Promise until the end

•~Epilogue~•

(Notice: TW)

October 1993

Don't ask me how I got here.
Laying on the floor, watching the raindrops hit the window before disappearing out of sight. The darkness of the room brought me peace and I could finally try to sort things out in my head.
Everything was so messed up and everyday, I felt like my heart was being crushed even more, but for some reason, I didn't do anything about it. I just laid on the ground, hoping time would heal my wounds.
But it didn't.
I laid there for hours, and still nothing.
Everyone betrayed me. The person I loved the most, the person I'd take a bullet for, my best friend, took away the only person who ever cared for me. The only person who made me get up everyday. Therefore, I don't see why I should get up this time.
My family is slowly fading and always told me how disappointing and how unworthy of a daughter I am.

"Dienne, I  don't see why we still keep a seat at the table for you."
Alright, dad.

"I can't even call you my daughter anymore"
Alright, mom.

"No man will want a dirty, lazy woman like you. You'll end up alone, as always."
Alright, little sister.

As tears rolled down my cheeks, I remember wondering,

"This time, it's the end for me.
Everyone left me. I'm worthless. Family and friends abandoned me
Maybe it ends here. But it's okay, no? I've had an okay life. I shouldn't be complaining, people had it worse than me, right?"

But deep down, I didn't want my story to end like this, so I went ti the river, to try to clear up my mind and find motivation to keep going, which was something impossible for me at the time.
Because I was lonely. Not alone, lonely. There is a difference.
I was empty on the inside. All I did was cry and wait for everything to end and get fixed somehow. I stopped trying to fix my relationship with my family because it's not worth it. I could die right now, and they wouldn't care. I shouldn't be here. I was a mistake, and I don't deserve to live.
I used to think that if I just got out of their lives, it'll get all better for them. "Because I'm in the wrong, no?". That's what I've been told since I'm a kid, so it's probably true, I suppose.

Every day was the same. I woke up and stayed in my bed all day. It had been days since I washed my teeth or brushed my hair. I just don't have the strength to do so. I'm running out of energy, and I can't even tell when it's day or night, since every hour of every day is the same. I just wait, laying in my bed, that time heals everything for me. Maybe in the end, I really am a worthless piece of shit that deserves everything that happens to her. I guess it's the consequences of being trouble to my parents, as they always told me.
I should probably... get out of their life's.
And now that the shitty person I used to call my "For-lifer" took away my boyfriend, the only one who cared for me and the one that kept me alive, I'm completely lonely and lost.

I should probably get out of everyone's life in the end and apologize to them beforehand for all the trouble I might have caused them.
"If they hate me so much, they must have a reason."

But I was wrong.

And so, that was how I gathered all my strength to get back up and walk to the river.
When I got there, I sat on a rock and contemplated the water, clear as a crystal, following the flow and going away after a few seconds as raindrops fell in.

I was thinking, as I took some water in my hand and watched it fall back down, leaving a cold feeling in my palm: "For my end, I'd like to die in the water, with the river taking me away. Far away from here"

And that's when my life changed.

I felt a light tap on my shoulder and instantly turned around. I'm not used to meeting people here in such bad weather.

But there was this guy, his eyes were red, puffy and wet. And not because of the rain.
What he told me made a hole in my heart. I felt sorry for him, and I remember thinking he never should have felt so shitty like this.

His voice was cracking, as if he was holding a huge amount of tears and pain back, an amount of tears that could fill the river to the top.
I honestly wished he did that. I wished he could let all his tears and pain out in the river so that the flow of it takes away, never letting it come back to him.
Instead, he simply asked me;

"You are thinking the same thing as me,right?"

It took me a second to process what he just said. How did he know?
Before I could answer, he said with a soft voice;

"I was thinking about it too. But now that I met someone feeling the same way as me, I don't want to do it. So..may I hug you?"

I was in deep shock, wondering how someone with a heart as sweet as him could get treated so badly.
As he noticed my silence and my eyes getting shiny and full of tears, he added:

"....please?"

I didn't answer back, just held him tightly in my arms as soon as he opened his mouth, because I knew how it felt like being alone, crying and cold, thinking in desperation of a way to make it all go back to normal. But all those efforts are in vain, until you realize there is no way out, except wait.
And that's what's horrible: you never know when your pain, no matter how horrible it is, you don't know when it'll end.

So I hugged him tightly, really tightly, as if I wanted to squish his sadness out of his heart, and that was the first time I hugged someone in a while. It brought a little sparkle to my heart. As if it was a sign of life to tell me that I still had a reason to keep going, even if plenty of people abandoned me and betrayed me. At that moment, I felt so happy to have a new reason to keep going that I thought: "I was wrong. My life won't end today"

His hug was the best I've ever had. It warmed me up from the coldness of the rain and gave me hope, the hope I needed to make it through another day.

To this day, I'd go through all this suffering again if it meant for me to meet Maxwell.