Being left alone is one of the things I feared the most. I mean who wouldn't fear people leaving? I think it's worse in the dark. It's scary to be alone in the dark. It's like I can feel another presence, one that just wants me to die, ready to attack because I'm alone. People just leave. It hurts. Happy at first, like having a best friend who then later becomes someone else. In the pitch black, the mind torments, by saying that “it was your fault that they left.”.

My mind rushes for the first time, one of the ones that impacted my life. My hands, I see, now return to holding a toy car. I was happy and running around. The air rushed through my body, me making a silhouette in the air. Something crashed to the floor. I quickly turned around, and I saw my dad leaving. My ears ring. My mother was yelling at him, he had cheated on my mom. The first person to leave me. I contemplate if people care about someone. They just end up doing something, and they don't try to fix it, and just think about themselves and their problems or not seeing how it will affect other people. He left me wondering if love is real. It haunts me saying I will be just like him, I will leave others, I will leave. The nagging and nagging of this chips my self-esteem just like erosion chips are rocks leaving with just specks and not the beauty that it once were.

It rushes to a more recent memory now, Alexandria. My hands hit the ball and it goes soaring through the air to the other side of the net. We were playing volleyball. I accidentally hit it too hard and it hit someone. Makenzie got mad at me and started yelling at me. I yelled back. I wasn't going to let her yell at me. Then Alexandria didn't talk to me. She chose a side, not mine and it hurt. She said I was wrong. She left me with one thought, I was a bad person. I couldn't talk to another person without getting to know them first and adjusting to them and who they were. If I was a bad person, I wouldn't let myself be me anymore. My mind torments and says, “You’re horrible.” “Never, ever, just the horrible person you’re now.”

Pinkie to pinkie, “I promise,” we both say together. Calypso's hands are so soft it triggers a memory. It flashes back to 8th grade.It was just me and Calypso so happy. Talking and listening. Laughing without a reason, not giving a damn if others were going to laugh at us or think of us as weird. Calypso said that she missed me during the summer. We barely got to see each other. She left as well. At that point, I just thought it was hopeless. Why get close to people if they are just going to end up leaving? Why have to go through the pain of missing someone so much, then wishing upon death, hating yourself and everyone? Then, when sitting, not knowing what to do anymore with life.

Alexandria comes back to me and into my life. I’m happy, but things are not the same. We don't share the same things we used to have in common, we do different things now. We have grown apart, and it just tears me apart. She came back. It’s back. It's great. Sometimes people leave but come back. I felt something with her, I felt jealousy. She was now best friends with someone else. I hated myself. Why did people have to leave? Why do people have to torment me like this?

“Explore your mind, your past, the happy moments,” said my therapist. So I explored it and went through every single memory. One where we are all laughing and playing uno. I'm holding on to 2 cards I can almost win. Uno says to Bianca, Oh no I think, I have to distract her. She takes out some beef jerky and I can smell it wherever I am sitting ever since I stopped eating meat. I swear I could smell it a mile away. “What if I'm vegetarian one day and not vegetarian another.” We start to laugh. It's a stupid idea. Good times. Fast forward. “ Okay! Okay!” I'm laughing so hard I feel like I'm going to puke. “One more one More!” More and more they kept flooding back and I smiled with just one tear down my cheek.

Even though people leave, they can come back. It hurts when they do, though, because they can not be the same person as before. Seeing them grow and change,  wish they hadn't been in the first place. Some things happen for the better, even though it feels like losing a dog. Sometimes people leave without wanting to. Sometimes people don't think of the effect of leaving on others. Not caring and just caring about other people. Having the pain of loving and caring for someone else torments me, but the memories of being together will be better than the pain.