The boy who hurt me first

001

𝒯𝑒𝓈𝓈𝒶 𝒴𝑜𝓊𝓃𝑔

The sound of my alarm slices through the room like a blade—sharp, merciless, unapologetic.

It doesn't just wake me.
It cuts through whatever fragile peace I managed to hold onto while sleeping.

The shrill beeping rattles through my chest, bouncing off the walls of my small bedroom until it becomes all I can hear. My hand shoots out from under the blanket, fingers trembling slightly as they fumble across the nightstand. They graze the edge of a book, knock over a pen, finally land on the snooze button.
Silence follows, but it's the heavy kind — the kind that settles in your bones instead of in the air.

For a moment I don't move.

I just lie there, staring up at the ceiling that feels a little lower every day. The paint has tiny cracks running through it now — hairline fractures that probably don't matter to anyone else, but I see them. I see every flaw. Every little break. I see myself in it sometimes.

The sheets feel cold against my bare legs. The pillow still smells faintly like lavender from the spray my mom bought, hoping it would help me sleep better. It didn't. Nothing does.

But I breathe anyway — shallow, uneven — forcing air into lungs that don't seem willing to cooperate this early.

Today is a new day.

That's what people always say.
Teachers. Posters. Motivational quotes on Instagram.
As if a new calendar box has the power to erase everything sitting behind my ribs.

As if pain takes weekends off.
As if trauma resets overnight.
As if the past knows how to stay in the past.

I push myself upright, slowly, like my body needs convincing. My muscles ache from tossing and turning. My neck feels tight. My head heavy.

The curtains are still drawn, darkening the room except for thin slits of sunlight that seep through like they're searching for me. Dust floats in the beams, weightless and unbothered, drifting wherever the light directs them.

I envy that.

My gaze moves to my desk.

To the thing I spend every morning avoiding.

The picture frame.

Even from across the room, I can see the faint outline of us through the glass. It shouldn't hurt to look at a memory, but it does. Memories have claws — especially the ones you didn't ask to lose.

I stand up slowly, each step across the cold wooden floor sounding too loud in the quiet room. My fingers hover over the picture for a second before I finally pick it up.

There we are.

Me, with my hair in messy braids, freckles unbothered across my nose, smiling so wide it almost looks painful.
Hardin, slightly taller even back then, his arm wrapped around me, pulling me close like he always used to. His smile was different in those days — genuine, unguarded, warm in a way that felt safe.

Like he belonged next to me.

Like he wanted to.

His eyes in the picture are the part that hurt the most to look at. Because the boy in that photo didn't hate anyone. He didn't push people away. He didn't drown himself in alcohol or light cigarettes like they were oxygen.

He certainly didn't hurt me.

Back then... he couldn't even stand the smell of smoke.
He'd wrinkle his nose, wave his hands dramatically, tell me he'd never understand how anyone put that stuff in their lungs — "especially after what it did to my mom," he said once, voice small and cracking in a way only kids can sound.