Chapter One: Only a Rumor

                                    

                                          
Chapter One: Only a Rumor
                          
“I guess rumors are more exciting than the truth.” –Venus Williams
                          
Jeremy was dead, never to return. His body washed onto shore the morning after he went missing. It broke my heart. In my mind, the world had stopped spinning. I felt dead, inside and out.
                          
            Ryan was taking it the hardest, blaming himself. “If I hadn’t suggested surfing, this wouldn’t have happened,” he’d said. “He’d still be alive.” Maybe it was true. I, nor anyone else, would ever know. It was too late for that now.
                          
            A few days before Jeremy died, he told me that we should stop cutting. He said that he read stories about how people cut so deep that they had to get stitches. It grossed him out and he said that what they were doing wasn’t healthy. After explaining things to me, I realized that he had a point. Together, we stopped.
                          
            Since he died, there was no way for me to cope. There were no more tears and no one to talk to. Jeremy’s death tore me apart. About a week after he died, I started cutting again. I knew that it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to release my pain somehow.
                          
            The funeral was, without a doubt, the worst day of my life. Though Jeremy only hung out with a few people, almost the whole school showed up. It made me sick inside. They didn’t know him like I did. They didn’t deserve to be there. Most, I figured, only came to be nosy. Not because they genuinely cared about him. That day I cried harder than I ever had.
                          
            The whole summer was just a blur. Summer just wasn’t the same without my best friend around. Sure, Eliza and I hung out, but it wasn’t the same. Neither of us was quite over it. Ryan hung out with us sometimes, but most of the time he spent his days locked up in his bedroom. Most of my days were spent listening to music. Music let me escape the world through lyrics.
                          
            Hailey and I spent a few weekends with our dad. I preferred him to my mother. Though we didn’t live with him, I felt like he knew us better than our mom. Our mother was too busy trying to take care of her alcoholic asshole of a boyfriend. And when she wasn’t doing that, she was trying to protect him and justify his actions. She made me and Hailey promise not to tell our dad about that. I knew why. She didn’t want him to try and take us away from her. If he knew, he would’ve had us living with him a long time ago.
                          
            I opened my eyes. My walls were still yellow and Jeremy was still dead, buried in the cemetery nearby. Nothing had changed, except me. I didn’t want to hang out anymore and I didn’t talk as much. Even Eliza didn’t talk as much, a shock to anyone that knows her. We laughed and smiled as usual, but it would never last. The pain in our hearts still remained.
                          
            I got out of bed and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t even look the same as I did two months ago. Bags formed underneath my eyes, my blue eyes were dull, and my skin paler than ever. Two months ago, I wouldn’t have recognized myself. With a sigh, I went to the bathroom to take a shower.
                          
            I cut in places that weren’t visible to others. My sides were scarred from the cuts I’d made. Now that school was starting, I could cut my wrists and arms. So that no one could see what I was doing to myself, I would wear long sleeved shirts.
                          
            After dressing, I put a few bracelets on my wrists in order to cover some of my older scars. I left my hair out, deciding that I should look decent on my first day back at school. I even put on some eyeliner, but mostly to distract people from noticing how terrible I looked.