I don't even know what this is, I wrote this in a hurry but it means a lot to me. Enjoy it, I hope. tw: depression/suicidal thoughts, rape/sexual misconduct. And yes, before anyone asks, i'll get to chapter 2 of the words we say anonymously mean everything soon, but school and life is in the way atm, on the bright side though, I will be writing a lot more during the summer as I am free from the confines of exams!

I think the one time of the day in your childhood when you could finally breathe and listen and wonder about impossible dreams and endless questions was after the bath got too hot. The steam would fill the room until the windows were sheets of blurred shades of colours and lines. Your legs would be scorching and turned pink like a pig from the stifling warmth of the water and your blonde hair would stick to your shoulders like pancakes do when there is no butter left on the griddle.

A teacher once said to you that your memories and thoughts are like files in your mind, your brain organizes them into neat little piles until that one little memory is pushed to the back and almost always forgotten about. She said that all it takes is a little spring cleaning and one little, amazing memory is tossed out of the filing cabinet. You told her that it was silly but she just gave you a look, the one when your eyes stare into another's and you have a conversation without saying anything at all.

You knew after that look you needed to remember that. You would get out the water and put the towel down on the cold square tiles, rest your damp hair on it and curl up on the fluffy rug you had and just lie there. You would listen to the background noise of the house. The television would be on and the words indistinctive from the bathroom but you would always try to imagine what they were saying. The sporadic beeping from the microwave would jump into life and the distant wailing of a police car could be recognized from the distance. Other times you would just block everything out and listen to the thump-thump of your beating heart and it would be a comfort. The dripping of your hair got slower and your skin drier. The soft fabric of the towel would rest against your cheek and the ceiling light would hurt your eyes, resulting in you squinting. Your eyelashes would close together and you would be able to bask in the solitary of the room, just for a few minutes. The harshness of the light would result in bright green-blue spots dancing across the back of your eyelids, your thoughts swirling around like soup in your head, but gradually they would come to a stop, and then your whole body would be at peace. No worries of wherever the hell your mother was, how the helI you were going to be able to get out of this seemingly shit-fest of life with the grades you were getting in school, or how you were going to scrub the very idea of sea-green eyes from the walls of your skull because no, no. Maya Hart could never think of that. Time seemed to stop in all manners, a suspension of a singular moment where everything was good.

Then the lock on the bathroom door broke as one of the screws popped out and now it was hanging diagonally so you couldn't do any of that anymore.

You had to put a chair under the handle so nobody could barge into the room, but one time a tall man with a stubbly ginger beard and a hardened brow, one of your mom's recent suitors no doubt, walked in on you in the bath with shampoo dredges in the ends of your hair. Your mouth was wide open and your cheeks stained a red hue as he came ever closer, making sure the chair had properly closed the door, unlike you he said, and after he left you scrubbed every inch of skin on your thighs until it wasn't just the hot water that made them pink. Tears ran down your cheeks and splashed into the water below as you silently sobbed.

You preferred showers now.

You hid within yourself, with bright smiles thrown at Riley to placate her worried looks and her knitted brows, witty remarks bounced back at Farkle in your petty arguments and a roll of the eyes directed at Lucas at his various references to Texas. Nobody seemed to noticed the lump in your throat you had to swallow as you watched Riley and Lucas dance around each other and finally come together in what people in your grade in school had dubbed the best romance since Cory and Topanga. You appeased Josh's pleas of the 'long game' in the intermittent times you saw him, but you knew he didn't see you that way, fooling and deluding himself that he did, only for his eyes to light up and have a fire you'd never seen anyone have before when he mentioned a brunette in his many classes at college. You wonder to yourself, why not me? Why do I have to be alone? Why?

You see Lucas everywhere, in the dark sky illuminated by the moonlight and stars, you hear his laugh echo and lace itself in your thoughts, you can still smell the remnants of his aftershave on your skin and you can imagine his worn words being spoken once more against the blazing heat of the campfire.

You realise you can change your future, and you start with your grades in school, you look up everything on google and you take online courses for the years you didn't pay attention in class. It takes a lot of effort, but in three months you've changed your grades from Ds to borderline A*s and everyone around you seems to be extremely shocked, but at your congratulatory party Farkle congratulates you on your success and smiles at you just like the best friend he is, Smackle now regards you as a competitor in her intellectual race to Yale, Zay pokes fun in your recent attitude change but he always makes sure you know he's so proud of you and you smile so wide you think your heart shaped face will split in half like your actual heart has. Topanga now has no room for all the A's on the fridge with your name scrawled at the top of them and Cory always makes sure that you have support and offers to tutor you if you need any help, and you hug them both so tight they joke that you're cutting off the blood circulation in their torsos but you only laugh and squeeze harder. Josh hugs you and whispers in your ear that he's very proud of you and he knows that if you stick at it, you can get anywhere you want. When he slips his arm around the brunette's he's been talking about's waist you know he deserves to be happy with her and you give a small smile at the girl.

You wind your way to your kitchen, opening the door to Riley and Lucas tenderly kissing one another and you make a small squeak of surprise before Lucas gets up from the dining table's chair and makes a purposeful cough. You try to erase the image from your memory and you genuinely think you might need to pour bleach into your eyeballs because just as you were getting over him and immersing yourself in your schoolwork this happens. You scamper to your sink and grab a glass and fill it with water, the cool temperature running down your neck as you gulp it down, trying to get the feeling of accomplishment you had only five minutes ago back instead of the bitter taste you have on the tip of your tongue now. Lucas diverts the subject to congratulating you and you force a smile and playfully punch his shoulder in thanks. A look in Riley's eyes came over her and it was unlike anything you'd ever seen before, her eyes harden in jealousy and spitefulness and she indirectly jokes about how awful your life is and how you're lucky that your teachers like you because that's the only reason you've gotten the grades you have. She giggles to herself like it's the funniest joke in the world, you recoil from shock, tears immediately rush to your eyes and threaten to spill over. Lucas stares with an open mouth in shock and scolds Riley so loudly that Topanga calls to ask what the commotion is. In the midst of your silent tears, Lucas shouts at Riley in front of everyone and the ambience nose-dives into silence, Riley bites back at Lucas and retaliates against you and you wonder when did she change her personality for a boy.

You excuse yourself to Cory and you ignore his pleas for you to come back as you run to the apartment stairwell and up the stairs. You sit down on the bench you sat on in middle school and you wonder you turned out like this and how shit your friendship with your supposed best friend fell apart over a fucking guy. You can still hear distant shouting from below and this is all too much for you so in the midst of your tears you try to do what you did lying on that cold tile, blocking out the world and listening to your own heartbeat. It works for a minute or so but you are reminded of the ginger-bearded man's breath on your neck, his words in your ears, his big calloused hands, the sickly strawberry scent of your shampoo in your hair, the pain and the suffering, the moment when you tried to scream but he wrapped his hand around your mouth, the moment your mom came home from work early and asked him where you were and he said out with your friends as he violated you over and over again. You wish it could be different, you wish you could be a high member of society, you wish you could have enough money to get out of here, you wish your mom could've been around more to spot the bruises on your inner thighs, you wish he loved you back, you wish Riley was the way she used to be, but most of all you wish that all of this would fucking end and the endless hum and noise of the city would shut the fuck up for once and you wish that you weren't having haunted dreams of a demon man touching you and you fucking wish that someone would fucking scream 'LOOK AT HER! SHE'S NOT OKAY' and they could fucking love you for the shell of a human being you are.

You shed your coat and your boots and the wind blows through your matted hair and skims over your toes as you wiggle them, the fairy lights strung along the scaffolding and the railings illuminate your red and tired eyes, and you tentatively move towards the edge of the building, edging further and further closer. The people walking and running below you look like ants and you are now at the level of the massive skyscrapers you used to want to fly by when you were younger. You give out a sigh of relief and exhaustion as both feet are balanced on the tipping edge of the roof. Your shoulders slump and you give out short pants of breath as you look down past the gaps of your toes and onto the concrete pavement below. It wouldn't take much, just a small jump, maybe you'd even be saved on the soft overhang of the grocers shop.

You just want everything to stop.

You take a sharp intake of breath and prepare yourself for the act you're about to commit.

Strong arms wrap around your waist and you are jerked back.

You break down. Sobbing.

He holds you.

You tell him you love him as your head is buried in his neck.

He whispers in your ear he loves you too.

You weep.

He makes sure the lock on the bathroom door is working when he moves in with you.

(fin.)