By Brielle Rivera, ’26
When I open my eyes, I am surrounded by nothing. All there is is white, to my left and right, up and down. Except in front of me. There is a line of a black so deep that it looks like death itself. I know I put that there because on the other side of it is you. I recognize the way you hold your shoulders and how you’re slightly slouched but not enough to be recognizable to anyone else’s eyes. The depth in your eyes and the hurt that they mask. The bags under your eyes from the effort that you put in. The way your hands fall at your side, loose and unharming. But when I blink all of that is gone, your head is hanging low and I could have sworn that I saw a tear fall.
My instinct is to run to you. But that deep black line glows in my head and I remember why it is there. My heart hurts to see you like this and I want nothing more than to make you better. I can feel the tears rushing to my eyes and try to fight them off. I love you, more than I can put into words. But I can’t get to you. At this point my sobs are audible and I can’t stop. The tears rush to the surface flowing down my cheeks like a roaring river. A million things run through my mind, but I can only focus on you. The despair you feel, I can feel it over here. I want to talk to you but my voice fails me.
I know I have felt like this before, and I know you caused it. But I don’t want you to experience how I felt. The horrible ripping pain, that never gets better. But the revenge part of me wants to see you weep, to fall to your knees and cry so hard that you hurt physically. Just how I did every night like it was a ritual. To have your heart bleed. So I let you stay there, I let myself stop crying over someone that hurt me so badly. I can forgive you for the things you did, but I will never forget. You need to feel how I felt every night for months. Go through it, and spiral, just how I did. Hopefully this will teach you something. Maybe you will be different after, I hope you will.