Free

People look at her, but they never see her. If they do, all they see is a quiet, introverted, terrified, child. All of which she is not. Her friends look upon her with pity. They know she has fallen once again into his trap. He will never love her, they know this, as does she, but she doesn’t care. He holds a small part of her world and almost the entirety of her heart. She has fallen into this spell before. A kind word, a smile, a nod of acknowledgement is all she will ever get from him, but to her, he is perfect. Sometimes, she comes out of her haze, and snaps back to reality. Sometimes when his disinterest becomes abundantly apparent. It doesn’t last long. Soon she is faded into a hazy, love-veiled waltz through life once again. She builds him up in her mind. Creates a super hero of sorts that could ride in and save her from her problems and whisk her off her feet. But usually, he is her only problem.
She has a happy life. Loving parents. Many friends. As any other teenage girl, she has her spells of arguments and embarrassment and loneliness and anger, but her life is far from broken. It’s rather whole, in fact. But her mind is her greatest enemy. She can’t stop thinking. Even if it’s becoming destructive. She plots and imagines and daydreams her days away and often finds him in the middle of her make-believe turmoil. She asks herself the riddle: how can he save me from himself? And she tunes back into reality. She goes on a binge of hateful thoughts and comments to convince herself of his worthlessness. He hasn’t done anything wrong. It just makes it easier for her to unstitch herself from him if she can feign anger. In reality, he hardy knows she exists. In reality, he is blameless. His imaginary faults are her own.

After her fictitious anger comes tangible sorrow. Fits of tears and nights of silent sobbing accompany her broken heart. She cannot help it. She is fragile in her love for him. She is weak and the unstitching process might just break her heart irreparably.

She realizes, for a final moment that he is not good for her. Now, she moves on, completely. His name is not her first thought every morning. His smile is not the last thing she sees in her head every night. Her heart no longer stops when someone mentions his name. She sees him around their tiny town and hardly realizes. Though her heart is not whole, it is no longer crushed or crumbling. Her world is once again turning and the sun shines once more upon her smile. She is free.