I feel shitty.

Theo keeps texting me. I’m not sure why I told him to fuck off, but I don’t mean it. I don’t mean to delete his number or stop replying or to not agree to meeting up with him.I just do.

Thing is, Theo has this wonderful way of making you feel like the only person in the world he has ever loved. He will forever compose poems or leave cute little messages if he wants something from you. I miss his love letters. I still have mine. It’s why he’s so successful at breaking my heart.

You don’t act the same. You’re all spiky and untouchable, even when you’re flirting it’s on a knife edge, like you know you haven’t got much time or your heart isn’t in it.

I know where it is. And right now it’s probably watching her kissing your ex-best friend. You’re so wrapped up in your pain, you’ve even forgotton to say hello to me. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Ignoring me is the worst thing anyone can do. I feel like I’m disappearing. I feel like I’m not even alive anymore. I am useless.

It’s odd. I think, as the craft knife scores my skin. The blood beads up but it’s not enough, I need more than just beading. Attention seeker.

It takes another four attempts to get it right; I keep scoring across old scars.

---

You see them. Don’t say much, just stare at me and raise an eyebrow.

It was my cat…I begin but you just put your finger to my lips and shake your head. I pull down my sleeve. Then you grin. The one that usually comes after I discover that you’ve been texting some girl in the year below again. The one that breaks my heart every time.

Your cat can do that much damage? I know that tone. I used that exact tone on you when I found the inside of you arm all mashed up six months ago. Only you told me you’d been getting a ball out of a bush.

We were trying to save a mouse from it. I laugh, I know it’s a pathetic excuse, but it’s my excuse.

You shake your head again, and walk off to drama. I have to run to keep up with you. I never have to run to keep up with you.

I’m quite glad it’s raining.

I can’t always forgive you for things like you just did. I tend to brood over it, nurse a ball of hatred. Sanctimonious git.

When I arrive in drama you are already sitting in a corner, being moody and discussing things with Sam that make him laugh and gesture. Not sure I can stand this; I grab my book out of my bag and a coffee from the side, then settle down in a chair and begin to lose myself again in my scribbling.

I’m beginning to feel almost alright again, when you decide it’ll be funny to steal my book .I am going to cry anytime soon.

Oh, you leave me here

Shattered and tissue paper thin.

Don’t go.

I need you, you crow like it’s a victory for you because you’re that self -centred that all my writing has to be about you.

Looks like we have our very own emo girl on our hands. I want to smack you.Your eyes a bright and vindictive.

Shut up, I manage to grind out but you just grin and smirk. Hot anger is boiling up. That is my private thoughts you are reading out right now. To be cliché you are ripping out my still beating heart and fucknig stomping on it.

Why what you gonna do about it? Slit your wrists? You laugh and Sam laughs, but he shuts up once he sees my face. I move closer and you think I’m going to grab for the book, but you fucking told. I couldn’t care less about the book, I hate you so much.

SMACK.

The sound resounds throughout the room.

My fist makes contact good and hard. I’ve learnt well from my time as a scrapper. Always aim for just above the eye, it gives a bigger bruise but doesn’t blind your opponent.

It’s the point where the anger is so strong and hard you can taste in your mouth and it swirls around distorting everything it touches. It is a feeling I relish as the first proper feeling in days.

What the fuck did you go and do that for? You gasp out, still clutching you eye and groaning.

What the fuck did you do that for? I mimic.It's all I can manage before bending down to grab my book and shove it in my bag.

I flee, escaping school through the broken fence by the basketball courts and then running free, actually feeling the wind and the cold air breaking my lungs with each sharp breath. I’m feeling again, fucking feeling and awake and angry and blind and so so so sad and caught up in breaking out of my head that I don’t notice footsteps behind me, I only stop when your hand touches my shoulder and I spin…..

I fall, hands thrown out to save me and hear instead of feel my head cracking against the pavement.

Pain jolts through scrapped hands and hearts. My head starts throbbing. The world is just too fucking cruel. I don’t want to live here anymore with people like you. I don’t work out I’m crying until I feel your hand on my cheek. It just makes me cry harder

You sit on the tarmac with me and try to smooth away the tears that keep falling. For once it doesn’t work. It’s like I’m crying for my life, I put my hand to my head and am so shocked to find it red when I take it away, so I don’t realise you have your mobile in your hand, don’t register anything you’re saying, don’t hear the voices.

I can’t feel my arm, just your fingers wound in mine, still wiping away tears from my face, talking to someone, lifting me off the ground and into a car.

I don’t remember much about that day now.

Just you, holding my grazed hand in yours and whispering in my ear that things would be ok.

I remember believing you.