ReignOrShine
Same. I prefer women. Sometimes I like aliens too. Depends on how much sleep I’ve had & how many tentacles are on offer
BarbieGirlInASh*ttyWorld
Funny. You should be a comedian, dude
ReignOrShine
How old are you, Barbie? I want to know if you’ll understand my memes before I send them.
BarbieGirlInASh*ttyWorld
I’m fifteen. Sixteen in the summer.
ReignOrShine
Oooh, summer birthday. Any fun plans?
BarbieGirlInASh*ttyWorld
Murder, drinking and a little sprinkle of nothing else I can share. You got any fun summer plans?
ReignOrShine
I move in with my older brother. He’s back from deployment soon and he’s decided I’m a fun pet project to entertain himself with. He reckons he can fix me.
BarbieGirlInASh*ttyWorld
Are you broken?
I was. As much as I kept trying to convince myself otherwise, there was nothing about me that was whole anymore. I was just a shell of the girl I had been barely a month ago and no matter how much pretending or wishing otherwise; it wasn’t something I could change. But even the vaguest sign that I wasn’t the only one – that there were other people out there like me – made me feel a thousand times better. Like there was the smallest bit of hope that though I had cried myself to sleep every day so far, perhaps one day in the future I wouldn’t.
One day I could smile or something and actually mean it.
ReignOrShine
Isn’t that why we’re here? We’re both broken. But you know what, dude? It’s far more interesting than being normal. At least that’s what I tell myself each morning I stare into the mirror and force myself to breathe and not jump out of the window (if this chat is being monitored, that was a joke, I am not going to leap out of the window)
BarbieGirlInASh*ttyWorld
Morning affirmations are the way to go, bro. May I also suggest witchcraft – there are certain stonesand plants that are supposed to make you happy. At least I hope they do. I’m currently trying to order enough to turn my room into a protected forest.
ReignOrShine
What plants would you recommend? I’m happy to try anything, even if it turns me into a crazy plant wizard.
The minutes passed with a nonsensical conversation that did a weirdly good job of making me forget that I was alone, until Widow returned with my food. Sure, talking to strangers on the internet was probably a dumb move. But seeing as it was a hospital approved therapy group, I was fairly sure whoever was on the other end of the screen wasn’t a predator or a concern for me. They were a fucked up kid – they were like me. And I could tell them anything. Everything. There was no fear of seeing them in real life, or having to witness the expression on their face when I spilled the pain inside my heart. There was nothing but a typed out reply, a handful of emojis, and a random assortment of memes. There was nothing that tied me to Henley-Jade McCormack.
I could be someone different.
Someone whose family wasn’t all recently dead.
Someone who Rocky had never touched.
Chapter Seventeen
Weeks of the same thing, like a clock stuck ticking when the battery was dying but had just enough juice to irritate you, had been our day to day life. Wake up. Feel like shit. Work on the cars in my case, or other hobbies for the rest of the guys. Feel like shit. Eat something and continue working. Feel like shit once more.
