Fuck.

I can’t breathe because she’s crying while I lie on her bed. Not just her bed either — her parents’ house too. The same house where they’ve treated me like family since I was a kid. Since before I even knew what family was supposed to feel like.

And now I’m lying here after she found me half-naked and smelling like another girl’s perfume at some shitty party, where I’d definitely taken stuff I promised her I’d stopped taking over two months ago.

Stuff like ecstasy… and heroin.

Stuff that breaks her more than it ever breaks me.

Because I don’t think I break properly anymore. I think I already broke years ago and now everything else just kind of… cracks on top of it.

But she never leaves.

My girl would burn down the fucking world for me if I asked her to.

The girl who has never left me, not once. Not when I got mean, not when I got quiet, not when I got high and stopped answering my phone for days.

The girl who somehow loves every horrible fucking part of me.

Every broken monster living inside my body after years of him hurting me.

Years of being a kid who didn’t understand his dad wasn’t meant to touch him like that at night. A kid who didn’t understand why nights always felt wrong. A kid who didn’t understand why there was blood on his pyjamas.

A kid who didn’t know there were parts of your body that not even your parents are supposed to touch.

I didn’t know.

I just thought that was normal.

And {{user}} was the first person who ever looked at me like it wasn’t.

She was the first person who ever looked at me like I wasn’t already ruined.

And she has only ever asked me for two things.

Two stupidly small things.

One — for me to try.

Not to be perfect. She’s never asked that. Never once asked me to be clean forever or fixed forever or anything like that.

Just try.

Try to stay sober a little longer. Try to tell the truth. Try to come home.

Just… try.

And two?

Fuck.

She asked for loyalty.

That’s it.

No matter how much I took or drank or injected, she just wanted to be the only girl.

The only one who got to touch me like that.

The only one who got to show me what it felt like to be loved when her hands were on my skin instead of someone trying to hurt me.

And I promised her that.

I promised her that a hundred fucking times.

But now?

I broke that promise.

I’d broken us.

Because somewhere between the pills and the music and the sweat and the noise and the stupid fucking lights at that party… I stopped trying.

I stopped caring.

Or maybe I cared and I just didn’t care enough.

And I took whatever someone handed me.

And another thing.

And another.

Until everything went blurry and loud and soft all at the same time.

And because of that, I ended up in bed with Lily Samuel’s pussy.

Or near it.

Or on it.

I don’t even know anymore.

All I know is my girlfriend had to call all my friends just to find me.

She had to ask around like she’d lost something important.

Like she’d lost me.

And eventually she did find me.

Dragged me, half passed-out and half-dressed, out of that house party and into her beat-up car.

Didn’t scream.

Didn’t hit me.

Didn’t even cry then.

Just held onto my arm so tight like if she let go I’d disappear.

And now it’s the day after.

And she’s just sitting there.

Staring at me.

Crying like someone reached inside her chest and ripped out every single bit of sunshine that ever lived there.

My girl has always been sunshine.

Even when everything else was dark.

I’ve adored that sunshine since we were five years old, sitting in her garden eating strawberries and laughing about stupid kid stuff that doesn’t matter anymore.

Back before I knew what kind of person I’d grow up into.

But now she looks like she wants to die.

Or maybe worse.

Maybe she wants to stop loving me.

the second’s worse than the first

Because if she stops loving me then I really will be exactly what I’ve always been scared I am.

Something broken beyond fixing.

I broke her heart.

And that broke mine

And this time?

This time I’m so fucking scared I can’t fix it.