Chapter 2

"The cracks in the concrete remind us that no matter how strong you are, you can still fall apart..." 

~Anonymous

Never a truer thing has been said before. There are times when everything feels fine and alright and then all of a sudden the world is crumbling around me. Nothing in my life is how it is on the outside, looking back now I'm older and wiser now, who I was before will never exist again, but that past is me, its Casey, its who I am.

When I was 15 I was really really stupid. I made mistakes sure, but what 15 year old didn't? I remember being 15 like it was just yesterday, my life was so different then, my head was being held down under the surface and I had no way of fighting my way back to the light. To use a cliché, the darkness truly engulfed me then, back then it was my way of life, I had no sugar then to go with the spice.

The year began as normally as any other year, it was the year after the Bushfires, I was finding my feet again. Just recently my mother and I along with several others went on this trip to NZ, it was an amazing experience that was full of amazing people, we came back very much a family. Another family that was developing at the time was my YMCA family. This was a holiday program that gave us bushfire kids some relaxation and fun time. In that group are some of the greatest people I have ever known, some are still very dear to me, and I love those memories with all my life.

Thinking back, 15 wasn't such a bad age. Recapping those memories bring such a happy feeling from deep inside my blackened soul. However with each great thing there seems to always be a horrific consequence with me. Its like whoever plays with fate, has altered it so that nothing that ever happens to Casey will make her happy for very long. The two giant blemishes on my heart from that year are entangled, each making the other so much worse then it had to be. My memory seems to be that Jacob came first, so here is what happened as I remembered it...

It was early in March I believe, the term one holidays from school. I was in year 10 by now, not enjoying life and definitely not cherishing it. I was reckless, I did all kinds of stupid things, and this was by far the worst. Not in a physical sense, for I did much worse things to myself that year, this was a purely emotional damage that I cast upon myself. Jacob was apart of my YMCA family, you could say that I really liked him, what's worse everyone knew. And I mean everyone!! Even the leaders knew! He knew because I'd told him, we were friends you see, always talking and texting, and when we could we would hang out together. He was the first boy that I'd been interested in awhile. One of my friends from school Stephanie was interested in him too, and the events that unfolded always gave me great pride until everything went wrong.

I had always thought he had chosen me over her, one night before we had a YMCA outing the next day, we talked about the things we wanted to do to one another. It was cute at first and then as the night grew on it became dirtier and more flirty. This guy was the first one who had said these things to me, I thought it was cute and I thought it was normal. Stupid Casey. The next day we hooked up in the bathroom of the place we went to. Yes the bathroom! How unromantic is that?! But I didn't care then. My body was pressed against him, my back against the wall and his arms around me. His kiss filled my mouth and made me feel heavenly. That was my first encounter with Jacob, but it was not my last. What should have hinted me in that this was not love, was that he wanted to keep it secret, he didn't tell his friends, and he only let me tell one of mine. But I was young, and stupid and I didn't know better. After the holidays, when we were back at school we hooked up behind the theatre, three times in total. On the very last I had let him have his way with me, and he felt me up, which was nothing serious, he'd had sex before but he knew I wasn't ready for that, and this is why I believed he really cared for me. He said he loved me, he kissed me softly, his eyes made me smoulder, his touch gave me goosebumps , to me, this felt like love.

15 year old Casey was covered in scars, lines that scattered along my body in places that could be covered. Jacob knew about this, and that's why everything he did too me, cut so much deeper then any other betrayal could have possibly had cut. On the 23rd of April, the second blemish occurred. I believe this was much worse then anything Jacob could have done to me, my reaction to each, proves that the knife that plunged deep into my heart occurred due to this and not to Jacob, at the time he helped me keep my head above water, a help that should not have been offered as it only made the final betrayal more painful. On the 23rd of April, my dear friend Cassie died. It was a Friday, and I didn't receive the news until after I'd come home from school, I couldn't have anyways because she died in the afternoon and I still remember the phone call mum got from Bronte, one of the people who had come to NZ with me. Cassie had gone on the trip to, she was so much fun and full of life, you could forget how sick she was, the burns she been dealt with due to the bushfire only made her previous ailments worse. But even through all of this, Cassie lived! On the plane home she was flirting with these two guys sitting in front of her. She was so full of life. What happened to her could have been prevented! She should have lived, but she chose not to. That afternoon her mum had popped round to visit her, and just before 4pm, Cassie had told her to leave, said she was tired, wanted to rest. 10 minutes later, her heart attack left her, stiff, cold and dead. The women who was so full of life was dead. The women I looked up to for all my strength was gone. The news left me speechless, that night and for an entire week afterwards I slept on my floor. Mostly because I stayed up crying and praying each night. Praying that it wasn't true, that it was just a cruel joke. But it wasn't the knife plunged deep within my own heart and left it scattered. Those days in which I grieved, Jacob was there for me, and when I felt a bit better by the end of the second, he had asked my best friend out. Scattering the pieces of my torn heart that was left. A week later my friends from school came forward and told me the truth, that Jacob was a lier and a user, that I was not that first and I truly doubt I would be the last. However I believe I'd taught him a lesson, the mess that was Casey, seemed to leave a scar somewhere on him, because he did not get close to another girl without knowing her for more then a week before hand. He'd learnt to test the ropes and see whether the new girl could climb them. Stephanie came clean as well, a week before Jacob and I had hooked up they had, she didn't say but I could tell that him ditching her for me had knocked a chip off her shoulder. I wish with all my heart that I had not been chosen, she was stronger on the inside then I appeared on the outside, she could tolerate all this better then I, but then again I would never wish this on anyone.

15 was the year I attempted suicide twice. It was the year that not an inch of my body inside and out were left unscared. The pain on the inside was so unbearable that I had to get it all out. I lost so much weight from vomiting from my blood, which was a sight that made me queasy, that my parents tried to get me into counselling, so I had to pull myself together on the outside, to control my emotions in front of them. The pain from this sent me spiralling even more. My best friend taught me something that in the years following would save my life on more then one occasion. She told me, "Casey count to 30, close your eyes and count to 30, hold your breath whilst you do it, and if you still wish to kill yourself, do it again and again until it works."

I now know the value of that advice, I'm 17, I'm older, I'm wiser. There are scars on my body from this year, that will remind me forever of the 15 year old girl that was, I'm undecided whether this is a gift, or a curse. How I would have loved if my sugar came just a year earlier, maybe it would have saved me from myself, but that I know was a feat that no one could attempt. Today I know I will always remind myself of Cassie, not of her death, nor of the pain that followed, but of the life that was lived, so completely, she taught me to be a star, and forever the star on my ankle will remain. A silent reminder of the girl who taught me that life is a gift, that could so easily be taken away...

Author's Note

Note to readers: I've said before this story is based on events that happened to me, key word here is BASED, I don't want people to feel sorry for me on things that have or have not been exaggerated, please take this as a story and not as fact, thank you :)

Reviews

[anxia]

Well limned that one can actually feel the story happening!