Game Over

.1

Brandi sat on her bed with the bed rails digging uncomfortably into her backside. She hardly noticed though, so involved in the conversations on the screen of her laptop.2

They really think I did it, she thought to herself, shaking her head. And she knew that nothing she said would convince them otherwise. They had their minds made up; she was the troublemaker and should be punished and shunned.3

She could read between the lines, she knew she didn't have a single ally on that continent or very many on this one. Suffering the ultimate form of punishment, rejection, she started to cry. 4

Brandi wasn't a saint by any means, but was she really as horrible as they all seemed to think she was? Well, there were plenty willing to believe it so it must be true, right? 5

A cold hearted, unfeeling, piece of shit, psychopathic bitch who hurts everyone and everything that comes into her unstable little life, that's what they thought she was. Oh, but she wasn't unfeeling, not entirely. She felt the pain at their disbelief of her innocence, the wetness on her cheeks and pillow, the aching pain in her chest that as yet nobody could identify. Brandi felt the panic of struggling to draw in her breath and not being able to. 6

But was she cold hearted? Brandi didn't think she was, not entirely anyway. Yes, it was easy for her to push some people out of her life when they did nothing but hurt her, but that wasn't so bad, was it? A piece of shit then, maybe she was one of those. She certainly felt like one, after hearing the people who knew her best tell her all of her faults and even some she didn't know she had. What a horrible feeling to hear these things said about herself, and, worse yet, to believe them.7

It was true that she had lost most of her friends, but up until now she hadn't thought it was her fault. Wasn't it theirs for lying to her, for betraying her secrets to those who didn't need to know them? But now she saw it clearly. It must have been her fault, for everyone told her it was.8

Brandi was hurting, and confused. She decided to send apologies to those people whom she had hurt. After ensuring that at least three people had their apologies and her sincerest regrets over the harm she had done, she settled in to wait for the appearance of the rest on her buddy list.9

And still today, they haven't appeared. As the minutes pass with Brandi staring at the bright screen, she begins to think. What if she really was that unstable? What if, since none of her best friends loved or even liked her anymore, what if her family didn't either? Was she doing them more harm than good by being there?10

This was dangerous, thinking this way. Only a few short years ago she had thought the same way, and ended up crying one night with a few notes of goodbye in front of her, a glass of water in one hand and pills in the other. That night she had been saved by discovering a forum, the very forum where she had befriended those people who she has hurt in the worst way. And those who have hurt her, though nobody seems to think her capable of hurting.11

Who was there to save her now? There were no friends to make that phone call telling her that her life was worth living, telling her that there were people who loved her. If she held those pills again, she would be dead, and she knew it.12

But is that what she really wanted, to die? That wouldn't be a solution to anything. What she should do is wipe out her bank account, sell her books back to her college, put her more expensive things up for sale, and gather as much money as she could without her parents knowing. Then, one night, she would simply walk away from everything. She didn't know where she would go, or how she would get there. Walking was one option, the bus another. But people would be able to identify her either one of those ways, and so she came upon the idea of hitch hiking. But Brandi was smart enough to realize what a dangerous idea that was, that she could be killed. It would be painful, but maybe that's what she deserved, a slow, painful death. 13

The game was over, Brandi thought. She wasn't playing anymore, and she was tired of being played with. She was hurting, and there was nobody to make her see reason anymore. Finally, Brandi become the unstable girl she had been accused of being. And unfeeling too, for the thought of leaving everything behind to start a new, possibly painful and degrading, way of life didn't bother her all that much. She just hoped that in her new life she wouldn't be as emotionally broken as she was now. 14

Never again would she entrust someone with a secret, for secrets and friends never stay that way for long. No friends, for they exist only to betray and to hurt. Her only desire now was to get rid of her things and relieve the burden of doing so from her parents, for surely they would when she was gone long enough.15