This mirror before me showed me everything I didn't want to see. The extra skin at my hips, my thighs too thick. I'm fat, unattractive, and nowhere near good enough for the large, professional ballet companies. The companies that only want the prettiest, skinniest, and most perfect girls they can find. I'll never be like any of them. Just keep exercising it off. Just don't eat. Now months later, look at me. I have starved myself to the point where you can see all of my bones in my body, all of my muscles. I look like a skeleton. It hurts move now, I am always so tired and fatigued. And all of this to please a stereotype, to please everyone else, when all along I should've been trying to do what is best for me. I can't live like this anymore, hating myself, starving myself, hurting myself. I don't want to be like this anymore. I don't want to be who they want me to be.

I want to be me.

How did I end up here? At the near brink of death? How, after everything I put myself through to prevent it, did I find myself in this situation? With the one that I loved, the only one left in this world who still cares for me, dead; and it was all my fault.

I did everything I could to keep her safe. I eliminated myself from world view, became something I never dreamt of becoming. I killed for her. And by doing all of this I had killed myself, all so she could be safe, but instead I was the one who brought death upon her. Because of my actions she will never breathe again. She will never be in my arms again. I will never see her again.

"Arghhhh!" I scream into the air, pounding my fists into the brick will with rage and anguish. Over and over, I slam my knuckles into the wall, because I would rather feel the pain of bricks breaking my skin and hot blood drenching my hands than the pain that wreaks havoc inside of my heart. The pain and sorrow and rage and hate for myself that tears me apart on the inside.

I will never love again.

lost in a darkness I created

fighting for who I used to be

who I thought I was

no one can help me regain the years

I lost to my own selfish darkness

a darkness that consumed my being

and turned me into nothing

and left me all alone

I used to always wonder, will people like my writing? Will they feel the emotions as vividly as my characters do? Will I be famous and loved? Will my writing be known all over?

But I realized that's not what was important to me. All I want is to write to let my emotions be poured onto the page with no regrets, because I want to. Because it makes me happy. I want people to feel the emotions of my characters and know what I mean, what I feel, be transported into a world that they want to escape to. I want to make something that makes me happy, but more than anything other people can relate to. I want to make something where people can feel so much, laugh when they are about to cry, feel when they cannot feel. All I want is the satisfaction as a writer that somewhere, someone out there read my work and felt something amazing. I want that satisfaction in myself that I made something I am proud of and that makes me happy.

I had thought that I wouldn't make friends, that those three weeks would pass by quickly, and I wouldn't have to worry about the tears that would follow and the fear of never seeing friends made during those three weeks ever again. I had thought it would be that easy. I thought I could be alone for three weeks and get away with making no friends. But I was wrong - as I so very often am.

I had not expected you.

You were so nice and kind and caring, so funny and calm in all situations, you were everything I never expected to have. I was drawn to you in a way I didn't understand. We became close friends in a flash, teasing and playfully bickering like lovers, it was always a nonstop competition between us. I never won. I had known you for only a small amount of time, but it had felt like I had known you my whole life. I could trust you with anything, my feelings, my thoughts, and my secrets. You always listened with a caring heart and comforted me. You even opened up your heart for me. It was a friendship unlike any other I had ever had - and, I didn't know it then, it was unlike any I will ever have. We always had each other's backs, we were always happy around each other, always playing and teasing. It was the best three weeks of my life.

It ended too soon.

At the end when we had to go home, I had held in my tears so well, trying to be strong. I wanted the last thing you saw of me was a strong and collected woman. Even when on the inside I was falling apart, painfully unsure whether I would ever see you again. It hurt me so terribly to even think of it, but now, now several months after - soon to be a year - we hardly even text. We used to text every day. I had tried so hard to stay in touch with you, I was so afraid I would lose you, but now you rarely speak to me. Is it my fault? Did I do something to make you not want to be my friend anymore?

What happened to us?

Now I wonder, if I ever see you again, will it be different between us? Will we still be as close as we were? Or will the distance have pushed us apart? I'm not sure what the answer is to any of these questions, but what I do know is that I miss you and your jokes, and I truly hope that someday we get to see each other again.

Here's one last secret, one that you'll never be able to hear, a secret that will float through this computer and through my mind and through my memories, a secret that you'll never know. I was starting to fall in love with you. Most people could see it on my face (Kylie and Kara especially), but you never did and never will. Now, though, I don't even know if those feelings were real or not. If it was just that I thought I was in love because of how close we were, but what I do know is that I miss being your friend. I miss laughing with you and competing with you. I just hope that you are living a happy life and don't forget about all of the memories we had during that amazing Summer Intensive.

*tick tick tick*

My fingers fidget at my sides, my leg bouncing up and down. Constantly moving, waiting, thinking. My thoughts spiral, going farther down every second that I wait here, seated in patience.

*tick tick tick*

I sigh and lick my lips, glancing at the clock. It has only been three minutes since the last time I checked it. I rub my sweaty palms on my jeans, still waiting. My thoughts grow in fear, continuing on their rapid spiral down. Down into straight insanity of this aching, wretched waiting.

What if it is a "yes"? What if it is a "no"? What if I never get to see my family again? What if I can live for more years? What if my time is up? What if I have all the time in the world? What if tomorrow is my last day? What if I have an infinite number of days ahead of me? What if... what if... what if...

*tick tick tick*

The clock ticks, continuously but it is as if time has stopped moving altogether, making me wait with this biting anxiety. This anxiety and waiting that will kill me.

A woman walks in with a clipboard, and I can feel the tsunami of tears waiting behind my eyes, ready for what she has to say. Ready to hear that dreaded news that will either make my day or end it.

She comes over to me and holds out her hand with a smile of great compassion. "Your safe," she says. "The cancer is gone."

Relief floods in me, and tears stream down my face, instantly washing away my anxiety and fear. I have more time with my family. God has given me more time to live and love.

I smile.

You are

Wonderfully made

One of a kind

Magnificent

Able and

Noticed

embers

dim orange specks

only remnants of the once large fire

burning wild and free inside me

watered down

to nothing more than an ember

a single ember of who I used to be

The roses have shriveled up, wilting over in sorrow. How they long to be beautiful again and held with such reverence. How they long to be loved and smelled with such mystification. But now they sit there, in the vase, bending their heads down in deep sorrow for the love that they lost. And in the corner, she sits there, knees pulled tightly to her chest crying in despair for the love she lost. The one who had gifted her these beautiful flowers, the one who had held her in her arms, the one who had claimed to love her.

The one who changed his mind and left her wilted over in sorrow, just like the roses.

"Being cremated is my last hope for a smoking hot body," he says with a mischievous smile, beaming up at me with pride of his own terrible joke.

He always finds a way to make a joke even when he lays on this hospital bed, knowing he only has a day left to live, knowing that I am never going to see him again. Even when he knows he is about to die he still finds a way to smile and make jokes about his own, oncoming death.

My lip quivers as I smile weakly, watching him. I memorize everything about him, everything I can, before he's gone. Tears prick the sides of my eyes, threatening to break loose, but I won't let them. This will not be the last image that he sees of me, I want him to see me strong, even though on the inside my heart is breaking into a million pieces, knowing that tomorrow morning he won't be there. He's been by my side my whole life, telling me where to put my feet when I lose my way, holding my hand, comforting me, making me smile when it feels like I'll never laugh again. When it feels like the world is falling apart, he was there showing me that everything will be okay, helping me put my world back together. But now, now it seems my whole world, my whole life is glass, cracking with every second we get closer to tomorrow.

He can't leave me. He can't go. I need him.

I need him.

A warm, frail hand grasps mine, squeezing my hand with all of its strength, silently assuring me that it'll be okay. That even though he is going to die, and he won't be there for me anymore, I will be okay. I have to. For him.

I wake up the next morning, my mind groggy from sleep. My vision slowly regains focus and I see him in front of me. He does not breathe. He does not move. My heart beats rapidly in my chest.

"No, no, no, no," I say, taking his hand in mine. It is cold. "NO!"

I bend over him, shaking him vigorously, trying to wake him up. "Wake up! Will, wake up! This is not the time for jokes!"

Tears burst from my eyes and pour down my cheeks as I hold onto him tightly. Doctors come in and try to take him away from me, but I struggle against them and hold onto him as tight as I can.

"No! NO!" I yell.

"He's dead, dear. You have to let him go. He's dead." One of the nurses tell me, trying to pry me from his body.

"No! He's not, you're lying!" I shake him harder. "Wake up! No, Will, wake up! You're supposed to wake up and laugh and tell me that it was a joke. Your supposed to be alive. Come one, wake up! Laugh at me for thinking it was real! Wake up, Will! Wake up..."

Finally, I stop struggling and go limp over top of his body, letting my tears pour down. He's gone. He's gone.

He's gone...

They take him away and sit in the room, numb. No tears come, no feelings, nothing. I have no one else. Will was all I had left, and now, he's gone, and I am all alone. I have nothing left. I am nothing now. The glass world, that Will had helped keep together, was thrown against the wall, shattering into a thousand small pieces, turning into dust. What am I going to do now? Who am I now?