The Day After.

I look at my phone. 6 AM. My eyes still sting with tears. It's only been 30 minutes since he left, but it feels like a lifetime. Everything around me looks blurry. I look down at my hands and notice they are still shaking. All I want to do is crawl underneath my covers and never come out. There's only one problem with that, though. My bed is the scene of the crime.

Instead of crawling into bed, I decide to shower. Running on no sleep, I head towards the bathroom. I know it sounds silly, but part of me thinks if the water is hot enough and I scrub my skin until it bleeds, the feeling of him will wash down the drain and never return. I turn the shower knob to the highest setting and get in.

As the water hits my skin, the tears start falling again. I sit on the shower floor as I scrub and scrub and scrub until the water turns cold. Once I'm out of the shower, I realize it didn't work. I can still feel him on me. The heaviness in my chest is still there.

I head back to my room and stand in the doorway. It all reminds me of he who shall not be named. I slowly make my way towards the bed. Before I can make sense of it, I start ripping everything off. I stare back at the bare mattress. I don't have any extra sheets or blankets to replace the ones I now have to throw away. I really didn't think this through.

I look at my phone again. 7:32 AM. I'm too tired to think, let alone go to the store and buy new sheets. I walk towards the kitchen to get a glass of water. Ice-cold refreshing water. As I fill up my glass, the tears start falling once again. I watch as each tear drops into the cup and creates little ripples in the water. I have a feeling tears are going to replace my smile from now on.

As I sit on the edge of my stripped bed drinking the water, I replay the night in my head. You know those movies where it ends tragically with no resolution? That pretty much sums it up.

I blankly stare at the wall.

How did this happen?

And more importantly, why did this have to happen to me?

I try to piece together the events in my mind, hoping to find some sort of resoloution. I grasp at straws to try and find anything to make me feel better about what happened. But I come up empty.

After staring at the wall for what feels like hours, I feel my eyes getting heavy.

Maybe this is all a nightmare.

I think when I wake up, everything will fade away. I slowly start to wrap my hands around my knees and curl myself into a ball on my bed. My eyes shut, and I drift off to sleep.

I wake up to the feeling of my ice-cold body and realize I'm freezing. I go to pull the covers up over me, only for nothing to be there. I look around, and that's when it hits me. Last night was not just a bad dream. It's my reality.

The panic sets in. How can this be real? You hear of these things happening in the news or movies, but you never think it will happen to you. I look at my phone. 12:48 PM. I stumble out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. I look at my shower and shudder. I look at myself in the mirror, but I don't recognize myself. I'm not the same girl I used to be, and I don't think I ever will be again.

As I walk throughout my house, I know one thing for sure. Everything needs to change. Now. I grab my car keys in a hurry and head off to the store. When I walk inside the store, I grab my shopping cart and start filling it up with the things I need to make everything better. New bedding. Hair Dye. A pack and cigarettes. And Alcohol. I check out and head home.

I walk through my door and get busy. I blast my favorite sad playlist over a speaker.

Were these songs always this sad?

I put my phone on Do Not Disturb and get to work. I begin placing the new bedding on my bed. Looking at my room now, it's not enough. I tear everything down and start new. I move all the furniture to different places and rearrange the photos on my walls. Once I'm satisfied, I move on to phase two.

I grab the box of hair dye and a pair of scissors and get to work on my hair. I start chopping and watch as each strand falls to the floor. Before I know it, I'm chopping faster and faster. I look in the mirror and stare at what I've just done. My hair is now half the length it was before. I grab the hair dye and start painting it on my hair.

I rinse out the dye and stare at my reflection once more. I used to have beautiful, dark brown, long hair. My hair is now bright red and sits right on top of my shoulders. But still, it's not enough. Commence phase three.

I open the bottle of alcohol. I don't even bother pouring it into a glass. I take a big drink straight from the bottle. It burns. But nothing will compare to the sting of last night. I take another drink, hoping to drown out my thoughts. I walk outside and sit on my porch to light a cigarette. With each puff, I imagine all my worries floating away. Each memory. Every touch. Gone into the wind.

I stand up and instantly fall over. The alcohol is setting in. I somehow make my way inside and flop over in my bed. I stare at the ceiling and watch it spin. I listen to the music, which is still blaring over the speaker.

What am I doing?

I'm still thinking, which means I need more alcohol. I drink. Then I drink again until there's nothing left in the bottle.

I stumble around my house looking for my phone. I find it and fumble with the buttons to turn it back on. 10:45 PM. I decide to debut my new look. I snap a couple of pictures and write a few thoughts, and post them without a second look.

Within a couple of minutes, people start to message me. "Are you okay?" "Where did you go last night?" "Are you drunk?" I don't have the energy or thoughts to respond. I leave them all on read and go outside to smoke another cigarette.

When I come back inside, I turn off the music. By this point, I'm still drunk, but it's lightened up. I lay back in my bed and stare at the ceiling. It seems all I do now is stare.

Between the stares and alcohol flooding my system, I drift off to sleep. I wake up when my phone rings. It's my friend. She probably saw my post. I decline the call. She calls again. I take a deep breath and decline her call again. I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to disappear and never come back. I want to travel back in time to keep the events of last night from ever happening again.

I look at my phone for the last time. 5:15 AM. It's been almost 24 hours since it happened. It feels like 20 minutes. I slowly look around and take in my surroundings as I run my fingers through my hair. Everything is different now, and it will be forever.