What's in the Past

Why did they leave me?

The question raced through her mind, over and over and over again. She played through every scenario, trying to pinpoint what happened. Where everything went wrong.

I wasn't good enough to keep him around.
I wasn't pretty enough.
I wasn't thin enough.
I didn't pay enough attention to him.

She never wanted me anyway.
I was too pretty to be around her.
I reminded her of things she wanted to forget.

I should never have been born.

I shouldn't exist.

Tears slid down her cheeks, her eyes puffy and red from prolonged crying, but no sound escaped her lips. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs as she replayed in her mind, over and over again, the things he had told her.

I can't be with you.
This thing that happened... it's too much.
Too scary.
I can't do it.

It hadn't been her sole decision. He'd wanted it, too. She wasn't ready - financially or emotionally - and he just didn't want the responsibility.

She didn't regret the decision.

It had hurt, though. The trauma was mental more than anything. He slept in the bedroom while she lay, curled up on the couch, her body wracked with pain as the pills she'd taken did their work. It felt like knives were slicing at her insides, or like claws, ripping her apart from within.

And he slept, leaving her to face it all on her own.

A week later, when her body did things she didn't want, reacted to the pills in ways that made her hate looking at herself in the mirror, he began to show signs of being even more distant.

The distance had been growing ever since she'd taken the first pill.

Two weeks after that, he'd told her to pack up.

She had nowhere else to go close by. She asked for a week, to arrange a job transfer back to where she'd come from. At least she had friends there.

Friends she could never tell about what happened.

One person knew, and that person couldn't be there for her.

And the person she'd wanted to tell, needed to hear from, wanted nothing to do with her. She couldn't bring herself to intrude, not even for this. Especially not for this.

There was no comfort for her. Not here. Not back home.

Not anywhere.