eventually wake in a white room. It’s almost dark. Like distant echoes I hear whispered voices and footsteps. The clicking and humming and beeping of machines. My entire body is throbbing, on fire. The pain makes me wonder momentarily if I’ve died and somehow ended up in hell. Hell is supposed to be flames though, and this, this is just a world of white closing in around me, suffocating me, am I dreaming?
A face appears over me, it’s familiar and yet distorted unrecognizably… mom? She’s saying something but I can only see her lips moving her voice is too quiet and the pain is so agonizing that I’m unable to focus on her words.
What is happening?
My eyes are closing again. I try to keep them open but I can’t.
My eyelids feel heavy.
I hurt.
Something bumps me and a sizzling arrow of pain shivers through my entire body. The kind of pain that doesn’t just hurt, it aches in an indescribably excruciating way that leaves you paralyzed and wanting to scream.
Where am I? What’s going on?
My whole being is throbbing and aching and my mind feels like it was given a shot of Novocaine. I search for the memory of what happened, how I got here and a ghost of a memory hovers around the edges of my thoughts but when I grasp for it trying to make sense of it, it eludes me.
I give up.
Trying not to concentrate on the pain in every inch of me, lying totally still because even the slightest jarring is excruciating. But even lying still I ache. It hurts to breathe. I hold my breath as long as I can but eventually my oxygen starved lungs beg for air and I gasp it in, hurting even more than before.
I drift back into nothingness but not the light painless nothingness I experienced previously. No, now even nothingness is laced with haunting pain.
