​Z

⚠️TW⚠️

(Completely fictional, any relation to real people or events are coincidental)

Call me Z. In my sophomore year of high school, I fell in love with this girl. Me and her were practically glued together. Then, senior year she broke up with me. I kept trying to occupy myself until I decided: what if I just started talking to a different girl? So I did. Obviously it didn’t feel right, plus we were long-distance. The rebound didn’t work, so I broke it off. She didn’t like that. At. All. So she looked through my social media and found my friends. She told them that I’d cheated on the girl that I’d loved. She painted me as this manipulative evil mastermind, and she blew it up before I even knew it. I went to school oblivious and tried to talk to my friends. I looked around to see no eyes meeting mine. I spoke and joked and didn’t get a word in return. I had nothing left, so I left school to kill myself. The next few hours blended together. I walked to the park, I called the cops on myself to force myself to make up my fucking mind. I failed. The police picked me up and took me to a weird mental health holding facility. Twenty-four hours under evaluation. I was unfit, so I got transferred to an actual mental hospital. I remember that sterile smell. It was a youth ward, so there were a bunch of other people — boys and girls — all my age. All different types of issues. There was a girl in the corner. She had short hair and glasses. She was quiet. I was intrigued, so I talked to her. She just kinda looked at me, then smiled. Every day that I was in there, I talked to her, and eventually I got a conversation. We talked every day for the next 2 weeks. I’d draw pictures of her, she’d sing songs to me. When I got out, I saw something. She was there, and for a moment I didn’t understand what I was looking at. Every attempt to say something got caught in my throat. One foot, then the other. I was already beside her when I noticed I’d even moved. We left together that day. I never went back to figure out what she’d done.