Doomed For Life?

RENEE

Monday came too fast, as usual.

Watery eyes fluttering open, I looked at the clock by my bedside with a frown as the numbers blurred together.

It was seven in the morning.

I should be getting ready for my morning shift at work. I told myself this but couldn't drag myself out of bed.

I felt trapped, strewn atop the soft mattress, with swollen eyes and aching bones. It wasn't just the lack of sleep—my nights had been spent crying my eyes out—or the fatigue.

No. It was much more.

The fortified walls built within me were no longer there. The barriers between me and the emotions that flooded my heart were long gone.

And now, since the night of the masked ball, the floodgates of guilt, anger, shame, and repulsion.

These emotions spilled forth when I thought of him. Whenever I saw his name light up my phone screen as he barraged me with never-ending streams of messages. Or heard, “Please call me!” coming from my voicemail after I refused to pick up.

Gosh! How could I have been