I feel like I'm drowning, like all this time I have been floating above the ocean of being overwhelmed, but after a while I let it consume me and I can see people smiling, laughing, hugging. I want to be like them again, but I can't cause now I'm drowning in this sea, all because I gave in. My heart has stopped feeling and my brain has stop learning, my body quit moving and my soul has stopped its longing, yearning, wanting, to be loved; now I just exist. I just keep drowning, and drowning, and drowning. Then, every now and again, I want to fight it. I want to to be with my friends, Angie, Chasity, Logan, Stela, Amber, kiley. They love me and I just gave them up for an eternal nothingness. How selfish. And how I long to be like them to be loved by my family, my brothers….oh my brothers, how could they not see the waves of depression pulling me to the bottom. Or did they see me, ? and just didn’t want to help me, and they just let me down. Ugh and her…... Reagan, Betty those little- God…...maybe I do deserve this emptiness, I'm a bad person it should have never come between us…..why wont he love me again?   We were best friends, Inseparable, so close I thought he wouldn’t give me up for that girl, who hates me…? Now he loves her more than I thought he loved me….Gregory? Why? Was this my doing? Am I to blame? Surely it was…..everything was…..even what happened between Devin and I...I thought he loved me as well...though, furthermore, I can now see it not….I am but a ghost of the little girl he used to pick clothes out for. The girl he used to smile for and used to play dolls with….just to make me happy..But I have messed it up somehow, it must be my fault...Yet again I seemed to have ruined everything…..maybe I do deserve to hurt and cry...but that thing, that will, that still bounds to my body….it's telling me to fight yet again…………

I do; I begin to swim to the surface. And I can see her; Angie, chasity too Logan, stela, Kiley, Amber? Everyone is here looking for me. Shouting out my name...Angie, she's crying..it’s because of me, isn’t it? I hurt her? The chains that once bounded me here rise again, enclosing the freedom of fighting. I stop swimming and look to Kiley and logan….Fam….Family….Family! That's who i'm fighting for….i'm doing this for my family….because I love them…...tears slip down my face and they’re warm, even though my body is cold, just like the ocean. She’s crying for me? I made her sad because I went away? She cares for me? I was so selfish…..”I'm so sorry,” the words fell off my tongue and the water fills my lungs and everything goes black…...no more tears….no more goodbyes….and no more me……I can never go back.

I hear the fish swimming by not giving me a second glance….I hear the sobs of those I truly care for….but I see nothing at all. all of you sit there reminiscing of the times of us together and that one time we thought we lost Kiley but then she came back….A smile crept upon my face….And I could see once more the chains broke and the water filled out of my chest…..I was floating to the surface again….My head peaks from the water and I could see them…..all of them….that's when it occurred to me This is why i'm going to live….to be with them….Angie sees me first...then Chasity, Kiley, Logan, Stela, Amber. The water conformed to me as I stepped away from it… A group of people hugged me each one holding on a little longer, until it was just me and Angie. She took my hands in hers and entwined them. A single tear fell from her eye….I was ready to be yelled at….but all she did was smile.. I looked to the left and Logan smiled at me, his kingdom Hearts necklace shining in the evening night sky. Chasity stood with Bernardo, hand in hand. Stela wiped a teardrop from her cheek and grinned, words that I didn’t need to hear. Amber and Kiley stood to the right of Angie and they both wore a smile of gold ; happy I was found.“Sis,” Angie said her voice nervous. “Yeah,” I replied uncertain that she was really ok. “Don’t ever do that again…..you scared me half to death…..you dork,”….. I giggled….”never,” I said,”I promise.”….”I will never give my family up, I swear!” After that my heart began to feel, my head regained its thoughts, my lungs pumped air, and my soul started to yearn….to need. It wanted to stay...and now it could. I gathered my thoughts and wrapped an arm around Angie…..and began to walk. “So,” Logan said, filled with some kind of hope,”where are we going?” ”Don't know” I replied, and a sheepish grin spread across my face.

I looked to the sky and saw seven birds….they’re just like us, not bound to anything but each other. I smile and everything went white. The sky faded and the ground collapsed….but I knew that this wasn't the end because when you have a promise you can always come back….