Friday, 22nd of September

I was alone.

Everyone left me.

My friends didn't contact me in weeks, Dad had to work every day, and even Mom, who promised to stay home with me, suddenly had to leave for a business trip for two days. She never said anything about that, and then today in the morning she told me that she had to leave. It's obvious that she had enough of staying home just to cook and take care of someone like me. It's understandable that she would go on a vacation instead.

And Alma, although she told me many times that she would never leave me, was at her mother's place today. I was sure Alma was also getting tired of pushing me around in my wheelchair and not being able to enjoy any physical activities. I saw her doing some exercise now and then, which explained why she suddenly gained some strength and could lift me to get me into my wheelchair. But that was also something she couldn't enjoy together with me... why would she stay here? She could move to her mother, who she hadn't seen in a decade, so there was really no reason for her to be at my side.

I was so lonely. Sitting in my wheelchair in the middle of my room, staring into nothingness.

I just wanted for someone to be by my side. I wished for Alma to cuddle with me, Ida to tell one of her inappropriate jokes and Quinn to tell her how stupid she was. I wanted to work out with the cheer girls, Mom to check on me, and Dad to tell me that everything would be alright again.

"Just anyone... talk to me..." I sobbed with tears running down the side of my face. But I didn't want to bother anyone, I would just annoy whoever I'd contact. For the past days, I had been thinking about calling Quinn and Ida, but I needed to stop myself. They were way better off without me, and it would be egoistic to force the handicapped me into their lives. Almost subconsciously I took out my phone and started typing a text to Ida and Quinn.

My fingers moved like on their own, the text on the screen reading "I know that I am only a hindrance to you like this, so I want to say goodbye to you. I had been hoping all this time to finally be contacted by you, but I need to accept that there is no reason for you to do that. It was nice having such good friends as long as it lasted."

If I sent that, I'd free myself from that decision. I'd be released from thinking about my friends all the time. I wouldn't miss them anymore. I was holding my phone in both of my hands, tears dripping on the screen. My thumb was shaking, and as much as I was trying to, I couldn't press send.

I didn't know what to do. I was losing it. Unable to find an answer, I just screamed and threw my phone across the room and against the wall. I hated myself, my body, my legs. Why wouldn't they move? Everything would be alright if I could get up and walk away. I'd just need to get up... and walk.

As I thought that in my desperate state of mind, I tried getting up from my wheelchair, pushing myself up with all my might. My body moved upwards, lifted solemnly by the force of my arms. My legs didn't carry me, and when the wheelchair suddenly gave in, it toppled over, and my only support was gone.

I fell to the ground, and although I knew that I hit my knees on the ground, I couldn't feel a thing. I couldn't believe how much I hoped to feel pain. I actually missed feeling pain.

I kept lying on the ground, desperately crying. After a while, I started crawling into the bathroom which was right beside me and got into the shower. I took the showerhead and turned the water on, as hot as possible. I could feel the metal of the showerhead heating up and burning my hand, but my legs, which I was directing the water at, didn't feel a thing. I groaned from the pain in my palm, but at the same time cried from the desperation of wanting to feel pain.

"Why... why can't I feel anything?" I cried while sitting in the boiling hot water. I wanted to give up and just keep sitting there when I noticed the pair of scissors on the counter. Until then, I would have never thought that something like that would even cross my mind, but at that time, I was holding the pair of scissors in my hand before I even noticed it.

"Please... move..." I sobbed while gripping the scissors and sliding the blade sideways over my right thigh. It took some force to cut through the skin, but eventually, I could see the still running water carry hints of blood into the drain.

But that didn't give me any satisfaction. I didn't feel a thing. It only made me even more desperate.

"Why!? Why don't you work like you should!?" I yelled at myself while still crying. I once again pressed the blade against my skin, making a slightly bigger cut right beneath the previous one.

The water had slight hints of red again, and I was sure I was losing my mind. I gripped the scissors and made one more cut, pressing very hard against my skin, yelling, "Do something! Move! Please! I don't want to lose my friends! Like this even Alma will leave me, I know it! Just fucking mooove!"

I was about to make another cut when suddenly someone gripped my arm and screamed, "Brea stop! Please stop!"

I looked up with tears streaming from my eyes and saw Alma crying while she took away the pair of scissors and turned off the hot water, immediately switching it to cool water instead.

"Please don't hurt yourself! I have so many scars and couldn't do anything against it, and you know how much I hate them! Why would you scar your beautiful and perfect body yourself!? If you had continued this, you might have bled to death! What were you thinking?" yelled Alma directly to my face.

She rushed to a drawer where a first aid kit was at and started aiding my wounds. She applied disinfectant ointment and took a towel to apply pressure to the cuts. She sat down beside me, crying a lot while pressing on my thigh.

"I could never leave you... Brea, I love you, you are my everything. You were the one to save me that day, and now I am here to save you. I was alone in the rain, wet, just like you right now. But instead of boiling myself, I was freezing in the cold, and I had nowhere to go. If it wasn't for you, I could have been long dead. But that isn't everything. You were the first one to be nice to me and mean it. You showed me so many things that I didn't know... There is no one and nothing in this world I would leave you for, I promise," said Alma with tears rolling down her face.

"I... I'm so sorry..." I sobbed, "I feel so useless... I'm just holding you and the people around me back... I want you to be happy, and I... I thought that you won't be satisfied if you have to drag me along..."

Alma checked if the bleeding on my leg got better and then put two big bandages on it because one wasn't enough for the big wound. When she was done with that, she hugged me tightly and said, "P-Please never do that again. Promise me, that you will never do something like this again. If you feel sad or depressed, talk to me. I will always be there for you."

"I promise..." I replied and cooled my legs down some more before drying myself off using a towel. After wiping away her tears, Alma picked me up in a princess-style carry and brought me to our bed.

"Before, I was the one to carry the weak you... and now I'm being carried instead... I don't like being the weak one, I want people to depend on me... else it feels like they don't need me," I admitted.

"I need you. Now and forever. I'm more dependent on you than anything. Without you, I could never be happy again," Alma reassured me and took my phone, which now had a shattered screen, and put it on the bedside table.

"I-I read what you wrote when I entered the room, is that true? They d-didn't contact you a single time?" asked Alma and I shook my head in response. Alma laid down beside me and cuddled me very tightly, continuing, "I'm sorry for leaving you today. I had noticed you crying at night sometimes, but I didn't realize it was this bad. I should have stayed by your side."

"It's fine... thank you... for everything," were the last words I said before I fell asleep. And that afternoon led to my first night of good sleep in many days.

Saturday, 23rd of September

I was woken up by my door slamming open and a few voices yelling, "Good morning sunshine! It's time to get up, you slept through the whole damn day."

When I opened my eyes, I saw Quinn and Ida as they took a bikini out of my closet and tried to put it on me.

"What is going on!?" I asked loudly while defending myself from the girls who had ignored me for weeks.

"We are having a party!" answered all the cheer girls who were standing in the hallway in unison.

I couldn't defend myself because I only had my arms, so eventually, I just gave up and let the girls put the bikini on me. I was sure they weren't doing anything mean, I was rather hoping that it was their twisted way of apologizing. Although a conventional apology with a good reasoning would have a better effect. While I was still thinking about all that, the girls were already carrying me downstairs.