Tempting (Inked Hearts 1)

The words are clawing at my throat.

At my fingers.

I pace around my room. It's been hours since we got back from the beach. And he hasn't said another word about the journal entry I read him.

We went right back to teasing about music.

To talking about the concert.

About how desperate he's going to make me.

But this has been on the tip of my tongue all night.

I finish my last bit of Latin homework and put my textbook away. There. The night is mine.

Officially.

And he's... he's somewhere. With Dean, I think. One of the guys. Or several of them.

I grab my journal. Pick up my pen. Let all the thoughts spill from my fingers.

Brendon, I should tell you this. No, I want to. I want it off my chest.

It's just I don't want you to leave.

That's why I haven't told anyone. Because it's better swallowing it deep than losing another person I love.

I'd rather you care about the person you think I am than you not care about me at all.

But, really, I want all your love.

And I want it for the real me. Not the girl you see when you look at me, the one who can read two books a day and offer up a Latin quip anytime.

I've been on medication the last year.

I have depression.

It didn't start with anything. I let my therapist believe it started when Grandma had that heart attack and insisted I stay here for the summer. I let my parents believe that I needed help because I wasn't dealing with her illness well. But that isn't true. It was already there. I was already having all these ugly thoughts about making it all go away.

Whenever I would borrow Mom's car, when I was driving up or down the 405, I'd think about how easy it would be to crash into the divider. To not feel anything anymore.

I don't have as many of those thoughts anymore. That voice that tells me I'm worthless, a failure, that no one loves me, that I'm a drain, that everyone is better off without me—it's quieter now.

But it's not gone.

It will never be gone.

Sometimes it's stronger. One day, it might be strong enough to convince me to act on it.

Medications stop working. My doctor warned me about that. Offered a bunch of hotlines.

It's hard to imagine swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. Or taking a razor blade to my wrists. Or finding some tall building.

But it's possible.

That voice was so loud and so ugly.

If it comes back...