...But Your Enemies Closer

Post High School - Rebecca Knox

I had no idea that the end of my life was waiting right after graduation.

Okay, maybe that was a bit melodramatic, but it sure as hell felt like this was it for me. I had no plans. I had no options. I had nothing.

There was a certain determination in me that knew I would be back to my normal self after the accident. That I would be back to cheering and I could go on to work for some big sports team or something. Everything would work out like I always thought it would. How wrong I was.

If only I would have stayed the hell away from that party. I wouldn't have been drunk enough to listen to my idiotic friends about how badass it would be to attempt a backflip off Brody Mason's pool house. Hell, I wouldn't have been drunk enough to attempt said back flip and ruin my career for good.

It wasn't a big surprise that I missed my mark into the water really. I suppose I should be glad that it was just by a little bit or else they would have scraped me off the cement instead of just rushing me to the hospital. Still, as soon as I heard that crunch from where my left leg caught the side of the pool I knew that the repercussions were going to be bad – really bad.

Despite doing everything that I had been told and pushing myself as hard as humanly possible during physical therapy, it didn't matter. My leg was never the same again. I couldn't ever pull off the moves I was once able to before the accident.

I remember the first time I tried doing a handspring once I was cleared to use the limb again. My form was perfect and I landed it like I had a million times before, but as soon as the pressure of the land hit my left side I crumpled to the ground in a pathetic heap. That was all it took for me to know without a doubt that my cheerleading career was done for good. I cried for an hour afterward and not a soul could console me through the emotional pain I felt.

My parents put up with my moping around for a little while, but once they realized that I had basically given up they gave up on me too. It wasn't the way of the Knox family to turn into a useless waste once something fell through. You picked yourself up and you made do with what you had left. What they never seemed to understand was that cheering was literally all I had.

So they stopped supporting me and I stopped talking to them, that was all there was to it. It was as simple as one bad decision to change the relationship with my parents forever. After a while, I stopped considering them my parents at all though. They were just the people that gave me life and then stopped caring about me once I had become a useless human being.

Whatever.

As weak as it was, I actually contemplated taking my own life for a while. I knew there were plenty of people that had it worse off than I did – like way worse off – but I just couldn't stand my own existence anymore. I hated waking up every day without any foreseeable purpose in life and no one there to let me know that I was worth it. My family obviously didn't give a fuck and all of my 'friends' stopped hanging around once I was busted to the bottom of the proverbial pyramid. So why was any of it worth it?

The only thing that stopped me in the end was refusing to take the coward's way out. I may not have believed in the people that raised my anymore, but the values instilled in me – at least the ones worth keeping close – were still there. Two of the most important ones that kept me alive were never being a coward and holding on to my stubborn pride. I guess I was thankful for that if nothing else, but the rest of the Knox clan would never hear it from my lips.

Being away from my parents and getting past the bout of depression I had made me really analyze the kind of person I was and who I had been for the longest time. I wasn't proud of what I saw. All I was boiled down to being a cruel and manipulative bully. There wasn't anything truly good about my character.