i was facing the water front and thinking about all steps i had taken to get here. visualizing every step, every path, every wrong way and every one who had tried to correct me.

and i was laughing.

flash back a few months and i start working at my internship at a law office. i don't know what i'm doing but all they expect of me is basic intern responsibilities. i sit at a desk for three or four hours, answering calls and taking minutes. i feel like a ghost. it's the best.

i'm deluding myself that another human being could possibly care about me more and more every day and i want to drown myself in alcohol but a.) i don't drink and b.) i couldn't get it if i did. i walk the halls of my school and try to convince myself to smile at everyone. i must be smiling at the wrong people because they never smile back. maybe they just realize i'm ******.

amanda tells me that i am her steeple and it makes me want to *****. churches are pretty and pure and a place of welcome. i am a burnt down house with peeling paint and shattered windows. i am rotten foundation begging to break. she is wrong.

i speak a lot, to myself at least. and that's okay because i've never known someone else to want to hear the clumsiness that escapes my mouth. no one that had plans on staying anyway. i talk a lot to her but i feel like i am tainting her and i feel guilty. she deserves better than this. i feel sick.

back to the present. my study group got too personal today. we start talking about love and how to accept it and it gets too messy. i tell them to stop but they keep pushing it and soon i'm talking about how i've been in love and i'm in love right now but she doesn't feel the same way and it gets to be too much. i can feel my tongue lying thick and heavy in my mouth and the taste of blood fills it up. i bit my lip too hard. we're all crying. i tell them we should just focus on writing before i leave. i feel their pain more than they do.

back at the office when the bosses door opens. i see another intern leaving her office. his shirt is on backwards. she looks me in the eye and for a moment i sympathize with her. she sheds a tear. i turn away. this isn't my business. i pretend to write emails until i can go. she comes back out and tells me not to come back. i just nod my head. there is nothing to say. i tell her it'll be okay. it probably won't be.

parking lot. amanda's there. before i can get in the car she says she has to tell me something. my phone beeps. i don't want to deal with any of this right now. i know what's coming and it's gross i feel gross this is gross. so i turn away and start walking, saying no no no no under my breath a million times. i can hear her crying but i don't care. she didn't care about me. the little bubble on my phone is smiling. i am dying.

i walk and walk and walk until i get to the water front. for once i think it feels good to be the one walking away and not the one being walked out on. but it doesn't. it hurts me all the same. i want to jump into the water. it looks to calm. i'm jealous of it.

i hear the car pull up behind me. i don't turn around. she comes around and she's talking to me but i don't hear anything. she's already decided to leave me. she grabs me. she's crying and i push her away as gently as possible. she blames me, and then she blames everyone else. she wants me to say something. but i don't.

she's just the latest exit wound.

i fall into the water.