Chapter one

"Alex! I shouted running towards him with a grin on my face.

He ran towards me and as we met, we embraced each other.

"I missed you," I whispered in his ear.

"I missed you to," He whispered back. He pulled back from the hug, only to pull me back in for a kiss.

"Never leave me again," I told him smiling.

"I'll try, but I don't promise that my parents won't pull me away for a trip again."

"But...It's hell without you."

He rolled his eyed. "At least you survived."

I giggled," barely, I almost died." I exaggerated.

He shook his head and grinned. "I love you."

I blushed and ducked my head, looking back at him while biting my lip. "I love you to."

We walked hand in hand to our group of friends.

Basically Alex and I have been dating for a year now. He had to go across the country to visit his family, leaving me stuck at school without him.

Alex was a head taller than me, with straight dark brown hair that fell just above his dark brown eyes and he had a gorgeous cheeky smile.

I twisted a piece of my blond hair and bit my lip as I watched him talk.

He stole a glance at me and smiled. My blue eyes reflecting in his.

"So I kind of can't hang out this Friday," he told me avoiding all eye contact.

"Why now?" I asked pouting.

"I have a thing with my family."

"Oh...Okay. Well maybe Sunday then?"

"We'll see."

I stopped cleaning my room when I stumbled upon a phone. "Oh, this is Alex's. Damn, he must of left it here yesterday. Perhaps I should go drop it off..." 

I put down my things, put some shoes on and walked a few houses down to Alex's house, knocking on the door.

"Oh Anna." Alex mum exclaimed with a smile upon her face. 

I smiled largely. "Hi, um, sorry to bother you. I know you guys are having a family thing."

"Family thing?" Alex mum asked confused.

"Yeah, Alex told me that he couldn't hang out with me today because you guys had a family thing."

Alex mum shook her head. "I don't know what you are talking about. Alex is in his room studying with a friend."

"Oh..." Why would he lie to me? "Well I have his phone, will you give it him?" And who was his friend? Was it Jake? Or perhaps Aaron?

Alex's mum smiled at me, "He has been studying for a while now, so why don't you go give it to him and that way he can have a break."

"Okay." I grinned.

The phone slipped out of my hand and onto the floor with a thud. My hand moving towards my mouth in shock.

Alex looked up at me." Anna, no! This is not what it looks like."

I shook my head and ran down the hall and straight out the door.

"Anna!" He called after me.

I ran into my house and into my room, closing the door behind me. I paced my room up and down, wondering if what I had just seen was real or not.

My door slammed open and there stood Alex, only in his pant. "Anna, it's not what it looked like."

I spun around and faced him, "Really, so you and Susan weren't butt naked and your bodies weren't closely entwined?" I shrieked.

"...Okay..So it is what it looked like."

"And here I am thinking that you loved me?" 

"I do."

"Then why did you cheat on me?"

Alex sighed. "Well..yeah I did."

"Yeah, I know you cheated on me."

"No.." He said sitting on my bed, "I did love you..."

"And what you don't anymore?"

He shook his head. "We have grown a part. I've been trying to love you for a while now, but I just can't. I don't know...We can still be friends right?"

"Do you know what, just get out of my sight!"

"Anna..."

I grabbed his arm and pulled him off my bed and shoved him out of my room.

I followed him to the front door, making sure he left my house.

"Hey Alex."

"Yeah?" He turned around to face me.

"You want me to tell you something about love?"

"Yeah sure, go ahead.'

"When you love someone you either always will or you never did. So it's good to know you never did."

"Anna,I..." I closed the door before he could finish what he was trying to say.

I leaned against the door crying, not too much longer and my parents found me.

The Dr sighed and rubbed some sweat away from his eyes. "I recommend that Anna takes these antidepressants. and see a psychologist for a year," the Dr said as a last hope.

I sat in the corner of my room, my knees tucked up, staring at the bandages on my wrists.

A week ago I had run countless cuts along my wrists and plunged them into the bathtub, trying to get ride of the pain that was in my heart. 

My parents found me straight away and rushed me to the hospital. I had been in hospital for a week. They had drugged me up a lot while allowing my wrists to heal, worrying that I might do more damage to them. They tried to send me home, but once my parents left me a lone for a second, I tried to pull the stitches out. So since then I have been under surveillance. 

"I'm afraid that Anna might never be the same again. This is something that Anna will have to recover from herself. But she just doesn't want to. The antidepressants will make sure that her body stays strong, she doesn't get major mood swings...all that. But I can't promise you that she will be happy again. I can recommend a really good Psychiatrist, she doesn't ask for too much money. She really has helped out a lot of people."

"And when will it be okay for Anna to return to school?" Mum asked.

"I would ask the psychiatrist that. She can give you an estimate once she sees Anna making progress."

"I don't want to see a psychiatrist," I whispered.

"What was that Anna?" Asked the Dr

"I said I don't want to see a bloody psychiatrist," I snapped.

"Anna, please calm down," the Dr said.

"No, you calm down! There is nothing wronf with me!"

"Anna, sweetie. You tried to kill yourself." Mum told me with concern in her voice.

I shook my head. "I don't want to live anymore! I can't stand it! Do you know what its like going to school every day, the whole week and Alex did was pretend that I don't exist? I never knew silence could be that loud! He ripped out my heart. Not to mention I have lost a lot of friends because of this. I never knew being sad after a breakup was wrong. But apparently it is! He was the one that cheated on me."

The Dr sighed, "Anna, please calm down."

I looked at him with anger, until my face softened a bit and filled with sorrow, "I am tired of feeling like this, I want out."

"I'm sorry Anna, but that is just not an option.Excuse my language, but s**t happens and we need to push through it."

I shook my head, "This coming from a man who is probably happily married."

"Yes I am married, but that doesn't mean I haven't been through breakups before."

"But you're emotionless, I bet you don't even care when people die on your operating table."

"Anna!" My dad scolded.

I gave my dad a piercing glare and walked out of the room.

"How are you feeling Anna?" Dr Meese asked me.

"Ecstatic. " I answered emotionless.

"Seriously Anna, we are not going to get anywhere if you don't talk about it."

"How about we both just sit here for the whole hour, you still get paid and I don't need to talk to you about my pathetic life. That way we are both happy."

"But you won't be happy Anna."

"Why do you care, you don't know me, we have never met before so what does my life mean to you? I have no significance to you, except the fact my parents are paying you  for me to express my feelings to you. Let's stop the crap and not talk."

She put her clipboard down, placing a hand on the table between us. "Listen Anna, I do care okay!" You want to know something about me, well here I am."

"Sure tell me your life story." 

"Do you know why I chose this job?"

"Because you get a lot of money."

She rolled her eyes. "No, guess how old I am"

"Amuse me."

"I'm fifty."

"Wow, half way to a hundred. You better live up your life now."

"Look I had a daughter your age too."

"Wow, how touching."

I put my feet back on the chair.

"At this point I was working as a lawyer, I was always busy and didn't have time for her. Then one day her boyfriend broke up with her."

"Story of my life."

"I came home a week later, to find my daughter hanging in the garage."

"It took you a week to find her?"

"I was working all the time. I know that if I was home giving her support that she would have made it out just like the previous breakups she has had."

"So you devoted your life saving lives." I said sarcastically.

"No, I only specialize in teen girls. I only talk to them, so I can get a better understanding to how my daughter felt. I try and reach out to these girls, and maybe trying to give advice and help them in a way that I couldn't help her." 

I don't know why, but my face softened and I felt sympathy for this woman. "What's the use anyway though? What advice can you give me? To move on? I get that, but I just can't do it. Every night when I go to sleep he haunts my dreams and I can't escape him. When I see him at school, it's like I don't exist anymore, like I have died. I bet if I died he wouldn't care." 

"Well if that is what he is like, then he isn't worth thinking about. Perhaps you should look at his flaws."

"I loved him despite the flaws."

"Do you still love him?"

I shook my head. "He's become a jerk, but I can't forget the memories. I'm in love with the old him. The Alex I fell in love with. Not the one that ignores me. But yeah, I guess I do love him...Just not in the way I normally would."

"Anna you need to hold your head up high and show him that his choice can't hurt you,otherwise he has something to laugh about. Go out meet guys and leave him in the past. I am not saying you must forget about him, but don't make your life all about him."

"And what about the friends that left me?"

"Well I wouldn't call them your friend if they left you because he cheated on you, now are they? If they don't understand that you are unhappy because you are going through a breakup, then they are not worth your time."

I sighed.

"Anna, can I ask you something?" Dr Meese asked with a worried expression. She wasn't sure if it was right of her to ask, but she needed to know.

"Sure."

"I don't want to provoke the feelings that you had back then...how exactly did you feel when you...." She slid her fingers across her wrist.

I ran my fingers across the bandages. "When I tried to kill myself?"

She nodded.

"Well...you know how sometimes you get that pain in your chest?"

She nodded.

"Well it feels like that, but deeper, like where your actual heart is. It feels like it's trying to rip itself in half. Then your thoughts just consume you and you feel all alone."

She nodded again," thanks."

I gave her a smile. "Hey Dr Meese?"

"Call me Betty."

"Betty? Look...say now one thing leads to another and you can't fix me...Don't beat yourself up about it. I have never been a person who anyone could connect with."

Betty sighed. "I hope it doesn't come to that. Just in a chance that it might, the I won't."

I smiled at her.

I heard his laugh, my parents had gone out to have dinner with some family friends and trusted that I will be okay by myself for a while.

A month had passed and Betty was finally starting to get me through this. It felt like that whole month of therapy was all for nothing as I looked out the window and saw Alex and Susan walking hand in hand towards his house.

I saw him glance at my window and straight into my eyes, but he very quickly got back to laughing with Suan.

He was still pretending like I didn't exist.

The pain overwhelmed me and I couldn't take it anymore.

"Please don't leave me Anna. Please! Anna, my baby. I'm sorry I left, I should have stayed. Anna!" I heard the sobs of my mum.

Suddenly I was there, I saw her hugging my lifeless body. "I'm sorry." One of the Dr told my parents.

My mum and dad walked out of the room crying.

My mum went straight over to Betty giving her a hug.

Betty gave a concerned look at my dad and when he started to cry that confirmed my death to her.

Then I saw something that I didn't expect, Betty started to cry right along with my parents.

A few days had passed since my death. I didn't know what I was. It was like a had a body, but couldn't see it, but I could use it. I didn't have to eat or sleep, I could appear anywhere at will. No one could hear me or see me.

I had witnessed my parents telling my best friend I had died and watched them cry. My two closest friends, Elise and Rachel fell into depression, not sure what to do with themselves.

Eventually word broke out at school and Alex found out.

As I watched Susan tell Alex, I wondered if there was any way I can get my revenge on what he had done to me.

I followed him into the boys toilets and watched him looking at himself in the mirror. His eyes widened as he saw me in the reflection. I quickly hid in one of the toilets. He rinsed his face with looked, looking up shaking his head.

He saw me!

And that is when I smile grew on my face.That's when I promised to make his life hell