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

by Amber Smith

It’s something new, this feeling. Not anger, not sadness, not embarrassment. It burns up everything inside of me, every thought, every memory, every feeling I ever had, and fills itself in the space left vacant.

Because I let them push me around just like I let everyone push me around. I let them make me into a person who doesn’t know when to speak the hell up, a person who gives up control over her life, over her body, over everything. I do what they tell me to do, what everyone tells me to do. Why didn’t they ever teach me to stand up for myself?

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.

I hate that just because you happen to be good at something, people automatically think that’s what makes you happy, but it’s not really like that, you know? It’s not that simple.”

I close my eyes, and try to sink down into this moment a little deeper—into my body, my mind—so deep I can come out the other side and forget how I even got here.

His hands, his arms, can hold the pieces in place temporarily, maybe even for a long time, but he can never truly put them back together. That’s not his job. He’s not the hero and he’s not the enemy and he’s not a god. He’s just a boy. And I’m just a girl, a girl who needs to pick up her own pieces and put them back together herself.