When I first wrote this, I was trying to remember who I used to be—the girl I lost somewhere along the way, buried under trauma and bad choices. She was someone who used to laugh freely, who had dreams that soared beyond the walls of this city. I can still picture those late nights, holding myself together as best I could, whispering that I’d be okay. Back then, I believed in love like it was a fairytale I could write myself into. I stayed up late reading fanfictions and Wattpad stories about impossible love, love that could break boundaries and conquer anything. I played Lana del Rey, Cigarettes After Sex, Marina on repeat, as if those songs were spells to summon the girl I wanted to become.
I was eighteen, naive but full of hope. I was barely an adult, just a child with big dreams and a heart wide open to the world. I thought I could live out the stories I read, maybe save a damaged soul or impress someone untouchable. I wanted to be the heroine, blissfully unaware of the dark corners lurking in real-life romances.
And then, I met him, mere months after moving to this big sin city. The guy with the tragic past, the one everyone warned me about. I remember the rush of excitement, how his blue eyes seemed like portals to a world I wanted so badly to understand. He was my “tortured angel,” his blond hair a mess I wanted to untangle. I threw myself into him, believing I could save him. But instead, he broke me, shattering the wings I hadn’t realized were so fragile.
I fell hard, fast, and with my whole heart, and he dragged me back to reality. The painful lesson: broken romances don’t last. They leave scars that burrow deep, wounds that linger, and that take years to close. I wish I could’ve held on to the person I was before him, but survival meant leaving her behind.
I can still feel the weight of that day—the first time he raised his hand against me. I felt my heart shatter, piece by piece, as if the world I’d built up in my mind had been a lie all along. I searched for the girl I used to be, but he had chased her away, replacing dreams with nightmares. By then, I’d become a ghost of who I was, numb, broken, holding on to anything I could to stay alive.
And then, there was the day he shoved me down, and I realized I was carrying a part of him. The positive test was a lifeline, an impossible irony. I didn’t know how to survive him until I had to protect someone else. He shoved me again, knocked me down again, and with every hit, I felt pieces of myself stirring back to life. I was reborn, in a twisted way, as I lost that child. That loss sparked something in me, reigniting the fire I thought was gone forever.
It’s been a long, brutal road, and the wounds remain. I may never be who I was before him, but I’m still here, standing on my own. And that, I’ve realized, is more than enough. I’ve learned that surviving isn’t about forgetting the past; it’s about reclaiming yourself, piece by piece, from the ashes.
The song at the bottom of this entry was what he sang to me every time, and it will forever be associated with him. (The Lil Peep obsession is 100% the red flag in hindsight.)
