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Description
The pain of flowing blood is nothing to the agony of cruel words.  Fangs of sound bite at the soul as daggers of the same pierce the heart.  My ears rang and my heart froze at the sound in the air.  Nothing is so cruel as the ringing of false words from the mouth of a dear one.  For me, the one who spoke was the dearest of them all…His words were the only thing that had the power to hurt me, and I had always feared that such a time as this would come to pass.  That it finally had, that my forbidding vision, my banished prediction had become a reality, summoned a hurt so deep it threatened to drown me in its dark depths.

And then, the impossible happened: the pain deepened, it seared hotter.  He smiled.  Words weren't enough.  He had to add a savage twist to the sword already buried in my chest, and it ached with an unbearable intensity.  Betrayal – to me, always a word associated with the unreal, the unthinkable, something that only happened to other people – was now part of my reality.  The words that had deafened me, despite being spoken in a low whisper, had only been the beginning.  He was cruel and he was malicious.  I understood that now.

And yet in the face of this pain, the strength of will and character I had always prided myself in had abandoned me; my legs only held me up because any voluntary movement at all was impossible.  The moment was eternal, and I couldn't escape it until his eyes left mine and he left me there, standing frozen, shocked, sickened.  His expression had been branded into my memory – especially his eyes…  Oh his eyes…  One stormy grey and the other amber brown, they had always been a source of wonder for me.  They were light, they were humor, they were kind, they were tender.  They were beautiful.  And now they had looked at me with a cold indifference that was out-of-place on his familiar face.  …Then that little smile curved the corners of his mouth into a sneer…he was laughing at my pain.  He reveled in my agony.

And when he turned away and the moment was over, the grip of his eyes suddenly let go and I sank to my knees, shaking, collapsing against the wall.  But even then, I couldn't let my grief out.  Even tears were denied me; my own strength was now working against me.  I had worked hard to steel myself, to make myself conquer the urge to cry unless I was alone and secluded.  The classroom might be empty, yes, but was it isolated?  No.  I could only sit and shake and let soundless screams and cold horror wash over me, unchecked and uncontrolled.

I don't know how long I sat there.  I do know that eventually I realized that I'd be found if I didn't move soon, and when I stood up my muscles were stiff with disuse.  My capacity for functioning didn't go beyond the ability to stumble to my car, get in and get the hell out of that place.  Once I was driving, though, the tears finally came and they flooded my eyes so thickly that it was a miracle I got home safely.  By the time I got to my room, closed the door and had thrown myself onto the bed, the sobs racked my body in violent spasms and I could barely breathe.  Not that I made a sound; my grief was silent, my suffering noiseless.  Actually, I don't think I could've made a sound even if I had tried.  My throat was locked up and my jaw was savagely clenched.  I had a headache for days afterwards from doing that…an inevitable result, I suppose.

Four words.  Four.  That was all it took to tear me apart.  Well, unless you count the look on his face while he said them to me.  "I.  Never.  Loved.  You."  I had always been the one to have the last say, but never until now had I been beaten in the game.

How could this have happened?  I was smarter than this!  How could I not have seen it coming?  That his declaration came as such a shock to me proves that I wasn't as perceptive as I thought…and that scares me.  It's been a month now, since that day.  My friends would probably say I'm no better than the first day I actually managed to drag myself to school at all – and that was two and a half weeks ago.

But as I'm sitting here on the window seat in my room, I think I'm beginning to…recover.  He can't – he won't – keep controlling my life like this.  I have to pull myself together!

I set down my pen and closed my diary, placing it on the small table next to my bed.  Today was the first day I had actually felt the little stirring in my head again.  Since that day, it had been conspicuously absent and I had written nothing.  In some sense, I guess, it's understandable…and expected too – I had been too numb.  That's really the best way to describe it.  Words have always been my way of venting my feelings, to put them out on paper in artful eloquence, as I liked to think about it.  But this…lack of epiphany – which I was used to having at least once daily – had only returned just now.  It was a feeling of inspiration, mixed with an urgency and a desperation to get the ideas down before I forgot.  That this phenomenon had finally returned was an encouraging sign.  It felt good to finally be able to put at least some of my feelings into words.

Usually I vented my ideas into my diary, whether it was in poem, story or diary entry form.  Getting the ideas down seemed like a good way to practice my writing as well as let my creative side run rampant for a while.

Now, however, I had written what I wanted for the time being.  I looked out the window and leaned my head against the sideboard, taking in the greens, yellows, browns and reds of the autumn leaves in my front yard.  Our house was right in the middle of a long line of houses, and the street was lined by all types of leafy trees.  It was always beautiful in the spring and autumn seasons when they were either blooming with colorful and sweet-smelling flowers, or when the leaves were turning colors in preparation for winter.  Like they were now.  I had recently decided to have my senior pictures done right here in my neighborhood when it came time to get them done next year.

But that felt like a long way off, as I was just beginning my junior year in high school…

Description
The pain of flowing blood is nothing to the agony of cruel words.  Fangs of sound bite at the soul as daggers of the same pierce the heart.  My ears rang and my heart froze at the sound in the air.  Nothing is so cruel as the ringing of false words from the mouth of a dear one.  For me, the one who spoke was the dearest of them all…His words were the only thing that had the power to hurt me, and I had always feared that such a time as this would come to pass.  That it finally had, that my forbidding vision, my banished prediction had become a reality, summoned a hurt so deep it threatened to drown me in its dark depths.

And then, the impossible happened: the pain deepened, it seared hotter.  He smiled.  Words weren't enough.  He had to add a savage twist to the sword already buried in my chest, and it ached with an unbearable intensity.  Betrayal – to me, always a word associated with the unreal, the unthinkable, something that only happened to other people – was now part of my reality.  The words that had deafened me, despite being spoken in a low whisper, had only been the beginning.  He was cruel and he was malicious.  I understood that now.

And yet in the face of this pain, the strength of will and character I had always prided myself in had abandoned me; my legs only held me up because any voluntary movement at all was impossible.  The moment was eternal, and I couldn't escape it until his eyes left mine and he left me there, standing frozen, shocked, sickened.  His expression had been branded into my memory – especially his eyes…  Oh his eyes…  One stormy grey and the other amber brown, they had always been a source of wonder for me.  They were light, they were humor, they were kind, they were tender.  They were beautiful.  And now they had looked at me with a cold indifference that was out-of-place on his familiar face.  …Then that little smile curved the corners of his mouth into a sneer…he was laughing at my pain.  He reveled in my agony.

And when he turned away and the moment was over, the grip of his eyes suddenly let go and I sank to my knees, shaking, collapsing against the wall.  But even then, I couldn't let my grief out.  Even tears were denied me; my own strength was now working against me.  I had worked hard to steel myself, to make myself conquer the urge to cry unless I was alone and secluded.  The classroom might be empty, yes, but was it isolated?  No.  I could only sit and shake and let soundless screams and cold horror wash over me, unchecked and uncontrolled.

I don't know how long I sat there.  I do know that eventually I realized that I'd be found if I didn't move soon, and when I stood up my muscles were stiff with disuse.  My capacity for functioning didn't go beyond the ability to stumble to my car, get in and get the hell out of that place.  Once I was driving, though, the tears finally came and they flooded my eyes so thickly that it was a miracle I got home safely.  By the time I got to my room, closed the door and had thrown myself onto the bed, the sobs racked my body in violent spasms and I could barely breathe.  Not that I made a sound; my grief was silent, my suffering noiseless.  Actually, I don't think I could've made a sound even if I had tried.  My throat was locked up and my jaw was savagely clenched.  I had a headache for days afterwards from doing that…an inevitable result, I suppose.

Four words.  Four.  That was all it took to tear me apart.  Well, unless you count the look on his face while he said them to me.  "I.  Never.  Loved.  You."  I had always been the one to have the last say, but never until now had I been beaten in the game.

How could this have happened?  I was smarter than this!  How could I not have seen it coming?  That his declaration came as such a shock to me proves that I wasn't as perceptive as I thought…and that scares me.  It's been a month now, since that day.  My friends would probably say I'm no better than the first day I actually managed to drag myself to school at all – and that was two and a half weeks ago.

But as I'm sitting here on the window seat in my room, I think I'm beginning to…recover.  He can't – he won't – keep controlling my life like this.  I have to pull myself together!

I set down my pen and closed my diary, placing it on the small table next to my bed.  Today was the first day I had actually felt the little stirring in my head again.  Since that day, it had been conspicuously absent and I had written nothing.  In some sense, I guess, it's understandable…and expected too – I had been too numb.  That's really the best way to describe it.  Words have always been my way of venting my feelings, to put them out on paper in artful eloquence, as I liked to think about it.  But this…lack of epiphany – which I was used to having at least once daily – had only returned just now.  It was a feeling of inspiration, mixed with an urgency and a desperation to get the ideas down before I forgot.  That this phenomenon had finally returned was an encouraging sign.  It felt good to finally be able to put at least some of my feelings into words.

Usually I vented my ideas into my diary, whether it was in poem, story or diary entry form.  Getting the ideas down seemed like a good way to practice my writing as well as let my creative side run rampant for a while.

Now, however, I had written what I wanted for the time being.  I looked out the window and leaned my head against the sideboard, taking in the greens, yellows, browns and reds of the autumn leaves in my front yard.  Our house was right in the middle of a long line of houses, and the street was lined by all types of leafy trees.  It was always beautiful in the spring and autumn seasons when they were either blooming with colorful and sweet-smelling flowers, or when the leaves were turning colors in preparation for winter.  Like they were now.  I had recently decided to have my senior pictures done right here in my neighborhood when it came time to get them done next year.

But that felt like a long way off, as I was just beginning my junior year in high school…