I Sink, You Float

• Abbie Neal, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2010

I have this dream every night, where parts of my life have been sliced and scattered, pictures, memories, thoughts all around me. I cannot breathe, or everything will blow away. At the end of each dream, I draw a breath, in an effort not to suffocate and every small part of me disappears in the wind.

After It happened, I had split into two pieces: The girl who had all this quiet confidence, who didn’t believe in love, or that it even had the ability to destroy you and then there was the girl who spoke in tongues so that no one would understand her, the girl who cried in the shower so that no one heard her and after all that, she disappeared.

It surprised me how I could survive the day, when I felt this sharp, echoing pain where my heart should be. I felt too empty and betrayed, like my own organs had hollowed themselves out from the inside. Whenever someone mentioned anything to do with It, it would force me to clench up. Whenever I heard a voice, it muted mine and when the wind blew, I was surprised it didn’t take me away with it.

There he was, sitting in class. How dare he smile! Oh how that smile blew me away, you know the one, showing his teeth, being able to see his tongue through the gaps. He has no right to smile like that, when most days I look in the mirror and find myself feeling transparent, like I’m barely visible at all. He ran is fingers through his mess of brown hair, and it made me remember when those fingers were once entwined with mine. He laughed and sighed, I imagined that sigh having a whisper of my name in it.

I was falling.

I tried to remember to breathe. I made my legs walk past him, he noticed me, I saw his eyes look up apologetically and nervously. Maybe he thought I was going to punch him, slap him, hurt him the way he hurt me. He looked down, a blush staining his cheeks.

That’s when I felt a familiar sharp pain in my chest, restricting my breath. I felt tears well up in my eyes, the feeling of a sharp knife twisting through my gut, my turning my blood to poison. I bit my tongue, but the only thing I could taste was metal.

That’s what I focused on when I took off my clothes and walked into the water. Sinking. My heart felt heavy enough to bring me to the oceans floor, restricting my breath once again.

I was dying, I could feel the relief. It didn’t hurt, at least, not as much as everything else.