Petal [h.s.]

FORTY-TWO - MINE TO LOSE

August was slipping away.

It had been a whirlwind of a month and the end of it was approaching rapidly. I expected time to move slowly without Harry, but it flew right past me. I didn't have any time to grieve the loss of him because I was thrust into a romance that hit me like a freight train.

Max.

From our very first date, he went on to take me out nearly every day afterward. Even when his vacation time was up and he left the Wasteland, he'd commute from New York to see me. He'd meet me for coffee in the mornings or come to kiss me on his lunch break. He'd spend his weekends taking me to bookstores, dinners, and movies. He happily lounged in the sun on the beach with me. He followed me around the carnival on the boardwalk, feeding me fried food and cotton candy. He started as a distraction from Harry and quickly turned into much more than I ever anticipated.

Things changed so rapidly. The week after the big explosion on the boardwalk, Finn was moving out and Buffy was moving in. It was the best thing for all of us. I needed space from Finn and Dani. Living with him just wasn't an option after finding out he went behind my back to sleep with my sister. My heart was so broken from that situation that it kept me up at night, just replaying everything all in my head.

It wasn't that I still had feelings for Finn, because I didn't. Harry wiped those out completely. It was just that my sister... my baby sister, who I used to be so close with... she lied to me. Everyone had lied to me. Even Harry, who tried his best to keep me away from Finn by doing everything except telling me the truth.

I always thought that I was a good person, but the amount of bad karma I had received in that short period of time made me second guess that. I had overanalyzed everything I've ever done in my life, trying to categorize all of the bad things in order of severity. It had essentially become my new 'reasons'-instead of reasons to stay alive, it became reasons why I deserve all of this heartbreak.

I stole when I was little. I lied to my dads often. I did drugs as a teen. And in my early 20s. I stole money out of their wallets to feed my addictions. I was ungrateful and impossible. I hurt the people around me by hurting myself. I went back to my abusive ex over and over and over. I did unspeakable things at Apartment X. I slept with a man knowing he has a girlfriend.

It had become a toxic cycle, one that I was trying my best to break out of. It was addicting in a way, to remind myself of all of the bad things I did. I knew I had to stop and rewire my thoughts back to why I deserve good things and reasons to stay alive, but I just couldn't yet. I'd get there with time.

I was grateful to have a friend like Buffy during all of this. Her and River, they kept me sane. They kept me stable, they kept me preoccupied. I was partying more than I generally did, getting high with River and going for drinks with Buffy whenever we decided we deserved a little treat (every weekend).

I knew that I wasn't dealing with the loss of Harry in a healthy way, but it was the only way I knew how. I kept telling myself that it was fine because I had Max, and if Max thought I wasn't doing well, he would say something. He studied me like I was a test that he desperately wanted to pass. He would notice. He would say something.