Luka & Izzy

Sixty - two: Created to rise, again and again

"Izzy." His voice comes from behind me, firm and penetrating, like a punch in the air.

I hear his footsteps, they are coming closer, but I cannot stop my flight.

It's getting dark.

The light is desperate, almost as if it wants to swallow me, as if I were in a world where there is no escape.

The running burns my lungs, every breath is like a thousand tiny needles piercing me.

After a night like this, with such poor sleep, running should be the last thing I do, but I run.

I run away from it, from what I feel, from everything.

"No." I yell as he almost catches up to me, and I pick up my running pace even faster as I approach my block.

The adrenaline carries me, the thinking disappears. I reach the door in a flash and push it open as if I'm in danger.

The feeling that I have closed something is ingrained in my mind. I have definitely closed the door to close my heart.

When I finally enter, I stumble across the hallway, as if my legs have severed all connection with reality. I slam the door behind me, hard, so that it sounds like a blow to the void.

But before I close it completely, I hear his voice, literally piercing me. "Izzy."

I don't want to see him, don't want anything that comes with him.

He broke my heart.

"What do you want? " I scream, but my words sound hollow, almost like an echo of my own thoughts.

He bangs on the door, making it slam.

I lean against the wall as my body starts to shake. Not only because of the run, but also because of something else that overwhelms me. Anger. Excitement. All the things I've been trying to suppress are now coming to the surface, like a huge wave.

I drag myself to my room, as if everything that holds me upright is simply broken. I lie down on the bed, cover my face with my hands and let the emotions wash over me. I no longer resist them.

The trembling covers my whole body, like an inevitable storm that cannot be stopped. I can feel it suffocating me, squeezing my chest, as if every breath were too much, every moment too fast. It hurts. It hurts so much that I find it hard to believe that I was even able to exist.

In an instant, all the negative memories wash over me, like someone has opened a flooded lake of pain. I hear my mother's voice, her harsh words piercing me, as if she wanted to carve me into something I never was. Every criticism, every doubt.

My thoughts drift to Nick, to those painful moments when I believed he loved me, but it turned out differently. When did I become a person who allows people to destroy me?

And then - Noah. The feeling of loss is like a knife that someone has plunged straight into my heart over and over again. His name carries the weight of all the dreams that never came true. Everything we had, everything we could have had, gone in a single second.

One mistake, one moment of weakness - and everything I had so carefully built up was shattered.

Tears slide down my cheeks as if someone had let them fall without warning. I am wet with them, with all I have sweated in this flight from myself and from others.

I cannot move. The feeling of exhaustion is almost literally paralysing me. Running was not only physical; it was running away from what I had to admit to myself. And now, here I am, broken and helpless, overwhelmed by this burden that I carried but refused to accept.