title: Awaken Me
author: Grayson, Alex
description: What do you do when you lose the single most important thing in your life? You grieve. You sink so deep in a hole, you can no longer see the top. All you see is dark. Your life becomes dull and dreary. You withdraw from your friends, lash out at the ones you’re closest to, and become so absorbed in your pain, you feel the only way out is to end it permanently. Your heart no longer pumps properly and you can never get enough air in your lungs. You drink, you neglect your health, and you rent dirty hotel rooms with the sole purpose of ending your pain in them. Guilt eats at you for not being at the one place you were needed the most. And you become angry because you were left behind. Or at least, that’s what I did. Until she came along…. Chris, the bane of my existence. She’s always there in the background, watching me, trying to “be there” for me. I don’t want her help. I don’t need her to butt in where she’s not wanted. I just want to be left alone in my grief. But she’s not giving up, even when I throw insult after insult her way. Every time I turn around, there she is. And what’s worse, she’s starting to make me want things. Things I never thought I could have again. She’s making me forget the pain and bringing color back into my life with her fiery red hair, bright green eyes, and the silly faces she makes at herself in the mirror. But what happens if I let her in? Could I be brave enough to open myself up, knowing the possibility of having it snatched away again? Once I know the feeling of touching Chris, of having her heart and soul blend with mine, I would never survive losing that. Can I take the chance of her being my savior, even knowing that she could also be the one to push me over the edge of self-destruction?