Bad Enough for You (Currently Editing)

He Was Never Going to Poop Again

Thanks to greeshma13 for the banner:)

43.] He Was Never Going to Poop Again

What do you do when the world catches on fire and then comes crashing down around you? How do you know what pieces in the wreckage you should try to salvage and which ones you should leave smoldering in the dirt? Where do you begin again? How do you know that it’ll be worth it to replace the things you’ve lost?

As the days began to blur together and my father gave up trying to coax me out from beneath my comforter, I lost sight of the goal I had had going into this summer. In the few times I had caught sight of myself in the mirror when I dragged myself from bed in order to pee, I didn’t even recognize the girl who looked back at me.

I couldn’t remember who I was before this all happened. I couldn’t remember how I spent my time or what I did for fun. I didn’t remember wearing any of the pretty feminine things that hung in my closet other than my go-to sundresses. I couldn’t remember the days going past without a craving for a cigarette or constantly wanting to rip the pants off of any attractive guy who looked my way.

The girl I used to be was long gone and instead stood someone who disgusted me. Whenever I caught my own eye in the mirror, I immediately had to look away in fear that I would see the girl I used to be grinning sarcastically, taunting me with a silent, “I told you so.” I knew that if I looked hard enough, I might still be able to find slight similarities of the girl looking into the mirror and the one looking back at me. Maybe beneath all of the dried stains from tears and the greasy hair, there would be something I saw that I liked.

The time to be looking for characteristics that I liked was not now. I could hardly get myself out of bed long enough to find something to eat let alone sit around analyzing who I was. I knew that if I wanted to change again, to start piecing back together the life I had ruined, I would have to first begin by dragging myself from this bed and take a shower. I wasn’t entirely sure what would follow next, but all that mattered was that I made that first little step.

It took more than a few minutes to convince myself that the only way to feel better was to start changing whatever I felt needed to be changed. After I had managed to pull myself from my bed and take a shower, I stepped back into my bedroom feeling a bit better. Looking about the room at the empty Jack Daniel’s bottles that were lodged between my bed and the nightstand, along with the half-drunken one that was sitting upright on the floor.

Putting my life life back together would have to begin with the things that had put me here in the first place. So, I set out about my room, searching for anything that could put me back into that place once more. Like I had done with all of the things I had salvaged from mine and Blaine’s relationship, I kept almost nothing. Throwing the glass bottles in garbage bags and uncovering the untouched bag of weed Angeline had given me that was stashed in my sock drawer, I tried to completely wipe out the things that had helped to transform me into a person that I didn’t know. I went through the pile of clothes that had accumulated on my bedroom floor, slutty dresses, shorts that didn’t really even cover anything, and anything that reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke.

There was only one thing that reminded me of that lifestyle that I couldn’t get rid of quite yet. In the short amount of time that I had been exposed to all of this, I had become addicted to cigarettes. I couldn’t go a day without them and throughout the past few days, I had had to force myself out onto the balcony only to slump against the railing and smoke my way through my stash.

Just thinking of the cigarette, the way it slid between my lips, the way it burned to hold it all in and then the rush of relief as the smoke spilled over my lips and before me left me digging through my drawers, trying to find another carton.