The Way I Used to Be (The Way I Used to Be, #1)

by Amber Smith

And now I know, for sure, it happened. It actually happened.

Because he was right, no one would ever believe me. Of course they wouldn’t. Not ever.

His fingerprints not only all over every inch of me, but all over everything: this house, my life, the world—infected with him.

I pray, pray harder than I’ve ever prayed in my life. To somehow undo this. To just wake up, and have it be this morning again, except this time nothing would have happened last night.

I feel like I might just fall asleep and not wake up—in fact, I almost hope I do.

And I’m trying so hard to just go back to my life. The way it used to be. The way I used to be.

“It’s true. Just because someone has always been seen as this incredible person—this hero—it doesn’t mean that’s the truth. Or that’s who they really are,” I say.

And I really wonder how people get to be normal like this. How they just seem to know what to say and do, automatically.

I go into my room to get changed, careful not to stare too hard at the fading gray bruises that still line my thighs. Careful not to dwell too long on the bruises on my hip bones and ribs. They’ll be gone soon, anyway.

I feel like I’ve gone off somewhere else, like I’ve just sort of slipped into this other realm. A world that’s a lot like the real world, except slightly slower. This alternate reality where I’m not quite in my body, not quite in my mind, either—it’s this place where all I do is think about one thing and one thing only.

“Are you really okay?” I nod, even though I’m not sure if I am—if I ever will be.

Why do I feel like after all this time I still can’t tell her, that even she wouldn’t believe me, or that if she did, that she would somehow blame me?

Why do I feel like, sometimes, I have no one in the entire world who knows me in even the slightest, most insignificant way?

All you have to do is act like you’re normal and okay, and people start treating you that way.

“Scared of what? It’s Joshua Miller—this is a great thing, Edy.” I just shrug. Because I can’t tell her exactly what I mean. And I know she wouldn’t be able to understand even if I could.

“You’re a very hard person to find, you know that?” someone says, suddenly very close to me. I turn around. I almost can’t believe it. It’s him. Josh.

I wish I could somehow make him understand that I want to say no as much as I want to say yes.

I am afraid. But in this other way, I’m also more afraid of being afraid. Afraid of not doing it too. Afraid that maybe I would be too afraid to ever do it. That Kevin would continue to control me in these ways I had never even dreamed of.

And suddenly the thought of having someone else there in place of him is something I required-wanted-needed, in the most severe of ways. And I don’t really care who, anyone else at all will do. This guy, Josh, he’s good enough. He did, after all, pick me a weed.

Normal, be normal, I tell myself. This is different.

I wouldn’t be strong enough to stop him and no one would even know because we’re here all alone and how the hell did I get here again? What was I thinking?

I want to tell him I was confused too. I want to tell him how happy I am to see him, how thankful I am he’s not looking at me the way everyone else has been looking at me today. But I can’t admit that. I have to be sure and strong and solid because there’s something about him—I don’t know what, exactly—that makes me want, so badly, to be vulnerable.

I, too, look down at my body. But all I can see is just one huge, gaping wound that somehow seems to still hurt everywhere sometimes.

stop him before he can finish. “Don’t say anything.” Because whatever he thinks I am, I’m not. And whatever he thinks my body is, it isn’t. My body is a torture chamber.

Hideous things have happened here, it’s nothing to talk about, nothing to comment on, not out loud. Not ever. I won’t hear it. I can’t.

I am alive. I did it. I’m okay.

Sometimes he uses his words like weapons to chip away at my icy exterior and sometimes he can break through to the slightly defrosted layer beneath. But then again, sometimes he just hits solid iceberg. For instance, he knows what he’s doing when next he says, “And you should smile more too.” I look away, embarrassed. He has no way of knowing how sometimes it physically hurts to smile. How a smile can sometimes feel like the biggest lie I’ve ever told.

And I’m terrified he’ll see through the tough iceberg layer, and he’ll discover not a soft, sweet girl, but an ugly fucking disaster underneath.

Quietly, almost inaudibly, he whispers, “I love you.” His big secret. I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I can and pretend not to hear—pretend not to care.

“Baby, don’t—” he says softly. “Look, I know. It’s okay, come here.” He pulls me into him, and I let my body fall against his side. And I don’t even care who sees us right now. I just hold on to him as hard as I can. Everything that’s been coming between us seems to dissolve, and for once I don’t feel like a complete liar. For once I feel calm, safe. Terrifyingly safe.

Why am I not screaming? Why am I not screaming-running-fighting for my life?

And I kneel there on the other side of the door that might as well be the other side of the galaxy, feeling so empty, so dead inside.

And her big secret is really not such a huge deal anymore. It was all so long ago now, it practically never even happened.

And me, well, before it was like you had the girl and then you had the rumors about the girl, but now there’s only the girl, because the rumors aren’t just rumors anymore, they’re the reality—they are the girl.

I look in his eyes and I see now what the girl couldn’t then: that this is the moment. He had been thinking about it for some time and was pretty sure, I could tell, but this was the moment he knew not only that he would do it, but that she would let him get away with it.

I try to whisper in the girl’s ear: “Edy, get up. Just lock your door. That’s all you need to do. Lock your door, Edy, please!” I shout, but the girl doesn’t hear me. It’s too late.

“Edy, get up. Just lock your door. That’s all you need to do. Lock your door, Edy, please!” I shout, but the girl doesn’t hear me. It’s too late.

They’re trying—I give them credit for that. I just can’t anymore. It’s too hard.

And I have this smile on my face, but it’s all wrong because there’s this look in my eyes—this dull, dead darkness. Like something is missing.

But I don’t feel better, I feel empty, empty and broken, still.

Screaming because I still feel like I’m back there, always back there, in my heart I’m still that girl.

But, did I do it too? I listened to him, I kept my mouth shut, and then he went and did it again, to someone else.

It made sense to me, of course. He needed to make her feel worthless, needed to control her, needed to hurt her, needed to leave her powerless.

And something like glass shatters. Shatters inside of you, and the tiny slivers of this horrible thing splinter off and travel through your veins, beelining it straight to your heart.

I always promised myself that if only someone would ask, if someone would only ask the right question, I would tell the truth. And now it’s here. It could be over in one syllable. I open my mouth. I want to say it. Yes. Yes. I try to make a sound. Yes. Say it! But my mouth is so dry, I can’t.

Only one sound pierces through the veil of static: No one will ever believe you no one will ever believe you no one will ever believe you.

I had been waiting for three years for somebody, anybody, to say those magic words. And I’ve already let the opportunity pass me by once—when it really mattered—I can’t do it again. My whole body goes tingly. I panic that I might pass out again. And I hear my voice, smaller than usual, “Yes. Something really bad happened.”

I move it toward him, along with every last shred of trust and faith and hope I have.

He has the word. It’s out there. He has it—my secret. The truth. I can’t ever take it back now. Can’t lie it away. I close my eyes, wait for him to say it, to say the word, to say something. But he doesn’t. I force my eyes open and I look at him, looking at me. I can’t read his face.

I look around. The Earth is still intact. I’m still alive. The floor didn’t open up and swallow me whole. I haven’t spontaneously combusted. I don’t know what I thought would happen if I told, if I let that that one word exist, but I didn’t expect nothing to happen. Everything is just as it was.