Broken

At that moment, no one could possibly describe how I felt. The minute she left my room, my house, my village. . . I was overwhelmed with so much internal emotion. Although I was good at hiding them, my brothers and sisters, my pack, still knew how I felt; they could hear me screaming in my mind. I couldn't hide anything from them.

How did I feel anyway? It was beyond sad or depressed. I wasn't angry or bitter. I was jealous, but that was the least of my feelings. I was hurt, both mentally and physically (at least for the moment). I had so many emotions bottled up inside my head at the moment, but not one of them could describe how I felt. Maybe I just needed to be alone, away from everyone, to think. Maybe I needed comfort, even though she had already attempted to comfort me when she came up here earlier.

I took a small glance towards the right side of my room, and that's when I spotted it: the radio I rarely ever used. I remember the day I received it as a gift for my thirteenth birthday; since then I have only listened to it a couple of times. Most of the time I was too busy working, going to school, running with the pack, or, dare I remember the memories, being with her.

'They say music calms the soul and really gets a person thinking,' I thought, 'as if it inspires or comforts them.'

I had no idea if this theory was true or not, but at this point, I figured I might as well try it and see what happens. Maybe I will get the comfort I'm yearning for.

I reached over and pushed the power button on the radio, and it blared to life. I adjusted the volume to a level that I preferred and listened to the radio DJ drone on about some musician's latest work until a song came on. It was a song I'd never heard before, of course, since I don't really keep up with music. I let the beginning sound of acoustic guitar sink into my head before a man started singing.

"I wanted you to know

That I love the way you laugh

I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away

I keep your photograph, and I know it serves me well

I wanna hold you high and steal your pain."

I should've turned the radio off the moment I heard the first part of this song. Turned it off and never ever turned it back on again. As much as I wanted to do this, I wanted to hear the rest of the song, to see if it would dig deeper inside of me than it already was doing. I kept listening to the lyrics, this time a woman joining the man in the singing.

"'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome

And I don't feel right

When you're gone away."

Broken. That's exactly how I was feeling at the moment. Broken from the inside out. Now that I knew this song was sort of "speaking" to me, I decided to leave the radio on until it went off. Now the man was singing by himself again, then the woman started singing by herself.

"The worst is over now

And we can breathe again

I wanna hold you high; you steal my pain away

There's so much left to learn

And no one left to fight

I wanna hold you high and steal your pain."

Hell, it didn't seem to be describing only how I was feeling; it seemed to be describing everything that was going on in my life at the moment. The worst is over. She is finally safe from any possible harm (hopefully). All the fighting has been done; I even got hurt because of it.

But even though I was hurt from it all, I knew that she was just as hurt as I was. If I could only reach out to her and take away any pain that she is feeling. . . Then I wouldn't feel anymore pain, either. Her happiness is my happiness.

My thoughts were interrupted by the chorus of the song, both the man and woman breaking out into song.

"'Cause I'm broken when I'm open

And I don't feel like I am strong enough

'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome

And I don't feel right

When you're gone away."

I thought back to when she visited me earlier. It pained me to see her face. I could read the pain that was written everywhere in her eyes. Holding her and confiding in her couldn't even make her feel any better.

If only things had been different. . . If only I could've been the one for her. Life would be so much happier right now. Instead I lay here, twisted and broken, only hoping for better and brighter days to come.

The sound of a low violin in the song caught my attention. It expressed so much sadness. How one song could do that, I would never know. I guess people are right when they say that music brings out things inside of you that no one normally sees.

I listened to the majority of the remainder of the song, concentrating hard on the lyrics and the mood the sound of the music set. It didn't seem like it would have a positive ending to it. I eventually figured this out when the man's voice repeated a lyric he sang at an earlier point in the song:

"You've gone away

You don't feel me here

Anymore. . ."

With a final strum of a guitar string, the song ended there, and I shut the radio off. I sat there in silence for it seems like forever, my head staring down into my lap. I had the urge to express how I felt, in the least distracting way possible. I wasn't going to scream, shout, or act out in rage. I wouldn't write anything down or talk about it with someone (everyone would find out anyway).

So I did the only thing I could do.

I lifted my head up and looked towards the ceiling. My face was wet, the salty water pouring from my eyes like liquid from broken glass bottles. I could feel the tears stream down my cheeks and down to my neck. The only thing going through my mind at the moment was the fact that she was gone, and I would soon be, too.

So yeah, after reading Eclipse, I definitely felt really bad for Jacob. I still do. I hope you all enjoyed reading this. I wrote it the minute I got done reading the book. Please send me some feedback!