Full Summary: Takes place over five days, following a fifteen year old girl named Helena. She is gradually cracking up under the stress of never being good enough for her family or village & falling for her best friend. & then suddenly she sees something that pulls her whole world apart & she is left to deal with the consequences in the only way she thinks she can. (terrible summery. forgive me xD)
Very Long AN: this was written for NaNoWriMo 2006. I finished it proudly on the 23rd, and this is the second version. It is currently going through major editing, and there is some plot points which i need to sort out, but expect updates fairly often. You have meh word
This story is for Emily, Katrina, & Elana, because they are super awesome people. & they got me through this month & we are all still sane (well, up to a point).Special thanks to them for dropping in bits when i had block (especially Elana, she boosted me by probabaly about xxxx (ie, a lot) words, her penname is 'a smile goes unnoticed', so go check her out because she rocks.)
(please excuse any spelling or grammer mistakes in the above, i typed out those bits on notepad because word was spazzing, & those arn't exactly my strong points :-/)
Enjoy, please review.

Prologue

It’s strange, isn’t it? Your whole life is swirling and spinning beneath your feet, falling apart around you, and so you cling on to the thing that has always been there, always been steady, always been beside you, and you think that you are safe. You cling so hard and so desperately that eventually, it is all you have left and you have to hold on to it tightly, just so you can stop your self from falling.

And then suddenly, one day, it’s gone, and there’s nothing left. The one person you thought you would always have by your side is suddenly not there any more.

So what happens to you?

You fall, of course. You fall harder and further than you have ever done before, and for once, there is absolutely nothing there to catch you or break your fall.

It is too late. You have lost yourself completely.

And then, of course, you find out that it was never gone at all.

So cliché.

‘It’ is one of those things that can happen to anyone, whoever you are, wherever you come form, whatever your lifestyle is like. Whatever it is- and no one has found quite the right word for it- it can do all sort of things to people, just like it did all sorts of things to Helena.

Poor Girl.

No one cried for Helena when she was found. No tears were shed for the girl who cracked up and then was found in such a tragic state. Her shoelace, such a pretty shade of pink with such shiny red cherries on, hung from her light bulb for ages, until her room was redecorated and her father transferred it into a spare bedroom, where it then sat gathering dust and looking pretty.

The cherries were all in pairs. Brown stalks joined them all. Not one single one of them alone.

When Helena died, she was remembered with fond memories for precisely a month. And then, she was nothing more than a thing of the past; just like that old favourite teddy that you used to go to bed with every night, and then you just grew out of it

But then again, she had to be happier wherever she went to than where she was before.