Phoenix:
Behind the clubhouse. Back against the brick. Cigarette burning between my fingers like the only thing tethering me to reality. I was unraveling. Again.
The sun was bleeding into the pavement—one of those dusky, dirty shades of gold that looked too beautiful for a night like this. For a me like this.
Half drunk. Half rage. All chaos.
The bottle I’d been nursing sat next to me, almost empty. Cheap whiskey. Burned like truth.
I hated myself tonight.
Not in that performative, poetic way people post about online. I mean the bone-deep, skin-tight hate. The kind that lived in your chest and made everything feel itchy and wrong.
I’d been fine earlier. Or faking it well enough.
Then something cracked. Something always did.
Dad had tried to talk to me. Mom had texted. I ignored it
