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

by Amber Smith

alone when I’m with her sometimes? Why do I feel like, sometimes, I have no one in the entire world who knows me in

Most of that hate, though, I save for me. No matter what anyone else did or didn’t do, it was ultimately me who gave them permission. I’m the one who’s lying. The coward too afraid to just stop pretending.

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

The plan was to get better, to feel better, by any means. But I don’t feel better, I feel empty, empty and broken, still. And alone. More alone than ever before. 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. Would anyone care? Would anyone even fucking notice? What if one day I just wasn’t here anymore? What if one day it all just stopped? What if? What if? What if?

By 2:53 it was over. He let go of my arms. It was over, it was over, I told myself.

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.

“He came into my room. It was 2:48—I looked at the clock—by 2:53 it was over,”

All these maybes swimming around my head make me think that “maybe” could just be another word for hope.