april / somehow a failed suicide attempt is worse than succeeding. when you fail, you have to be there to pick up the pieces of a fractured life. when you fail, you have to face the people you wanted to leave behind. doctors tell you you need therapy, therapists tell you you need friends and friends look at you like you're a broken toy. the doctors ship you off to a psychiatric ward when they realise that there's a hole in you so big even they can't patch it up. you feel nothing but the darkness clawing at you to give in, begging you to try again and this time try harder. you sit lifeless through group therapy and individual therapy and therapy therapy therapy until it burns at your tongue and you have to say something before you choke.
"i don't want to get better."
may / your whole life you have blamed everyone else for your mistakes. it was your mother who forced you on your father; your father who left you on the doorstep of your grandparents house; your grandparents who died and left you alone. "you need to take responsibility for your own actions." and when you do the realisation cuts through you like a knife. you've been living in technicolor and suddenly the world is black and white. there are no shades of grey, no passing the mantle onto anyone else. you crashed a car into a tree in sophomore year because you wanted to feel pain. you fought the school bully in sixth grade because you wanted to feel power. you swallowed those pills last month because you wanted to feel anything.
"i don't want to feel like this anymore."
june / you are changing. there are days when you wake up and you want to get out of bed. when max visits you smile and kiss her cheek and you laugh about things your therapist has said. you sit down at the piano in the music room and your fingers trace the keys, remembering a lost melody. the darkness that had so much control over you is fading and you can see the next day and the next week and the next month and the next year. you take your pills and you talk to your therapist and you draw and you paint and you connect and you start to feel the hole fill. not completely, never completely, but there are reasons to recover, reasons to get better and to fight whatever demons are trying to pull you under.
july / you look back at the hospital as you drive away, watching it fade like a montage from a bad movie. you put up such resistance when they told you you needed help, but eventually you allowed someone to get into your head and keep you afloat. with a wide grin, you turn the radio up loud and you sing at the top of your lungs as max laughs, her eyes meeting yours for a second before returning to the road. for months, you have been lost, broken, fragile; today you are lennon. you're the same lennon who dragged max to the rainforest cafe, the same lennon who panicked about going on space mountain, the same lennon who sang party in the usa at karaoke. for the first time, you feel whole.
"i don't want to go back there."
august / it's been five months since you last stood on the stage, guitar in hand, white lights blinding you as you sing your heart out. but you're back in the same dingy dive bar, singing in front of the same dingy regulars, and for the first time in five months you feel alive. truly alive. you've stood on this spot so many times wondering if this is all life will be, wishing you could be anywhere else. in this moment, this is the only place you want to be. the stage is your home, your safe place. you used to dream big, you used to dream of arena tours and platinum selling albums. all you need is your dive bar and your old guitar.
"i don't want anything to change."
september / "hi lenny." you stare at the figure in the doorway, your hands balling into fists, your heart beating so hard against your chest that you worry it might stop altogether. you've seen his face every day for the last fifteen years, but this is the first time he's stood in front of you. his yellow teeth, the smell of cigarette smoke, the glint in his eye all turn your stomach and every fibre of your being wants to slam the door in his face and never look back. but you are frozen. too shocked, too frightened to do anything but stare. "i heard what happened, i'm sorry i wasn't there." you want to scream, to tell him that he's never been there, that he's missed birthdays and graduations and deaths and first loves and vacations and tears and smiles. "talk to me, i'm your father." he isn't a father, he'll never be a father.
"i don't want anything to do with you."
october / when he appeared on your doorstep it undid all of the good. he had been a reminder of all the bad things that had happened to you. being abandoned, being alone, being empty. he was the source of all of your problems and now he was trying to edge his way back into your life like a parasite, a disease that was eating away at your insides. it is march again and you can't get out of bed. you can't think, you can't breathe without seeing his face or hearing his voice or wondering if maybe you should just give him a chance. you're consumed by regret and indecision and empty thoughts. you stop taking the pills because nothing helps. you want out, out of everything.
november / every day is a battle. you fight with max, you fight with lia, you fight with axel, you fight with yourself. everyone bone in your body is telling you to run, but you can't face it. rosehill has become a prison and you can't escape it. but when she gives you the ultimatum, tells you that you get help or she leaves, you tear down your walls and you allow her in and you finally let her see all of your demons. she holds your hand as you sit in the doctors office, admitting that you aren't better, that you are still so broken. she is everything and you suddenly realise that she has always been the light, she has always been the one that has kept you afloat and you owe her so much more than you can give.
"i don't want to hurt you again."
december / you are finally back where you started. it's been the hardest eight months of your life and you have put everyone around you through hell. your father is gone and you have max back, and you are stronger than ever. you still have to take your pills and you still have to see your therapist, but you feel like you are healing and it's all down to her. when you let max in, you let the problems out. you hold hands and you kiss and you curl up on the couch together like lovesick teenagers, and you laugh because a year ago you would have been screaming at one another. max is all you need, and all you will ever need.
"i want to be with you forever."
