Chapter 1
It felt like the word had to stop turning just so that I could finally breathe again.
I always thought that a broken heart was a beautiful metaphor, perfect for Hollywood movies and novels written by Emily Brontë. Little did I know that it is, in fact, a very accurate and real way of describing pain. That holding back tears actually feels like burning and that your throat closes up to hopelessly keep the fire from spreading.
Remembering the beginning of all of this is like having a very hot shower and trying to look through the steamed-up shower stall. Blurry and confusing. However, even thought the scenes nor the dialogue are easy to recall, the feelings and emotions I felt are still there, like the rhythm of a song stuck in your head you can’t remember the words to.
I put the volume of my music higher, drowning the growing desire I had to scream at everyone and everything around me. Instead, I kept walking, the music too loud against my ears and my anger trapped inside. Don't get me wrong, I would no problem to scream at the top of my lungs right here just to let everyone know that I was, in fact, aching. However, something held me back, fear, shame, call it what you want. All I wanted was to be alone.
In my head, I was thinking that, maybe, if everyone was a prisoner in their own homes, all the evil was locked in too. Like Pandora’s box, which if it hadn’t been opened, no one would have an excuse to do wrong. How could I have know that I was Pandora and I had the box?
I remember wearing tight pants and a crop top, my hair was done, I had my makeup on, feeling unready to leave my room and go outside. I looked myself in the mirror, disappointed. My hair wasn’t messy enough, my nose looked bigger than it actually is, my hips looked weird in those pants and my waist wasn’t small enough. I wished those flaws were part of the mirror’s dirt, easy to wipe out. Instead, they anchored to me, and even though I had been bearing the weight for years, it all was starting to feel too heavy.
This heaviness had always been there, inside of me, next to my heart and stomach. It had been growing since I was fifteen years old like a malignant tumor that was finally, after years of fighting, bigger and stronger than me.
Four months before we packed our things and left that town that made me think of my mother and scream every day, I was rehearsing with my music band for our next concert, which we would perform in March. And it is right there, outside the small and seedy rehearsal room, with a cigarette in one hand and his lighter on the other, where the story starts.
