Shattered (Continuation of: The Chase) ▹ Ashton Irwin

Prologue

The thing about pain, is that sometimes, you feel everything. I mean sure, you could fall and scrape your knees a little, but how could I ever imagine that as the only form of pain a person could have?

Literally, your world can come crashing down at any instant. It could take one thing, or a number of things to bring it down, but it takes one second. It takes no time at all to suddenly break off into someone that you're not, and it takes no time at all to break the people that you love along with you. Or, I guess I could say "person", considering there's only one person that I truely love at this point.

I think about my childhood a lot...and though I've been told to forget about it all, I know I'll never get myself to. I know there are things I could have done, but I also know that there are things that I couldn't have done. I guess every ounce of guilt and longing I felt from that surprisingly vivd time in my life, is just another way to interpret literal pain.

And the thing about fear, is that sometimes, it makes you do and say things you never thought you would ever do. You can get wrapped up in so many emotions, worries, and nightmares that you think you're going to loose everything. Whether everything to you is multiple people, or just one person...you feel the same amount of fear as everyone else. You start to change yourself, and you start to loose control of every aspect of your brain that tells you to stop.

But you can't stop. Only certain things become the only things you can control. And those certain things are just the things that break you.

I've had that fear. You know...that fear of loosing everything again? It's happened to me many times, and if anyone ever asks me about it I'll tell them all the same thing: it eats away at you. It makes you do things, and say things, and think things that are totally out of proportion. You over think, you under sleep, you sit there for hours upon hours in total silence, wishing some sanity could be handed to you on a silver platter. Unfortunately, sanity isn't that easy to recieve.

You change. You change so much until the people (or person) that love you can't even look at you the same way. That one person who loves you more than anything will watch you change, until they don't know what to do anymore. They start to loose hope when you do...and when you're scared, all the hope you possess is drained from you. You feel like there's no way out, so you keep doing the things you never intended to do, until you're completely broken.

And that's when you feel the pain. You feel everything, and so does that person that loves you. They feel the pain along with you, but they don't know how to describe it to you, or their friends, or even themselves. They get worried about you, until they break with everything you do to hurt them.

The person you love, they love you right back. But you break them, just as much as you break yourself.

And you make that person wonder, 'does she even love me anymore? Did she ever love me?' Because they can't stand to see the one they love so much crack so many times until they're completely broken. They watch that one person they fell in love with break down into a million pieces of hopelessness and despair, until they're nothing more than just the scattered remains of what they used to be.

But, she won't notice a thing. She won't notice the pain she will cause me, and to everyone else around her.

The person I love...they think they're fine, and that they shouldn't care. They're scared of loosing everything, but they will never stop changing themselves. And they always change for the worst, don't they? As I always said...they're life becomes one big chase, running after the only things that can make them feel somewhat stable for a short period of time. The things they chase after shift from good and helpful things...to things that don't mean shit. Things that just make them worse.

As I layed there with her, the girl I've come to love more than anything, I think everything's fine. I'm hopeful for the future, because I think we're both ready to move on.

I am, but little do I know, she's not.

And I don't know anything yet as we're here, sleeping together in an old motel in a completely different state than where we live. I'm excited to get home, and smile with her, and be the people that we should be together: happy. We both think that things are going to get better, and I think that I know they will.

But...little do I know...I'm completely, utterly, wrong.

I don't know it yet, but I'm wrong to the fact that everything will be okay. I'm wrong when I say things will get better, because they won't. I don't know that some really great things are just around the corner from us, but those things are only going to be followed by the ones that will make her break. As I've said so many times before...there are so many things in this world that can break her.

And, little do I know, that's exactly what's going to happen.

And not just break her, either. They're going to shatter her.

Just like every other great thing in my life, she's going to shatter.

As I lay here with her, wrapped up in the warmth and joy she causes me, there are a lot of thing's I'm not aware of yet.

And, little do I know, I'm going to watch Brooke shatter. And this time, I'm not going to be able to do anything about it.