All Night

If there’s one thing I have to say about life then it’s the fact that it’s unfair. Life is stupid and unfair. Maybe even worthless sometimes. Maybe even unnecessary sometimes. Exhausting all the time.  At least mine is. At least that’s what I thought. I could’ve changed my mind but things never changed. They got worse.  You try your best, you live and survive somehow and sometimes you make mistakes and try to hide them, cover them up but they keep chasing you and become a bomb that could go off every second. Whenever you just live and keep going, trying to stay positive and see the bright side of everything reality comes and hits you from left and right like you're in a boxing match.  You can push the bad things and thoughts away as much as you want. You can lock them in the darkest corner of your brain but they will come back to the surface and remind you of themselves. Things like these; traumas, bad incidents, everything that is a burden for you or even the simplest annoying things could make you think 'why me?' but after some time you realize hat you're not the only one and everyone carries their own package. Unfortunately it won't make a difference. It won’t make your problems disappear or make you feel better about them. It won't change the fact that you have to deal with it because you're the main reason. It's your own fault. The consequences of your actions. It'll just keep getting harder and harder until you give up but until then it's already too late… Everything falls apart and you pushed yourself down the hill. Nobody else.  Believing that you'll make it better and be able to lock each mistake of yours into a box and send it far away is nice. Believing that nobody will ever find out about your mistakes because you're obsessed with perfection is nice but it’s not true. None of that will work.  Something always happens. Something that changes everything or tears you apart, although you deserve none of that but you are not big enough to do something against it. You’re not big enough to stop it but none of that is your fault. At least not directly. Not specifically.  We humans love to destroy everything. Everything that we love and that's stupid but it’s nature. We are so disgusting, selfish, stupid, naive, cruel and greedy. We are the most awful living beings. There's always something that brings dirt into the story.. or somebody. I'm sixteen years old and I live with my normal family in a normal house.. That’s a lie. I’ve mastered lying a while ago and now I can’t stop. It’s hard to let go of it once you’ve internalized it. So let's skip the part in which I call my family and the house normal.  I have an older brother who hates me more than anything else on this planet and believe me I really don't know why. Older brothers are always annoying and can be cruel sometimes but they still love their siblings and protect them but mine can’t even stand seeing me and it hurts me but I got used to it. He's three years older than me and really annoying, strict and controlling. Sometimes he doesn't care and sometimes he's overprotective.. not in a good way. He’s not strict and controlling because he cares about me. He just wants to make life harder for me. He always says that I’m not worth s**t and that he hates me. He doesn’t even try to hide it. I don't know why he hates me and treats me like that and I never asked him before… I don’t want to hear the stupid reasons that aren’t even valid because I’m always nice to him.  I’m that different person. The pick-me girl. I'm popular and I know that and according to some students and friends I’m one of the prettiest girls on our school. It’s a cliche but I’m also the captain of our schools cheerleader team. I'm in several school clubs and I have many friends.  My school life seems to be perfect because I always give my best but I can’t say the same about my private life… I like reading books in silence, long walks in forests, playing tennis, cooking with my dad who is a great cook and writing with him. He's also a great writer who published two books and we love to work together on his third.. I only have one best friend… Romy. She is like my sister and she means the world to me. She knows me the best and I know her the best. I don't know what I would do without her. We share everything, do everything together and love each other.. she can be a drama queen and really exhausting sometimes but I still love her. What’s so exhausting about her is that she's always with guys… Different guys every week and she just doesn’t learn. This time she has a crush on Cole. He's the captain of our football team. The playboy that every girl loves. A classic. But I think he's a disgusting douchebag and no matter how often I explain that to her she just won’t understand. She would kill for me but she is very naive. I don't like Cole but I won't play the Philosoph and tell her what to do. As long as she'll leave me alone with it, I don't care. I’m busy with my own stuff anyway. I really trust her with everything just like she does but there are some things that I'd rather keep to myself. Things that are about my family and me. Things that I keep inside to not hurt myself or the people around me... Like the fact that my mom is cheating on my dad.  I found out about it a few months ago and since then things haven’t been the same between us. I can’t even look into her eyes or speak to her properly because every time I look at her I feel ashamed of being her daughter and keeping her dirty secret.  I have these weights on my shoulders that are making me weak. They are bringing me to my knees, praying to god because I can’t take this anymore.  I always knew that things between mom and dad were weird but I never thought that there could be something so disgusting and scary behind it. I didn't ask her anything about it because I never wanted to know. I didn’t want to know since when this was happening, why or how she could do this to him… I wanted to act like it didn’t happen and that’s the hardest part about it. It broke my heart into pieces and ruined the image I’ve had of her. It blurred it until it was totally messy. When I found out about it I started screaming at her and calling her names that insulted her. Something that I've never done in my whole life because I always had respect for her. She suffocated that respect with her lies.  I did that because I always knew how much my dad loved her. It was unfair. He worshipped her and she wasn’t loyal. What a nightmare.  She slapped me for being so disrespectful and because she thinks it’s only her business but that’s not true. It’s not her business anymore if I know about it and if she asks me to keep it to myself. I was disappointed. She had never done something like this before. She had never slapped me. That’s why she regretted it immediately and apologized for raising her hand at me and hurting me but the walls between us were already too high and too thick.  She started crying as well, using her tears as a weapon or protection. I don’t know. She begged me to not tell my dad about her affair. That’s when I lost all my respect and love for her because she was only caring about herself… not about dad or us. We didn’t matter to her. She only didn’t want to be embarrassed but she didn’t understand what a burden she gave me. She never really loved me. Or any of us. She was only caring about her lover but my anger for her was so strong… The flames in my chest are still eating me from the inside. On one hand I was so close to tell dad everything but on the other hand my love for him was and is too strong. So is my respect and my pride. I knew it would kill him or at least hurt him like hell and that’s why I needed to shut up about it. I need to keep it to myself, otherwise our family will fall apart and all because of me. I don’t want to be the reason for that. She has to do it by herself.  No matter what it would do to him, I could never hurt him. He's been protecting me his whole life and I needed to do it too. So I didn't tell him… but I didn't do it for her. I did it only for dad but I also threatened her that I would tell him if she wouldn't. Since then I'm trying my best to not talk to her but I have to so dad won't notice and get behind it. She's not even trying to make it up. She really wants to be together with her lover but doesn’t have the guts to tell my dad about it. It breaks my heart to know that she doesn't love him and probably never did and what’s even worse is that I’m carrying all this weight with me that she gave me. There's more than that. I'm hiding more than that. Things that I can't even tell myself. I'm trying to forget them… I'm trying to change… or just put a mask on and act like everything is amazing. I’d rather die than end up like my mom, with secrets and things about me that make me a bad person. “Hey.” I wince when I hear Cole's voice. He grabbed me and pulled me out of my thoughts so suddenly that I was lost for a second. I'm standing in front of my locker with books in my hands. I quickly put them away and close my locker. I don’t even know for how long I’m already standing here like this. Sometimes I get paralyzed by my thoughts.  I turn to him, trying to act like I did not just went through that little trauma again. My mom has brought so many issues into my life and she doesn’t even know about it. Trust issues, lies, fear of loss… “Hey.” I raise my chin a little bit. He looks down at me. I hate that. “You look really beautiful today.” he says with a little smirk. I'm wearing a pastel pink tennis skirt with a black shirt -from a band that I don’t even know- which's collar I cut a little bit to show my neckline and my bones a little bit more. Not to please anyone. Just because I like it. I sigh. “Thank you.” I say and swallow, hoping that we’ll keep it short because I don't like talking to him at all. I don't like looking at him, I don't like anything that has something to do with him. We already talk enough at the meetings for the new games and choreographies. That’s more than enough contact. Especially because Romy likes him. He bites his lip. I sigh and roll my eyes. Such a douchebag.  “You we’re looking very hot at the game today. Your body is really flexible…” he says and I clench my jaw. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s saying things like these because he’s hitting on every girl he sees.  This is going into wrong directions and I don't want that. Romy likes him, although I don't and I don't want him to say stupid stuff like this to me. I just walk past him because I don't want to attack him or anything. I won't get mad or let him ruin my mood now. It’s already ruined enough and I won’t let him make it worse.  He follows me and tells me to wait so I turn around, trying to show him how annoyed I am. “Cole I really don't have time right now. I don't like-..” I start but he cuts me off.. “Don't get me wrong. I just thought I should appreciate you... Never mind… Would you like to join me and Romy after school?” he asks me with that stupid smirk that I can’t stand. I sigh again because apparently he didn’t understand how annoyed I am. He should really just leave me alone. I don't have time for boys. Especially not for boys like him that only play with girls feelings. I know what he means with 'join us' and I really don't want that. “I mean we both could-..” this time I cut him off. Even this word 'we' is wrong in this context. This conversation is nonsense. It makes me feel uncomfortable. “No, thank you. Really. You should go and have fun with her. Don't bother thinking about me.” I say, giving him a fake smile, and leave.. Romy is already sitting outside, around one of the tables. My mood changes as soon as I see her. I have to smile. I wrap my arms around her from behind and say “Hello, pretty girl!” I give her head a kiss and sit down across from her. She giggles and looks really happy. Probably because she’s going to see Cole after school. I get goosebumps of disgust.  We always sit at the same table. She's looking at some magazines. Like always. Then she lays one of the opener ones in front of me and puts her finger on a dress. She has all my attention.  “Look what I found! Don't you think Cole would love this on me?” she’s pointing at a tight, black dress with open shoulders. I’m sure that Cole would love seeing her in this because it would show her curves and her décolleté but it’s way too bad for him because he doesn’t deserve it but she seems so excited and happy that all I can do is nod slowly.  “Yeah…” I say and she raises a brow because I wasn’t convincing enough. “Is everything alright?” she asks. She always knows when something is wrong and sometimes that’s good but in some cases like these it’s bad for me. Now it's just making me uncomfortable because I really want to tell her about what happened earlier but at the same time I think I should keep it to myself because I don’t want to interfere or hurt her feelings. But we never lie to each other and I need to be honest... I tell her about it. I tell her about what he said and how he looked at me and that I think he's not good for her and everything else because I need to get it off my chest. Because I want to protect her. I just can't go on without saying the truth. Loyalty, justice and trust is very important for me. Especially because of my mom… I don’t want to end like her.  She puts her magazines away and smiles. “I'm sure you got it wrong… He's only being nice to you.” she softly shakes her head. I take a deep breath and sit up straight up. “I'm telling you... He’s only playing with you. I don't want him to hurt you.” we talked about this almost a hundred times. She's so stubborn but I won't stop until she understands. I know she'll get hurt like always and I want to keep her from that but she really won't understand.  She sighs, totally annoyed and stands up. “Stop talking about him please and leave it to me.” she says. I stand up as well. She's very serious and that’s not like her. She starts walking so I follow her. “Believe me. He was literally scanning me and flirting with me. I don’t want to make this about me. I don’t want him to fool you.” I say, hoping that she'll believe me and realize. She turns around to me with a death stare. “Not everything and everybody evolves around you!” her voice comes out a little louder than expected. That makes my jaw drop slowly. I didn’t expect this kind of reaction. That’s why I furrow my eyebrows at her cold voice. “I just don't want you to get hurt..” she sighs when I say that. “That's none of your god damn business Lucille! Only because you don't have a boyfriend doesn't mean that you always have to ruin my relationships!“ that stings. Like a knife into my heart. I feel my cheeks burning of embarrassment because she’s right. Her relationships are none of my business. It’s my fault that I went this far when she clearly told me to not…  I don't have a boyfriend and never had one but I really don't want to destroy her relationships.. That’s why I can't believe my ears. I didn’t know that she thought like this and I feel bad about it because that was not my goal. “Why are you so angry all of a sudden? I only told you the truth!“ I say with a hurt but angry voice because I think it’s unfair that she speaks to me like that when I only wanted to keep her from a heartbreak. I don't know what to feel right now. She’s the one who keeps telling me and updating me about her relationships and whenever she’s heartbroken, I’m the one who picks her up again but now when I want to protect her it’s suddenly not my business anymore. That makes me angry because it’s stupid but I doubt that I want to argue about that with her. “I’m tired of you! Do you think everybody loves you?“ she asks, looking at me like she's disgusted. For a second I get totally confused because I’m not sure if she’s talking to me. Romy would never say these things. At this point I don’t know if this is really happening right now.  “No! I don't! I was just trying to open your eyes so you won't get hurt because you actually mean something to me!“ I am totally angry because this misconception led to a disagreement which will leave marks and I don’t want this to happen right now.. “Don't open my eyes! You're not my mom so stop acting like this! You can't always help everybody!“ she’s even angrier than I am. Thats pretty confusing, considering the fact that she never had an issue with me helping her, preparing her for dates, giving her my opinion on her outfits and a lot of other things. It makes me sad that she things like this but there’s a more dominant emotion inside me right now. It’s anger.  Best friends don’t hate each other secretly and yell at you in the middle of lunch at school. It’s embarrassing and whatever her issue is, she won’t let it out on me. I won't let her drag me down...