Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

We stick around for the good days.

That’s the funny thing nobody tells you about relationships.

They don’t start out toxic.

If they did, nobody would stay.

Relationships don’t start with someone shoving you into a wall or calling you a cheap slut every chance they get. They don’t play out the way those shitty Lifetime PSAs would have you believe.

We promise our time, our energy, and sometimes entire years of our lives to people because we keep hoping things will go back to the way they were.

Because who wouldn’t keep themselves stitched to another person after all those days spent smiling?

A smile is one of the deadliest weapons we have.

A person’s smile can make you forget almost anything that comes out of their mouth.

And the way they hold your hand during moments of pure bliss can convince you that love is the only remedy your soul has ever needed.

We put up with all kinds of fucked up behavior because we convince ourselves it’s temporary.

A rough patch.

A bump in the road.

A bad week.

A bad month.

It’ll get better soon.

We just need a night to ourselves.

We just need to communicate more.

We just need to call more.

Maybe it’s other people.

Maybe we need to try something new.

Anything except admitting what it actually is.

Because when you love somebody, really love somebody, not the superficial version older people assume everyone under twenty-five believes in..the good days become impossible to forget.

You carry them around like loose change in your pocket.

They stick to you the way caramel sticks to your teeth.

They become a song you can’t stop hearing no matter how many other songs you play.

When your boyfriend walks you home at night because he knows how much you hate being alone, you remember that.

When he spends an entire afternoon playing dolls with your little sister until she’s practically passed out on the couch, you remember that too.

When he tells you you’re beautiful on a day when you feel anything but, you remember that.

You remember all of it.

And somehow, those memories start pulling more weight than the screaming matches.

More weight than the tears.

More weight than the nights spent staring at your bedroom ceiling wondering when everything got so hard.

I once drew a sketch of a woman sitting in a bathtub.

Her legs looked like endless colored pencils scattered across a classroom floor.

Peach.

Blue.

Green.

Orange.

Purple.

They draped over the edge of the tub, hanging there lifelessly.

The bathtub itself was colored in layers of white, yellow, and gray oil pastel.

And at first glance, you’d think she was surrounded by bubbles.

Water.

Something comforting.

Then you’d realize she wasn’t drowning in water at all.

She was drowning in her own hair.

Mountains of brown braids and tangled locks swallowing her whole.

Hair holds memories.

Hair is time.

Hair is feeling.

I used that sketch as a comfort.

A way to hide pieces of myself inside symbols and strange little drawings.

A way to translate pain into something visual.

A way to hope somebody else might understand my obsession with memories.

My obsession with grief.

My obsession with escape.

It was my way of screaming about a mental state I felt nobody could see.

Or maybe nobody cared enough to see.

Looking back now, I’m shocked this happened to me.

And yet I understand exactly how it happened.

My older brother Kevin spent years trying to make me understand that the good days aren’t enough.

Just because a relationship is amazing when it’s good doesn’t mean it’s worth surviving when it’s bad.

Once you spend more nights crying yourself to sleep than falling asleep beside somebody, you’ve already got your answer.

Once you can’t remember life before them, you’ve crossed into dependency.

The kind that only looks romantic in books and fanfiction.

I just didn’t want to hear it.

Kevin’s four years older than me, which meant he spent most of his life acting like some wise old man despite barely being old enough to buy a lottery ticket.

He always thought he understood the world better than the rest of us.

That he had to be the adult for me and Karen because Carol and Stuart sure as hell weren’t going to do it.

The worst part?

Most of the time he was right.

He’d tell me I had a soft heart.

He’d tell me people like me always tried to save everyone else.

That our favorite crime was falling in love faster than a greedy man chases money.

He’d tell me one day I’d mistake being needed for being loved.

Every single time, I’d roll my eyes.

Tell him I didn’t want relationship advice from him.

Because what the hell did Kevin know?

He wasn’t me.

Half the time I couldn’t understand how women tolerated him.

How he got the nerve to lecture me about relationships when he acted like he had everything figured out.

But looking back now, standing at the end of everything, I can finally admit something I would’ve rather died than say back then.

Kevin was exactly right.

The thing about disasters is that they rarely arrive all at once.

They creep in slowly.

One ignored red flag becomes two.

Two become ten.

And before you know it, you’re eighteen years old, living in a tiny mountain town where everybody knows everybody, lying to the people who care about you, cheating on your boyfriend, and somehow convincing yourself you’re still the victim.

Trust me.

If you’re wondering how I ended up here..

You’re asking the same question I did.