an- a really crappy story i wrote for my comp lit class sophomore year.

"You are my sweetest downfall beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth I have to go, I have to go" –Regina Spektor

"Daniels." Joshua mumbled from under his breath, words slowly coming out as the small inflation of his stomach as he breathed. Catie smiled weakly at him, a small laugh bubbling from her lips and into the air as she titled her head up to stare straight into the sky, transfixed over the number of stars above their heads. Joshua furrowed an eyebrow and moved his hand to grab her wrist, a small shiver coming from Catie's body as she turned to him, yanked away.

There was something strange about this girl Joshua thought, the girl everyone in the school had known as the smiling girl. She was the one with a big smile and beaming hazel eyes and long light brown hair. She just wasn't just a face, but a person with an identity. She was part of the school and not, she wrote in the newspaper and acted in the plays and played in the band. She helped out with events and wrote on people's Facebooks every time it was their birthday or waving to people eating alone.

But she was also secluded and distant with a smile that faltered every once and a desire to be alone, to just be alone every once in a while. Catie Daniels was an architect who constructed walls. She built them against the hollows of her feelings and forbade, anyone (ANYONE) from coming inside and breaking them. Her walls were built small first, with little cracks and everything. She was young then, Catie didn't know much about the world and much about building walls. So she tried it, attempted actually.

A few people opened the walls, with hammers and Converse laced shoes and sparkly flats they ran up and kicked the walls down. Catie had allowed these people a map to figure where her walls were out of trust, out of a knowing no one would hurt her or hurt her walls. But like human nature they took advantages of her trust; they broke her trust and the crushed it like flower petals against the ground. They destroyed destroyed destroyed Catie's innocence, her life (every aspect). Every little detail of Catie they could lay their grimy slimy little fingers on.

So Catie hid the map and constructed a new wall, one built with titanium and beautiful stone material. The walls were something new but required a lot of work. Though they were unique, but they were also very dreary and robotic and soon became an obsession to Catie, a bad one at that. Every day the wall had to be perfect and if it wasn't Catie had to find a way to deal, a way to unleash the anger of her regrets to even letting people inside her little kingdom and anger at herself for not being able to make the wall as she wanted. Even if it was temporary the little sips of magic juice and pixie dust that they deemed bad for you had made Catie feel for once some sort of [false] happiness. She used razors and - [which to which cannot be named as for it is the worst of the sins] to feel in control, to feel for once she had a grip on things and she could control what had happened in her life.

Which was why Joshua was confused, terrified to why he had found her, in the locker room with a bottle of pills held to her chest and tears in her eyes. Hesitant to even touch her Joshua was confused, and especially when she pleaded, no begged and screamed at him (not him specifically, but the demons. The ones that haunted her constantly) And with a simple hug her had received a story, a life story of Catie Daniels to which you would not find in your normal typical bookstore or library.

"Daniels," he whispered again as she looked down and shushed him, placing a finger to his lips. She continued to tilt her head up grab his hand and interlock their fingers, "Catie, you need to tell me what happened and why this happened."

She stood there and giggled, "Shh I'm counting stars." She replied to Joshua before looking down at him sighing, "I was at one hundred you totally threw me off. Come and count stars with me Joshua." She whispered lifting his head up against her lap stroking his hair, "One, two, three…"

Her voice became a song that echoed in and rang through his ears. It was sad and pitiful, the roaring noise of a girl who was secretly in a war and fighting with the worst enemy (her/him/your/-self) and slowly and slowly being defeated but still pushing through hoping, just hoping you'll be the one who wins, the one on top. Just praying you'd be the one in control and the winner of the battle, the winner of everything.

"I never told anyone what I told you I was and are stronger than that, but I guess not with you.," she whispered at last stopping in between twenty and twenty two. "Oh Joshua, Joshua you are my sweetest downfalll."