The Day She Drowned
By: Taylor Abbate
Tags: Short Story, Lost, Sad

The past few months had been like a constant struggle to stay above water. To keep treading water and fight the urge to let go and allow herself to sink all the way to the bottom where nothing could hurt her and she could be alone. Every day something new came and tried with all it’s might to force her under, but she had proved to be stronger and every night as the sun went down she felt a tiny little bit of pride, having overcome something new. She could see her reflection changing into someone stronger, as though she was taking the form of someone she could be proud to be. Of a girl who was no longer living in a tangled mess of lies that haunted her and only got bigger the longer she ignored it. Of a girl that could finally start to walk a new path without the heavy weight of a trail of broken hearts behind her. She was, day by day, facing up to all of the mistakes that she had made. Standing face to face with a new, old version of herself that she had allowed to exist without ever extinguishing.

For as long as she could remember she had lived as multiple different people, and everyone that had ever known her knew someone different. She never stayed in one place for too long, her anchor never touching the seabed. The sails of her heart ever filled with wind and searching for the next destination. She possessed an ugly yet beautiful ability to switch off her emotions when she was ready to go somewhere new, only to allow herself later to feel the pain they did when she left their lives as quickly as she came into it. The funny thing about it, was that she had always used it as a tool to help her keep living this lifestyle she knew she was born for. Forever moving and forever falling in love with new places and different people. She had faith in living this way and always thought she was protected from too much pain by the shield she had built. But as soon as she decided that she couldn’t be anyone new without righting her wrongs from the past, she let the shield down. The wind caught her sails in the wrong way and before she had the chance to change her mind, she was overboard. Submerged into the ocean, fighting to stay above water, her ship was still sailing but she was no longer onboard. She had gotten what she deserved at last and now she was vulnerable and the ghosts of her mistakes tried desperately to see her drown.

It was to be the fight of her life, she knew that in her heart and was trying with everything she had to ready herself for battle. But she had left herself so alone, suddenly this clever way she had been living didn’t seem so clever anymore as the cruel reality hit that no one would be coming to save her. She was drowning and all of the people who had ever cared about her, had given up long ago. She was left alone with her thoughts and the one word which kept circling her water logged, exhausted mind, was sorry. She cried silent tears for the painful truth that it could no longer mean anything coming from her lips, she had used it far too many times and it didn’t matter how hard she tried to think of another way to say it. Everything she said sounded ingenuine, even to her, the only person who could still see that she meant every word of it.

Her grandmother had told her a story as a little girl, about the boy who lied so many times about a wolf attacking his sheep, that when it really did happen no one believed him. The story played in her mind as she thought about all of the times she had cried out for help and people had come running to help her, to hold her and dry her tears and help her out of a dark place. She thought about how many times she had made up excuses for the things she had done and the people that she had hurt, the way she had never had to face the things she had done wrong and had become a master at weaving her way around the pain so that hardly any of it ever touched her. She thought about how now, those opportunities had been lost to her and she was being forced to face the real consequences with nothing at all to distract her from them. The pain, now, was only hers. Everyone else had long forgotten and moved on.

Everything about it was ugly, her lungs filled with water, her tear stained face with nothing left, the pained expression and the way her skin had turned a funny shade of blue. The worst part was that she knew she deserved all of it. She had never known how to be alone, never taught herself. And now she was stuck in a world of pain, flicking the switch desperately trying to force the pain away, but nothing was happening. And among it all, she was completely alone. This was her lesson, she had no choice.

She was left a mess as yet another monstrous wave washed over her body leaving her breathless and fighting to push herself back to the surface. One more, and another. And another. She kept disappearing under the crash of the waves and eventually it was too much. She sobbed silently, As she could no longer scream. It didn’t matter as no one could hear her anyway, she was so alone. And so she let it happen, the pull of the currents dragged her under and she allowed herself to sink, she knew she was drowning. That she was dying, the sounds of the water were now silent and she was falling into a world of quiet darkness. It was scary and lonely but for the first time in forever she felt as thought she could rest, her body and mind could stop fighting and she could close her eyes. It was completely beautiful to her, everything that she felt was painless and she felt free. She never imagined death could be so wonderful, but she was finally at peace and she had been searching for so long.

And for a minute she considered staying there, latching herself to the seabed and waiting for her quiet end. Her final punishment. Truthfully she didn’t think she had a single drop of energy left to fight with. She was completely empty and broken and lost. Staying down there seemed much easier than fighting her way to the top only to be beaten by the waves of her past, at least this way she could forget all about them and they would never haunt her again. But something stopped her. She knew that there were people who loved her, and even though she needed them more than ever and they seemed to have forgotten about her. And that every moment they weren’t there was excruciatingly painful and lonely. She couldn’t leave them behind, needing her, she could never do what they were doing to her now, no matter how many times they needed her she would be there and she couldn’t do that from the bottom of the ocean.

So with the people she loved in her mind and every last part of her, she pushed her way to the top. Fighting against the currents and feeling tiny bursts of strength flow through her veins and limbs as she fought against the odds. Against all of her belief in herself, and everyone else’s ugly thoughts about her she kept fighting until she surfaced. The sun flooded her skin and she felt blinded by the light, but there was a tiny part of her that had pushed her there and she took pride in it. Just as the waves began to crash over her again. A tiny glimpse of light, one look at her strength, was soon drowned out by the ocean and before she knew it, she was screaming yet again. And despite all of the love she kept inside of her, no one was listening. And she was alone once more in her too dark, too loud little world.