Gaslighter

35

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬

2022

          I was fine. I would be fine.

          I said those words and repeated them so many times I feared I would lose my voice, but the emotional exhaustion was far worse to deal with, so I ultimately went silent. I put up with Ingrid and Savannah's endless hovering while the gash across my forearm was cleaned and stitched back up, like that would stitch me back up, but my wounds went deeper than that. It wasn't something I could even comment on, running the risk of sounding too dramatic or worse—I could be attracting unnecessary attention to something that didn't need to be overanalyzed by someone other than myself—so, once again, I learned to bite my tongue.

          The whole situation was, to a lack of a better word, humiliating. The fact that all of these events had been triggered by my inability to adequately process a breakup or to appreciate a nice gesture made it so much worse to deal with, a clear sign I shouldn't be allowed around other people, let alone other people my age. If only I hadn't taken advantage of being a year older than most people in my senior class, if only I hadn't forced myself to act and look older and more mature than I was, if only I didn't let it backfire so violently.

          If only.

          I'd once read something about counterfactual thinking, where you obsessed over every single way the events of your life could have happened differently, what you could have done to change the outcome, and realized that defined me to a T. I didn't like to be analyzed in depths I wasn't comfortable with, so I had to stop reading before I spiraled, but it was there. I'd always been so focused on trying to change the past, well aware it was impossible, and it had made me live in regret my whole life.

          Regrettably, there was nothing I could do to change what had happened between me and Chase in his office. It sickened me to feel as though I was simply giving up instead of fighting like I had always promised him I would, but, on the other hand, I was simply trying to protect him even after he'd shattered my heart. I didn't want to manipulate him into taking me back, tricking him into feeling a tenth of the guilt I was feeling for having ruined the one good thing in my life, and it would be far easier for us both if I were to grow up and manage to keep it civilized.

          I wouldn't barge into a Film Theory lecture and cause a scene. I wouldn't be what got him fired and ended the rest of his career, both in academia and in the screenwriting world. I was better than that—or, at the very least, I wanted to believe I was a better person than that—and I still had an ounce of respect for him. I always would, even if the mere thought of attending a lecture made me so nauseous I could barely breathe, and I had to pray he'd have the same respect for me, as I had nothing left to give to myself.

          All this time, everything I did had been about him and for him. Relearning how to redirect that energy, time, and effort back to myself was an uphill battle, one I doubted I was ready for or that I even deserved in the first place.

          And then, as the three (technically four, as Marco had stayed behind to serve as a chauffeur) of us made our way back to the apartment and I suffocated under their watchful stares, there was still a part of me that barely held herself together past the weight of being left behind.

          It was always me who was left wondering why I hadn't been enough, why I had been dropped like I'd never meant a damn thing, and it was always me who loved the most. I'd done too much, been too annoying and overbearing, and that didn't necessarily translate into loving Chase more than he'd ever loved me. The fact that I was attempting to turn it into a competition spoke volumes about the quality of my character and, deep in my soul, it didn't mean he'd loved me less just because he'd been the one to decide to end it all. It took great courage to put oneself first, but it had also taken unmeasurable cruelty to shatter my heart in the process.