If I Stay✔️

1

L E O

Depression was consuming.

It factored in every thought, every feeling or lack of, every smile, every conversation.

Everything.

When the doctors came to the conclusion that I was depressed, it never came as a surprise to me. Deep down, I'd always known that something wasn't right.

Along the way of trying to cure myself, I fell deeper into darker struggles.

It had been two years since my diagnosis; two whole years and yet, nothing had changed.

If anything, things had only gotten worse.

The voices in my head, the ones I kept to myself and never share with others, manifested. They taunted me daily. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't rid of them; every moment, they were there.

Always.

I craved silence, there was nothing I wanted more than for my mind to just be quiet. I thought it was a simple request. But, in my life it seemed like nothing could ever be simple.

I made thoughtless choices that led to mistake after mistake, after mistake. Choices made to please everyone but myself. Choices I now know would have never helped in the first place.

I was naive, and innocent, and so fucking lost.

I wore my heart on my sleeve, something he used to his own advantage. He groomed me, gained my trust and manipulated my, then, thirteen year old self.

I wish I could turn back the clock and stop myself from believing him so easily.

But he's your friend.

He was my friend, or, I thought he was. I thought he was everything, that I needed him
in order to be normal, that he could help me, save me...

I trusted him.

And now, because of him, I'm even more lost than I was in the beginning.

More damaged.

-

"Are you listening to me?"

I blinked out of my daze, my eyes now focusing on Charlie's concerned expression.

Truthfully, in the forty-five minutes I'd been sitting in this chair, I hadn't heard a word of what he'd said to me. I was struggling to focus on anything other than the chaos going on inside my head.

"Sorry," I mumbled, rubbing my tear ducts with my thumb and pointer finger, trying to rid of the exhaustion. "You were saying?"

Leaning his elbows on the desk between us, Charlie sighed and rested his chin on his hands, peering down at me with his dark, butterscotch gaze.

"I asked how you've been doing," he repeated. "You seem to be zoning out a lot today. Is everything okay?"

"Mhm," I hummed. "Everything's fine."