After he disappeared, something inside me collapsed. At first, I tried to convince myself he would come back the next day, the next week, the next month. I'd glance at the door in quiet moments, hoping he would walk through with that half-smile, acting like nothing had happened. But days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, and slowly, the truth set in: he was gone. Just like that—without explanation, without goodbye, without even the decency to let me understand why.
I didn't cry in front of anyone. I didn't want to give them that satisfaction, didn't want my pain to be another burden or a piece of gossip on someone's tongue. Instead, I built walls—slowly, brick by brick. At first it was small things. I spoke less at home. I laughed at school, but the laughter felt rehearsed. My smile became something I put on like lipstick: convincing from a distance, but hollow the closer you got.
The truth was, I was hurting more than I could explain, but I had no one safe enough to give the words to. So I swallowed my pain, and in swallowing it, I became quieter. Detached. I learned to look okay, but inside I was bleeding.
In school, I searched for validation anywhere I could find it. Compliments became like oxygen to me. A boy saying, "You look nice today," felt like a feast after weeks of hunger. A friend's laugh at my joke felt like proof that I wasn't invisible. But it was never enough. No matter how many scraps of attention I gathered, I was still starving inside.
That hunger pushed me into places I never thought I'd go. It started with little acts of rebellion—ignoring homework, talking back, pretending not to care. But beneath every action was a question I never said out loud: Am I worth anything to anyone?
When no one answered that question, I went looking for answers in smoke and liquor. The first cigarette burned my throat, made me cough until my eyes watered. I hated it—but I didn't put it down. Because in that moment, the pain was mine to control. The world had hurt me in ways I couldn't stop, but here was something I could choose. So I chose it again, and again, until it became a habit.
Drinking came after. I told myself it was just fun, just a way to let loose with friends. But the truth was uglier. Alcohol made the ache quieter. It blurred the edges of my thoughts, softened the sharp memories that kept replaying in my mind. When I was drunk, I could forget for a little while that I was the girl he left, the girl who wasn't enough. But the forgetting only lasted until morning, when reality came crashing back, heavier than before.
And still, I smiled. I put on the show. People thought I was reckless, maybe wild. Teachers scolded me, classmates admired me, some even envied me. But nobody knew the truth. Nobody knew that every laugh, every rebellious act, every sip of alcohol was just a desperate cry: Please see me. Please love me. Please make this hurt stop.
Inside, I was breaking apart quietly. I hated myself for craving love, for chasing people who couldn't give it, for filling my emptiness with things that could only hollow me further. Every time I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized the girl staring back. She looked older, colder, like she'd been through too much for her age. And she had.
What made it worse was how invisible my pain was to the people closest to me. They saw the grades slipping, the attitude changing, the new habits forming—but they didn't see the why. They didn't see the little girl inside me who just wanted to be held, wanted to be told she mattered. They only saw the "problem child," not the broken child. And the more they judged me, the more I leaned into the role. If they wanted me to be a monster, I'd give them one.
By the end of that year, I wasn't the same person anymore. I was harder, sharper. I didn't let people get too close. I couldn't risk letting them in, not when everyone I'd ever let close had only left me bleeding. So I carried my pain in silence, burying it under smoke, alcohol, reckless choices, and fake smiles. I told myself I didn't need anyone. But deep down, the loneliness was swallowing me whole.
And that was the girl I became—closed off, aching, desperate for love but terrified to ask for it. A girl who looked fine on the outside but was quietly drowning. A girl who had already learned, too young, that sometimes the people who are supposed to protect you are the ones who hurt you the most.
No one else would get the chance to hurt me again. I wasn't going to let anyone in.