Micha, her fiancé now I guess, shouts something in the background and then Ella lets out a squeal in the phone. I hear a loud thump and then there’s a lot of giggling. I wait for her to come back on, but the giggling only gets louder as she argues with Micha through her laughter about letting her go.

I roll my eyes, officially hating her for the beautiful relationship that she has and deserves. “All right, I’m going to go. If you can hear me, congrats and I’ll call you later.”

I drop the phone onto the floor and the quiet sets in. The sunlight sneaks through the cracks of the blinds and I can hear my next-door neighbors arguing about something. It’s really loud and annoying and I yell, “Keep it down!” while banging on the wall.

They don’t hear me though and keep shouting. The longer I lie there, the more the loneliness catches up with me, like a wave ready to slam into the shore. I want someone who will love me like Micha loves Ella. I want someone—anyone—just to love me. I’ve been trying the best that I can to find that kind of love, but it never seems to work out and I’m really starting to believe that I’m beneath being loved.

I thought I had love once, very stupidly. I should have known better. He was too old to actually love a fourteen-year-old and after it was all over, after he’d used me, he left me, brokenhearted, feeling dirty inside and confused over what I—we—had just done. Even now, when I look back at it, it doesn’t make sense to me, at least from an emotional aspect. But the pills make it easier to accept.

“I really did think he loved me,” I mumble, feeling the tears sting at my eyes as I rotate the platinum-banded diamond ring around on my finger. “He seemed like he did.”

I get up and walk out of the kitchen, heading for my room, wanting to escape my mistakes and the emptiness. The problem is that every time I do, I only add more mistakes to the list and I always end up alone. But I’ll probably keep doing it over and over again because it’s what I’m good at—screwing up, being a slut, sleeping around, praying I can find someone who will fall in love with the worthless bits and pieces of me and take care of me like my mother is constantly telling me should happen.

I open my nightstand drawer and stare down out the prescription bottle, twisting the ring on my finger, knowing that any more pills will send me into blackout mode. But I want to be in that mode right now because it momentarily makes me feel happy and content. I pick up the bottle and open it. As the pills slide down my throat, numbness slides through my body and I fall back on the bed with my hand placed on the scar along my stomach, my one flaw, both inside and outside.


I’m not sure how boarding school is going, whether I like it or hate it. It seems weird living at a school at fourteen years old. Plus, I’m having a hard time making friends. But I’m trying.