Chapter 39: 36

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

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2022

Once again, like the incredibly non-confrontational person that I was, I casually emptied my stomach's entire contents into a toilet. At least my body had given me the grace of holding on until I'd stormed into a campus bathroom, saving me from the mortal humiliation of publicly vomiting before lunch, but being this nauseous over one stressful conversation didn't strike me as a good omen of things to come.

I knew I'd gone too far. Regardless of whether I'd hurt Savannah's feelings or not—I suspected I had, though she'd had no qualms about hurting mine—I'd taken things to a level I shouldn't have, and the odds of having screwed myself over and ruined Chase's life and career rose the longer I allowed myself to ruminate over it.

Being mean to Savannah had never done me any good, guilt aside, yet I couldn't comprehend why my brain simply refused to learn its lesson. It would always come back to haunt me in some way, not necessarily identical in all of its iterations, but the common factor was always present. This time, it involved someone else, the one person I'd been trying to protect for the past three and a half years, and I wondered how deserving of forgiveness I'd be then.

Most of the time, whenever Savannah and I argued, I could justify my actions by turning them into reactions, like she had somehow provoked me, like I was doing something right. The frat party had been a perfect example of that, with her refusing to do anything to help me or Ingrid and making it all about herself, with her trying to make me feel like I was losing my mind when I was certain I'd seen the guys on campus weeks later. In my head, I'd had every right to be angry at her, to want her to feel some remorse for how she'd made me feel, and it had always been about the two of us, sometimes Ingrid. We'd kept it inside the privacy of the four walls encasing our apartment.

Scorching hot fury flared within me and all I wanted to do was scream, the same emotion I'd been feeling ever since I'd gotten unceremoniously dumped, but that was the only thing left inside me. It wasn't just because of the unwavering nausea, but I was feeling so achingly, unbearingly empty that I found it hard to care about anything else. I knew I had to do something else with my time and mental energy else I'd lose whatever little sanity I had left in me, though I was so stuck in my ways I couldn't sail away without fearing I'd drown.

I'd screwed up.

No layers of powdered sugar or heartfelt apologies would fix a damn thing—not with Savannah, and certainly not with Chase. I'd been so exhilarated, so proud of myself for being chosen for once in my life, for feeling deserving of love, for being seen by someone who could have anyone they wanted and had still reached out a warm hand towards me. I'd had everything I ever wanted and had found a way of spoiling it.

I'd made plenty of big, sometimes even heartbreaking mistakes in my life whenever I allowed my emotions to get the better of me, and I was supposed to reel it in when it came to other people's lives. I couldn't take anything back now and assuming Savannah would either forget about it or simply let it go was pathetic wishful thinking, so I had to put on my big girl panties and face the consequences of every word that had poured out of my stupid mouth. I was worse than a child with no self-control, as I was way past the age of not doing stuff like that.

A storm was rolling outside, the sky growing darker by the minute, and the incandescent white lights in the bathroom only made me look sicker than I felt. It showcased how truly rotten to the core I was, and my external appearance was finally catching up to the state of my insides—I was all moldy and decomposing, with muscles that barely held me up and bones that couldn't withstand the harshest upstate winters. My skin was flaky, frost clinging to the tips of my nails and the ends of my eyelashes, and not in the delicate morning dew kissed the surface of the leaves.

So much for being beautiful. What good had it ever brought me? What good would it bring me now that I'd lost everything I ever cared about?

There were other people in the bathroom then and, though no one even glanced my way, like I had successfully blended in with the wall behind me, my paranoia still had me convinced they knew the truth. If they did, they would've noticed me immediately, ceasing the whispering gossip, but eavesdropping for a few seconds informed me they weren't even film students, and probably didn't know who Chase even was. It was a big college, after all, and I would never matter that much to anyone, not even while being my parents' daughter. They enjoyed the spotlight and would go to great lengths to ensure their best angles were on display, whereas I had no good angles and would much rather not be caught in the limelight.

Even when I wanted to matter, even when I wanted to be wanted, it simply wasn't in the cards for me.

Though I hadn't spelled it out to Savannah, ensuring I highlighted my professional, academic relationship with Chase instead of letting it become personal, she'd been correct when she pointed out I'd gotten defensive. I didn't know how to not be defensive about it, a fatal flaw that had coincidentally ruined my entire relationship, but I thought I'd been doing the right thing all along.

That overly defensive posture I'd adopted had made Chase feel suffocated, had alerted my parents about something being amiss and had made them feel the need to warn him to stay away from me, and I lost him. He'd have to run away to Los Angeles after my inability to be normal and adequate had ruined everything for him.

My heart ached—for myself, for him, for us. For everything I could never get back.

I couldn't even will my old self to return because I didn't know who that was, and I didn't want to know her. I'd left her behind for a reason, left her without bidding farewell, and she had to stay buried for the sake of my present and future well-being. If I was miserable now, I'd have been even worse years ago, with no identity beyond the Romero last name, with no place to call home, with no one to hold or to hold me. Now, I'd lost all of those things after having taken them for granted, and was slowly returning to that weak, pathetic version of myself I despised.

The version of myself I'd grown into after meeting Chase wasn't that much better, admittedly, and she'd done nothing but lie, sneak out, and manipulate everyone around her for nearly four years, but she'd also developed a semblance of a backbone, and she'd learned. She'd grown and matured, albeit not enough—I'd always be too young for him, both in age and in emotional maturity—and had even started to believe in herself and in her potential just a small bit. A minuscule one, so unsteady it could be—and had been—knocked aside by the slightest breeze or inconvenience, and it reminded me I'd always be a scared little girl at my core.

All my deepest, darkest fears blended together now that I had no one to help me push past them or see through the thick fog. There was no guiding light, no beckoning hand at the fork on the road where the woods opened into a clearing. Now that I'd lost Chase, I could see he'd also taken all my illusions with him—everything about myself I thought was good and desirable, the belief that I'd know what to do without him, my sense of self-worth.

I wished he'd died instead. It was horrible to even think, let alone to admit aloud—not that I would, even if there was anyone in my life I could talk to about the breakup—but it was true.

If he'd died, I could simply walk out of this place and know I would never run the risk of running into him again, allowing all our memories to resurface and lead me to believe there was anything remotely fixable. With him being gone but not dead, still technically within reach but untouchable, more than ever, I would go on missing him, his warmth, in ways my mind couldn't begin to fathom. Regret washed over me every time I thought about him, about us, and I could almost lie to myself and think I could've defeated every single obstacle keeping us apart, even when the problem was me.

With him dead, grief would be an extension of the love I'd forever have for that man, but I would learn to live around that. With him alive, he'd always be a permanent ghost that wouldn't stop haunting me, wrecking me repeatedly until there was nothing left of me to salvage. There would come a time when I wouldn't be able to pick myself up from the floor anymore, not after having pushed away everyone who could have helped me out in my time of need, and it would just be myself and my hopeless pain.

That was the thing about girlhood, I supposed. You'd be losing everything dear to you for the sake of momentary happiness, and some of those losses would be worth it in the end. You called them sacrifices for the greater good.

Then, you'd also lose yourself and the love of your life and neither of them would ever say goodbye. You'd just have to deal with it and the heartache, whether they had chosen you over everyone else or not. Good memories wouldn't save you; they'd just keep on weighing heavily on your mine.

That was the thing about girlhood. You'd realize you'd always be left behind.

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I spent the remainder of the month of February with a permanent knot in my chest, unable to unwind it even when I tucked myself into bed at night. Even with March creeping right around the corner, promising slightly warmer temperatures as spring inched closer, an abnormal cold got ahold of me, seeping deep into my bones, and I fully lost whatever little motivation I had to leave the apartment.

Naturally, I knew my academic career would suffer. I was lucky to have a laptop and professors who still saw some potential in me, like I hadn't completely destroyed my reputation and their trust even while not caring about anyone else that wasn't Chase or any course that wasn't Film Theory, and they understood I was in no state to attend my lectures. I wasn't amused by the validation, not the way I should be; I hated admitting how miserable I felt, but it was even worse when it transpired into my physical appearance and made me look utterly defeated.

Not seeing the sun in months had taken its toll on me, along with all the stress brought by every event in my life (that sometimes felt like they'd been pulled straight out of a dramatic TV show, with how over the top they'd been), so I knew it would only be a matter of time before I began to look like a trainwreck, but it didn't make it any easier to deal with.

Having been brought down to this point over a breakup was humiliating to admit—not that I could talk about it, anyway—and, as horrid of a person as it made me, I'd stopped fighting the assumptions that I was depressed. I knew I wasn't and, much like Savannah, I was more than able to scroll down a list of symptoms and call myself an expert, so, as long as I ignored some alarming signs, I knew I was in the clear in the depression department. I was under the weather, whatever, but people around me were surprisingly open minded and accepting, so they didn't push for an elaboration regarding the causes of my apathy and lethargy. They knew it happened, knew it was a formative experience for most college students. It was easy to blame it on senioritis.

Literary fiction writers would probably wax poetic about my life, but nothing about it felt glamorous or beautiful to me, the person actually trying to survive the heartbreak. I'd promised myself I'd never be the type of girl who would ever allow herself to hit rock bottom because of a guy, but even that had been the target of rational justifications to help me feel better about how idiotic I was being.

It was the quintessential girlhood experience, after all. While I begged to be believed, while I begged to be seen, accepted, and loved, I'd also pushed away everyone else who could have given me those things, including my past self. I was paying heavily for the consequences of all my actions and decisions, internally screaming all the while at myself for having been so stupid, and I couldn't even make it sound minimally appealing on paper by making my senior project about it. I had to distance myself from it, find a way of not giving too many identifying details that would put his reputation at risk, but I still had to make it feel cathartic in a way.

It felt impossible to achieve such a balance between privacy and honesty, and it showed how willing I'd always be to protect him while putting myself in direct danger.

I'd given Chase everything. I'd given my relationship with him every fiber of my being, my energy, my time, my empathy, my respect—all the things any normal, healthy person would've saved for themselves, even partially, I'd given them all to him. It was no wonder I didn't know how to function without him, without his guidance, and my whole world had been turned upside down, so, realistically, I ought to cut myself some slack.

It was what I would tell my friends (friends I didn't have, after having wrecked our relationships to protect Chase) if they were in my shoes, but they had never been in my situation. They wouldn't be caught dead in that situation, as they would never love someone more than life itself and, even if they would, they'd still save some love for themselves just so they wouldn't be left with nothing. I'd lost everything I had, given it all to someone who didn't want any of it, not even the best version of myself I'd mustered, so, at the end of the day, it was all my fault. Had I been enough, had I been good enough, none of this would have happened, and I would still be on my merry way towards happiness.

The time I was wasting being locked in my room was spent bawling my heart out like I was missing an entire portion of it (was I? Or was it just teenage melodrama I'd never gotten to experience during the appropriate period of my life, courtesy of my negligence and abandonment of my girlhood thanks to my obsession with looking, behaving, and feeling older than I was to please people?) or devoted to coursework. If it translated into higher grades and a better understanding of what I wanted to do with my life now that being happy with Chase was no longer an option, like the obsessed little girl that I was, I would almost be thankful for the experience. No matter how hard I worked, no matter how many hours of sleep I was losing over the catastrophe of it all, there seemed to be no remedy for my persistent heartache, for my overwhelming guilt/victim complex, or for my lack of focus and motivation.

My senior project was the only thing moving forward at a relatively steady pace. I'd spend hours writing and revising my screenplay, amazed at how easily the words flowed across my keyboard whenever I was reminded of Chase's blatant disregard for my feelings or general existence. I'd briefly considered switching advisors for the sake of my mental health—or whatever shambles it had been left in, no matter how microscopic—but it was too late in the school year for it to be justified, people would ask unnecessarily invasive questions to try and find that justification, and I couldn't afford to go through my senior year again.

Financially, I could. Emotionally, not so much. Having to present the project to Chase would be horrifying, but I'd fought so hard, done so much to get to where I was—including doing vile things such as destroying my friendship with Savannah—that I couldn't let it all go to waste based on childish discomfort. Everyone felt awkward around a former partner, right?

There had been many times I briefly considered reaching out to my parents and admitting I needed help—their help, specifically. It wasn't their money I was after; it was the particular way only my parents would be able to support and comfort me in a time of need. Once upon a time, we'd had a close enough relationship where I'd feel safe asking for that help and wouldn't have had to second guess everything about that request or obsess over what they'd think of me—if I was too dependent, if I was too needy and immature, why I needed help so badly—but I'd shut them out in a way I thought was irredeemable. I'd broken their trust, in a way, and had accused them of doing it to me, like the manipulator that I was, and admitting the truth would only make it worse.

What would I even tell them? How would I be able to confess to them that I'd spent three and a half years in a relationship with my professor and had hidden it from everyone? How would I remind them once more their concerns hadn't ever had a strong foundation—there were rules in place to protect me, after all, and I would be safe from repercussions in theory if word ever got out—when I clearly wasn't doing fine? Wouldn't they think I'd been foolish and naive by pursuing an unattainable man, even if he had been welcomed into their home with open arms and had given me all the love I'd ever wanted?

It was moments like that, when I reached out for my phone only to toss it aside once I remembered I couldn't even speak to my parents, that made me realize just how deep the isolation had run. Without Chase, I had no one, and I'd dug this hole myself, made my bed and laid in it.

Then, as February slowly dwindled into March and I doubted I'd ever be warm again, living in an eternal paranoid winter, my suspicions that something terrible was about to happen were also coming to fruition.

Ingrid, Savannah, and I had somehow found a routine that made it easier for us to avoid each other, creating a them versus me dynamic for once, one where I wasn't being dragged into choosing a side in a conflict I wanted to have no part in. The fact that they were getting closer should have been cause for celebration, but they were getting closer just to be a united front against me, which I wasn't pleased by, even if we hadn't uttered a word about it—or about anything, really.

A knock on my door disturbed my workflow, which left me snappy enough as is, but then Ingrid's hair peeked inside, platinum hair twisted up into a messy bun I could never pull off as effortlessly well as she did.

"Do you have a second?" she questioned.

"No."

"Tough luck. Meet us in the living room when you can, yeah? We need to talk."

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i know this chapter was a whole load of nothing but in my defense i never promised anyone a plot!!!! there's no plot in this book. just vibes and suffering. xoxo