We breathe when we're wrong, we breathe when we're right, we breathe even as we slip off the ledge toward an early grave. It cannot be undone. So I breathe.

The small hand of a clock taps me at one and two, three and four, whispering hello, get up, stand up, it's time to
wake up
wake up
"Wake up," he whispers.

And I do. I do wonder, I think about it all the time. What it would be like to kill myself. Because I never really know, I still can't tell the difference, I'm never quite certain whether or not I'm actually alive. I sit here every single day. Run, I said to myself. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you're a blur that blends into the background.

Run, Juliette, run faster, run until your bones break and your shins split and your muscles atrophy and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and it beat too fast for too long and you run.

Run run run until you can't hear their feet behind you. Run until they drop their fists and their shouts dissolve in the air. Run with your eyes open and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Juliette.

Run until you drop dead. Make sure your heart stops before they ever reach you. Before they ever touch you.

Run, I said.

That this girl would know exactly how to shatter me.

I allowed myself to believe she’d seen a future for us; that she wanted to be with me and simply thought it impossible.

Nothing in this life will ever make sense to me but I can't help but try to collect the change and hope it's enough to pay for our mistakes.