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

by Amber Smith

To You. To every you who has ever known the feeling of needing new ways to be.

One of them says: A ROOM WITHOUT BOOKS IS LIKE A BODY WITHOUT A SOUL—CICERO.

“Maybe they’re actually a horrible person. And it’s just that no one wants to see him for who he truly is. Everyone would rather just believe the lies and not see all the damage he’s done. And it’s not fair that people can just get away with doing these awful things and never have to pay the consequences.

try to stay close to the wall as we walk. Lately it feels like my skin, just like my mind, has been turned inside out. Like I’m raw and exposed, and it almost hurts to even be brushed up against.

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

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.”

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.

And silence. A lot of silence. I don’t mind. In fact, I’m really beginning to like the silence. It’s become my ally. Things happen in silence. If you don’t let it get to you, it can make you stronger; it can be your shield, impenetrable.

I feel these forbidden thoughts creep in sometimes without warning. Slow thoughts that always start quietly, like whispers you’re not even sure you’re hearing. And then they get louder and louder until they become every sound in the entire world. Thoughts that can’t be undone.

Oh, my heart. Stops. If he only knew the things he was capable of not hearing from the next room.

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.

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. No giant meteors collided with the planet and completely wiped out the entire human race. Dishes still clang in the kitchen, the radio still softly hums the oldies station it’s set to, the people around us continue their conversations. My heart, it’s still beating, and my lungs, I test them, in and out, yes, still breathing. And Josh, he’s still sitting here in front of me.