Dylan:Hey, beautiful, have you decided? My sister’s driving me nuts, even though they don’t have a set date.
Fuck, I have not. My emotions are all over the place. About him. About the wedding. About everything. Another text pops up.
Dylan:Andcan I kiss you? Again and again? That can’t be our last kiss.
My heart stops. I glance at Ava, her words lingering.Are you and Daddy happy?
I sigh and grab her Magic 8-Ball from the nightstand. It was a gift from my mom. She likes to use one for her own questionable life choices.
Will Dylan ruin my life?I groan,flipping it over.
Shake. Shake.
Outlook not so good.Figures.
I toss it back, ignoring the ridiculous sting of disappointment, and type out my response.
Me:I can’t. She should find someone more qualified than me…
Me:And we should stop this.
My chest clenches, waiting for his reply.
Dylan:I don’t know how to stop this anymore. Truth is, I don’t want to. Once you get a taste—once you wake up and finally know what you want—it’s dangerous. Because you can’t go back. And the right thing? It’ll never feel right again. So, if you choose wrong, just be ready to live with it.
I leave Ava’s room and crawl into my bed without replying, praying that clarity comes by morning.
It doesn’t.
Instead, I wake up in a cold sweat.
Blood. Screams. I'm falling off that damn bridge again, clawing at the air, desperate to hold onto something—anything. But there's nothing. Just the icy rush of water dragging me down.
Even awake, I carry the weight of the suffocating fear that I’ll never escape.
When will these dreams stop? And why do they feel so real? I should talk to someone. Get it all out. But the thought of opening up makes me cringe. What if they think I’m crazy?
Half asleep, just as the sun begins to rise, I tiptoe into the office. I reach for the bottom drawer of my desk and pull out my journal that’s hidden inside an old cookbook. The pages are worn out, untouched for years. But today, I feel compelled to open it. Looking at them feels like stepping into a time machine. Another lifetime. Another me.
September 2006: Ryan looked at me today like I was nothing. He never hit me or anything. But sometimes I wish he had. Maybe it would’ve hurt less than his words. What if he’s right? What if I am nothing? Maybe that’s why my dad left, why my mom barely notices me. Maybe I have superpowers, and I’m invisible. I could leave this place and no one would ever know…
The words begin to blur—not from time, but from the tears splashing onto the page, bleeding into the ink. I blink. More tears fall. Silent. Relentless.
I open a blank page in my journal. And for the first time in years, I reach for my pen.
Where do I begin? Am I still that girl who was hurt, haunted, unsure? Who the hell am I now? My fingers tighten around the pen, and then word by word, I let it all out. Raw and unfiltered.
Twenty years later, and I still feel lost. Still unloved. And Jacob’s words tonight brought it all back. Every hurtful remark. Every reminder of how small I used to feel. I thought I’d buried my past. But it’s still here, refusing to let go. The pain. The self-doubt. The same heavy weight pressing down on me like it never left. Invisible to everyone else. But crushing me all the same.
As the tears fall, so do the words spilling onto the page like a river. But with every sentence, I feel a little lighter. Maybe I need this. Maybe I should do this more often. Maybe for once, I should stop hiding.
Chapter 16: Shattered Reflections
Jenna: November
Another morning, standing in front of the mirror, talking to my reflection. “I am not broken. I am going to be okay.”
I stare at myself: barefaced, no makeup, just me. A line from that self-help book flashes through my mind:Would you talk to your best friend the same way you talk to yourself?
