The Truth About Love

by Maisie Myers

I had some shit to deal with earlier that set me back an hour. I wasn’t expecting to wake up on a Monday morning to my mother passed out cold in the kitchen with vomit in her hair and a half-drunk bottle of merlot trapped in the vice-like grip of her cold hand. She normally remains lucid long enough to make it up the stairs and collapse in her bedroom. I couldn’t leave for school until I’d helped her wash the vomit out of her hair and tuck her into bed. On her side, obviously. Don’t want her choking on her own vomit while my history teacher drones on about the Philadelphia convention. So, Fred can forgive me for being a little late to school.

at all. I just nod my head. This was a bad idea. She doesn’t want me here. Who would be interested in building a friendship with a girl who acts like she hates the world and cuts herself before bed each night? People don’t make friends with people like me.

Because living with the monsters in my head already causes me enough pain without the addition of heartbreak. I’m already too damaged, too corrupted by the evil of clinical depression to expose myself to the danger of falling in love.

“Mental illness doesn’t make you a burden. Only a weak person would think that of you.”

When I climb into bed, the wildflowers he bought for me arranged in a glass of water on the table beside me, I dream of the town’s star quarterback and the taste of citrus on his lips. And it’s the first time in four years that I don’t make myself bleed in order to fall asleep.

It was more like the recognition of souls. Like my soul saw hers and knew instantly that it had found its home.

“What?” “The cuts.” She shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. “They’re old. I haven’t – haven’t, um, added to them in a while. Not since the night you took me to dinner.”

I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street “It’s W H Auden,” he whispers. “Of course, it is.”

So, is it okay, baby? Is it okay that I love you?”

With his confession of love, he has both murdered the old Summer-Raine and given life to a new one. Because, from this moment on, I will forever be the girl who is loved by Auden Wells. And I’ll never be the same again.

We may be young, but your heart knows when it’s found its home.

For the first time ever, Mama struck me during one of her episodes. She started drinking heavily, stopped taking her medication and would scream this awful piercing cry into her pillow at night. It used to terrify me. For a long time, I’d cry alone in my plastic racing car bed, wishing my stuffed toys would come to life and take care of me the way my parents should have been. Every night, it was the same. She’d scream for hours like she was being murdered and I’d sob in petrified silence underneath my covers. Until one day, it just stopped. Not the screaming, but my fear of it.

I will never be my father. And that’s why, despite how broken I am over what she did, I’ve texted Summer-Raine every day since I left her on the sand four days ago. Once in the morning to wish her a good day and once before I go to bed to tell her that I love her. But I miss her so much. It physically hurts to be away from her for so long, but I don’t want to see her until I’ve moved past what happened. Don’t want to risk hurting her with something I could potentially say in anger or without really thinking it through.

I wasn’t such a mess, if I was just a normal, easy teenage girl, then he wouldn’t be here right now crying softly into his hands. All he has ever done is pour his love into me. He cherishes me with every touch, adores me with every caress of his fingers and brush of his lips over mine. He loves me with an unconditionality that I’m not worthy of. And there is no one

Because if I’ve learnt anything from this it’s that sometimes to truly love someone you have to let them go.

Over the years, I’ve learned how to better hide my scars. If he started asking to see the soles of my feet, he’d confiscate the razor in my bathroom.

:(

“It doesn’t matter how much time passes between us, if you need me, I will always come for you.”

“Don’t you see? All I do is hurt you and all you do is try to piece me back together. It’s why I left. It’s why you and I can never be together.” Fuck, she’s right. It’s the first time I’ve truly accepted it. How could we ever be together when our relationship is centred around me trying to fix her?

thought doing so would make me weak. But maybe all this time I’ve been wrong. Maybe the weak thing would be to let the love of my life go again because I’m too damn proud to admit that I need help. Maybe finally admitting that I’m not okay is actually the brave thing.

“But you said that you can’t imagine anything worse than being locked in a place full of pyschos and crazies.” Yeah, I did say that. Word for word. “I was wrong.” I cup his face in my hand and he leans into my touch. “Nothing could be worse than losing you.” He blinks, tears of his own swelling in his eyes. They spill over and run delicate tracks down his rugged face. “You’d really do that?” I nod. “I’d do anything if it meant finally getting to love you the way you deserve.”

“Pretty girl, listen to me. There is no one else in this world for me but you. It has always been you. And I will wait as long as you need me to until you show up on my doorstep and tell me its time. I’ll wait forever, baby. Forever.”

Mental illness isn’t a choice. No one wakes up one morning and chooses to be depressed. I certainly never wrote ‘depression’ on my Christmas wish list, but I was gifted it nonetheless.

It’s not my condition that was the problem, but how I dealt with it. Having depression didn’t make me any less deserving of Auden’s love, but the way I treated him did.

Because it isn’t Auden standing there with open arms ready to welcome me home, it’s Cara with hatred on her face and a sparkling diamond on her finger. Her ring finger. I turn on my heel and run, white hot pain searing through me like lava, burning me alive from the inside out. All the ways I imagined this moment could go, his ex-girlfriend opening the door was not one of them.

Fuuuuuuuuck

“Loving you was never the hard part, Summer-Raine. That’s always been as easy to me as breathing. It was never a choice or a decision I made. I fell in love with you because my heart didn’t know how to do anything else. Loving you was the only thing that ever made any sense to me.

“Don’t you dare say that, Summer.” She looks at me furiously, shaking her head. “Don’t you dare let a guy be the reason you lose all the progress you’ve made. He may have been the motivation but you didn’t go for rehab just for him, did you? You went for you. Please don’t let this ruin you. You’re stronger than that, I know you are.”

I rest my hip on the side of the doorframe and look up at him with seething eyes. He scrubs a trembling hand down his face, before pushing past me and into my apartment. I watch as he takes in the setup, the candles and the cushions and the wine. And then, with no warning, he picks up one of the glasses and hurls it at the wall. The resulting smash is ear-splitting. But I don’t flinch. I’m used to it anyway. The sound of a breaking heart is remarkably similar and I’ve heard it enough that I’m desensitized. I’m frozen in place by the door as Auden claws at his hair and roars as he falls to his knees. “She’s pregnant.”

FUCK FUCKKKKKK

“Classy.” She rolls her eyes. “Well, what did you expect? I’m a woman, Auden. I have needs. And God forbid you’d ever be down for a fuck, we haven’t even consummated the marriage yet.” Her hands snap to cover her mouth as if she’s just said something she shouldn’t. “Of course, we have,” I snap. “You’re pregnant.” And then I see it. The blush of panic on her cheeks, the glint of deceit in her eyes, both are a blinding indication of the truth.

“I was scared,” Cara cries, seemingly having realised the game is up. “It was a one-night stand and I didn’t know what to do. I knew you were going to ask for a divorce that night and I panicked. You were always such a good daddy to Oscar, you loved him so much and in the months that he was alive, you didn’t even seem to resent me that much. We were almost like a real family, you know? And I knew that you’d love this baby too, that you’d do the right thing and stand by us. So, I made you think that we’d slept together.”

Bitch omg fuck

guess the world fell in love with our story, with the girl who had monsters in her head and the boy with a hero complex. The soulmates who were fated but could never quite get things right.