The Heartbreaker’s Gamble

The silence in my bedroom is simply oppressive. The cosiness of those rooms has vanished. Soft sheets, expensive candles, and the feeling that I was the universe's queen were all once mine. I was a girl who believed she could take over the universe.

The moment I hit the ground, my legs buckle, and the force goes through my body. The force is enough to remind me that I'm still alive, or at least still exist when I should not.

Tears begin to flow down my cheek again, like that stupid video. I can't catch my breath; it feels like I was hit with a thousand rocks. The ache in my throat is nasty, and it's pounding in my head; it won't stop! My lungs feel tight, and every breath feels like fire coming up through my throat.

Sitting on the floor, staring at the wall with tears in my eyes, I can't stop thinking about everything: the video, the laughter, the look on his face when he thought no one else was looking. The expression on his face when I was still a mystery and not just someone he believed he had already mastered. I keep seeing those images in my head until I lose the ability to distinguish between nightmares and memories.

I can't believe he would do this. The hardest part is I didn't see this coming. I've spent months defending him. I would tell everyone else they did not understand him, that he was not what they thought he was. I was a fool to walk into a minefield with a blindfold and smile in people's faces while he was holding my hand.

Not only does it hurt to be betrayed, but there is also a void in my chest as if someone has taken a piece of me and left me with an open wound. Breathing has become a chore; my heartbeats remind me of the space where there should be something.

I lie on the hard floor, watching everyone continue their daily routines as if nothing had happened today. The sun slowly disappears behind the horizon, and shadows grow long across the room. People are still doing what they do—eating, arguing, and laughing.

I don't move until I can't see anymore because my eyes have swollen shut, and I have become extremely thirsty. My tears have stopped running, my face is dry, tight, and salty. My head is pounding. My body is empty, exhausted, and almost weightless.

Eventually, I reach for my phone; it is the only thing that connects me to the rest of the world. It is on the floor in front of me, turned upside down, vibrating with something that is waiting for me to turn it right-side up.

I switch on the phone, and the bright light blinds me. Notifications begin to come in and pile on top of each other, like a mountain of snow getting higher than I can run.

"Is this true?"

"Look at the link!! OMG."

"I knew she was desperate for him from day one!"

"Look at her in picture two. She is so pathetic."

Each notification hits me as a physical blow. Each hits me even harder as they push my face underwater until I cannot catch my breath.

My world is crumbling around me. People I considered friends are picking me apart like a giant jigsaw puzzle, piece by piece, comment by comment. They zoom in on my face, analyse my words, and have turned my pain into their amusement. The girls I thought I could trust, the ones I shared my secrets with at 3 a.m., won't say anything to defend me. Some of them even like the posts, feeding the fire and pretending they don't know me while they stand on the sidelines and watch. 

I stop reading. I can't take any more hits! Each line is another bruise, adding to the weight of all the others I have. My thumb hovers north and then finds the power button. Long-press until the screen turns black. 

Power off.

I let the phone slip from my fingers, and nothing could sound louder than the phone hitting the floor, containing everything I am, all my shame, all my history, and the ghost of who I was the day before. Letting go of the phone feels like part of me is also going down with it. I can almost breathe for one second.

I am aware that I cannot continue in this manner indefinitely. I won't be able to walk down the street and look into eyes that sparkle with predatory satisfaction or eyes that shine with sympathy. I am not the scandal girl. I cannot let people use my name as a source of contention. They cannot use me as a warning about the untouchable bad boy.

I slowly crawled to my bed. My limbs feel leaden and heavy. Exhaustion pulls on me like a physical chain. I do not bother to take off my clothes. I am not going to fall asleep if I can get rid of his odour. Instead, I pull the duvet over my head and curl up in a cocoon of thick fabric.

In the pitch black of my bedroom, I attempt to create a new reality. I try to convince myself that the previous 24 hours never happened. I focus on insignificant sounds from everyday life, like the fridge turning on and off in repetitive cycles and a car sputtering past my street. Evidence that the world is moving forward regardless of my mental health.

The girl whose every humiliation is shared on social media like spilt champagne. I want to curl up and become invisible. I gently rock in bed, rubbing tears from beneath my closed eyes until my cheeks are damp and cold. Until I fall into a deep, pitiless sleep, praying to God that when I awaken, it will not be true.

I realise it's stupid. It was outright delusional.

However, when I wake up, the sun will still be rising. The internet will not have vanished. There will continue to be whispers at my school's gates, hungry, vicious creatures licking their lips at my name.

I realise that being with the school quarterback, the untouchable bad boy everyone admired was the worst decision I'd ever made. My heart broke. But he also broke me in so many other ways. He turned my name into a joke that makes guys smile drunkenly at parties, made my reputation something dark and shameful that girls whisper about behind my back.

Coming out of this won't be easy. That I know myself. But if I want to live through this, I have to kill the girl they think they know. Destroy the blonde hair, the brand clothes, and the girl who cared about being admired in the first place.

I have to move silently through the hallways. I'll have to learn how to press myself up against walls.

But in this city, at that academy, I will always be their gossip.

So, I must disappear. I must become invisible. I bury the San Francisco girl under the floorboards and pack a suitcase for a girl who doesn't exist.