Before I left my friends, I did something really stupid that became an addiction. Society these days is always beautifying self-harm. “Your scars are beautiful!” and “They make you who you are!”, but honestly it’s not like that at all. When you’re truly unhappy with who you are, there’s no amount of compliments that can change your mind. I didn’t like who I became, so I cut myself. Cutting has really become a trend amongst teens nowadays and I find it ridiculous. It’s offensive to people who hurt themselves for serious reasons. My reasons were different from most people. Everyone gets bullied and develops an eating disorder from people calling them fat, and decide to slice open their wrists with a blade. It’s sad that that’s typical in our society, and I know that those people have their own reasons and feelings too, so I don’t mean anything negative towards them. I cut because I felt like I had no one to love me. I had no one to talk about my real problems with. My dad was gone. My mom was crazy (and still is), and I only had fake friends. I hid my arms with billions of glitzy bracelets that became a trend in my school, because there was no way I could cut my thighs without them showing in the short pink skirts I wore. Little did everyone know, I wasn’t trying to make a fashion statement. When I left my friends, I had no one. I became even more alone and depressed. I debated whether I should go back to the crew, but decided that I’d rather be alone than with people who are fake. The girls made fun of me and called me an “emo freak” for a little while, but they got over themselves.



Within the next year or two, I made one friend. His name’s Kristopher and he’s a huge nerd, but he was pretty damn helpful sometimes. Kris likes guys, but I didn’t have a problem with that. He’s a great person to go shopping with! Kristopher and I did everything together, and for a long time, he was the only one who understood my life. Having a mother who doesn’t care whether you live or die comes with a lot of hardships, and so does being gay, so we always relied on each other to be able to rant. It was a weird, but relatable relationship.



About six months ago, I made an Instagram account, just so people could follow my life. I wanted to be able to share my “abundance of wisdom” with the rest of the world. When I first started it, I had no idea that I’d have twenty-thousand followers in such a short amount of time. I guess I’m just that fabulous. Anyways, one day I got a comment from a guy named Logan, asking for my number. I sensed that he wasn’t a bad guy, so I gave it to him. Yes, I took health class in fifth grade where we learned about internet safety, but a lot of people on the internet are actually way better people than the ones you meet in real life.



Logan Perch was different from my other internet friends. He wasn’t all about me helping him get followers or using me in any way. For a long time, he didn’t even care if we met in person or not. He just wanted to support me, and I was there to support him too. Logan has scars, mental and physical, just like I do. He had an abusive father who didn’t get sent to jail until he was thirteen, so he was in foster care. The scars were from his father and also from himself, but I loved every little thing about him. I don’t want a picture perfect, “normal” boyfriend, I want someone with a story. I want someone I can relate to and someone who will love me no matter how much I destruct myself, and that’s why I had Logan.

I believe in love at first sight. I also believe in love at first comment, so yes, I could say that Logan and I were in love, although I was pretty positive I had never been in love before, so I wasn’t exactly sure what it felt like. I got crazy remarks from kids at school questioning if my relationship was “real” or if it was possible to be in love with someone you haven’t met. No one in my “family” (if you could even call it that) knew about Logan, and I planned to keep it that way for as long as I could. There was no way in hell that Aunt Susanne would approve of an internet relationship.



I remember the first time Logan called me beautiful. We were on Skype, and I had had a really bad day. I failed a Spanish test, and got called an “ugly slut” by one of my ex-boyfriends from the Barbie years. I came home, locked myself in my room, and called Logan. I was lying on my bed, crying about literally everything. I had the problem where once I started crying about one thing, I thought about everything else that was wrong with me, and cried even more. Logan looked genuinely upset that I was upset, unlike every other guy I had been with. “Veronica, you’re beautiful even when you’re crying, but your smile is a huge turn on”, he said with a smirk. I burst into laughter. Me, Beautiful? Sure, I wasn’t an eye sore, but I didn’t think I was attractive enough to be called beautiful. Logan made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I got a weird, warm feeling inside when I talked to him. I wasn’t used to anything like that. I normally hid my feelings and was like a stone wall unless I was with Kristopher. I still believe that the moment when Logan said that to me was the moment I fell in love, whatever love is.

I’ve been keeping a secret from my so-called “family” for a while now. Logan and I made plans to finally meet, this coming weekend, so I decided to brainstorm with Kristopher. How is it possible that I could disable my aunt’s alarm systems and escape without getting caught, you ask? This happens to be one of the times that Kris being a nerd comes in handy. At exactly 12:08 every night, my aunt falls into a deep sleep. Nothing can wake her up except her cherry red alarm clock, playing 80’s hair band music; absolutely horrible.



At 12:10, I grabbed a few band tees, my tooth brush, money for my pizza addiction, and some blades… Just in case I got the urge. I’ve been trying to recover for a while now, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. Kris started disabling the alarms, one after the other. He made it look so easy, “Just cut every third blue wire, every fifth black one, and the yellow one that should be third from the right”. Whatever that meant, he did it in ten minutes. With a hug goodbye, I ran out the front door. I couldn’t make it any more than a half hour without an Arizona Iced Tea, so I ran into the twenty four hour convenience store. It was past midnight, so I was wearing a tee shirt with no bracelets. The hundreds of scars on my arms were highly visible. One thing that people know me for is wanting to be independent. Sure, I have my own problems, but I hate being a charity case. Apparently the cashier didn’t get that memo. She was a frail old lady who smelled like Kraft macaroni and cheese mixed with a nursing home. She tried to give me my drink for free. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea. I didn’t even know that eighty-year-old women knew what self-harm was. I didn’t mind at first, but then I realized that it wasn’t because of my scars. I don’t know what types of rumors are going around town, but clearly they’re about my family. “Oh! Did you hear about Veronica Fielding’s mother! Apparently she’s some crazy drug addict now!” My mother’s issues are completely separate from mine. I have no idea what the cashier heard, but I am not poor at all. I don’t wanna seem rude or anything, but money’s not an issue. My aunt takes care of me.



I walked around for the next few hours, making my way to the train station two towns away. The view was absolutely gorgeous. The sun was slowly rising in the distance, above the giant trees. I checked my phone, and saw that it was about four in the morning at this point. I didn’t know that that much time had passed, and I started to get nervous. I was actually quite terrified to meet Logan. What if I looked better in pictures than in real life? What if I wasn’t good enough for him? To get my mind off of those terrible thoughts, I decided to think about pizza. It really has become an addiction. The yellow, goopy, steaming cheese was calling my name, so thank god I was only a mile away from Pete’s Pizza, the best pizza around (plus it’s open twenty four hours!).

What happened next was all a blur. I know I heard the blowing horn of the train and the wind brush past me, but the rest of the evidence is from the owner of the pizza place, Pete. I’m pretty sure I got hit by the train, but thankfully it wasn’t going fast enough for me to die. Apparently, I was knocked out for a few days, and word got around… even to Logan.



The first things I saw when I woke up were Logan’s sky blue eyes staring back at me. It was actually him. He hadn’t catfished me, and I could see his excitement from me not catfishing him. I had always been nervous of the way Aunt Susanne would react when she found out that I was in a long distance relationship. I knew that she had no freaking idea where Logan came from, or why I was sneaking out in the middle of the night, but she felt bad for me, so she kept her mouth shut. On a normal day, she would never approve of Logan. His black flippy hair and bright blue eyes were normal, but I could tell she didn’t like his tattoos. There weren’t many, probably about five, but they covered his entire left forearm. He once told me he had them to hide the scars from his past, and we decided that one day, we’d get the same tattoo to cover mine too. I had always been so careful about wearing long sleeves and bracelets, but I don’t think I’m going to when I recover. My scars show that I’m a warrior, and I’m not going to hide battle scars.



Speaking of scars, they saw them when I was in the hospital. I was admitted into the “Teen Psychological” ward once again, and went through therapy for a few days. The nurses just didn’t seem to understand that I didn’t walk in front of the train on purpose. All I wanted was some effing pizza. I had to go through all of the testing that I did before to prove that no, I’m not bipolar. I also don’t have an eating disorder, borderline disorder, or schizophrenia. I’m just a depressed teenager. I got prescribed Zoloft, a type of medicine that’s supposed to help with depression and anxiety. I have no idea how the hell it’s supposed to fix both, because they’re complete opposites. Anxiety is when you care way too much about everything and stay awake in bed at night, making scenarios for things that could go wrong the next day. Depression is when you don’t care about anything anymore, and just want to sleep all the time. Anyways, I’m basically supposed to take that for the rest of my life. Like that’s going to happen.



Logan stayed with me for most of the days. Apparently his uncle’s-friend’s-brother’s-cat sitter’s-cousin had an apartment in town, so he was able to stay and help. The day I finally got out of the hospital, Logan took me on our first official date. I looked like hell. I had a cast on my right arm, cuts and bruises all over my body, and even a neck brace. I was extremely out of place at the fancy restaurant he took me to. The tables were covered with silky, white tablecloths, and a single rose sat in a vase in the center. Surprise, I ordered pizza off the kids menu. My cheeks turned red when the waiter came with Logan’s prime rib, and I was gnawing on pizza like a 5 year old.



It felt pretty weird being with Logan. We had learned so much about each other through the internet, we had barely anything to talk about in person. It honestly wasn’t the fairytale we expected it to be. Fireworks didn’t go off and our eyes didn’t lock and it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. We were in love, and you could tell by looking at us, but none of that takes away from the fact that we both had our own struggles that we needed to fix on our own. You get to a point in your life when you realize that your prince charming isn’t going to come and sweep you off your feet and all of your mental illnesses will go away because you’re with the love of your life. You need to save yourself, and that was the situation me and Logan were in.



Logan and I went on a couple more dates. He took me to the amusement park and I took him to Pete’s, where he let me order for him. Of course he devoured his pepperoni, ham, bacon, and pepper pizza in about ten minutes. I know my pizza. After our pizza date, we drove home in the black Mustang convertible that Logan was renting. The wind was blowing through my hair and Logan’s hand was placed on my knee when my new favorite song came on. Logan recently got me into a band called 5 Seconds of Summer. Their music is honestly great for summer jams. “She Looks So Perfect” came on, and Logan started singing to me. He was joking obviously, because we had talked so many times before about how we both wish that we could sing. The song wasn’t a slow and romantic song, but he knew that’s not what I would want. It was like a movie actually, and I couldn’t believe it was real.

All was fine until we pulled into my driveway. Immediately, tears sprung into my eyes. There were four shiny police cars sitting in there, and I knew what was happening. Two overweight and cocky cops were holding my mother by her hands, dragging her out to the car. This had happened once before, when I was twelve. My mother was screaming slurs at the police, foaming at the mouth. I remember her saying something about getting naked for them, and it broke my heart. My mom used to be a really nice person, but she too suffers from mental disorders. Not the type that I do, but things that really mess with her head. She’s seriously addicted to every single drug she can get her hands on. It took the police about an hour to get her in the car and off to the station, and for that whole hour, I sat in the car watching. My head was in Logan’s lap, and he was stroking the tears off my face.



When they left, Logan and I went up to my room. “Do you want to talk about it V? I’m here for you and I love you, you know that”, he said. I cried for an hour or two and fell asleep. When I woke up, Logan was gone, but there was a note left. It read:
Veronica- I left at like four. You were knocked out. I’ll pick you up at seven tonight. We need to talk. Love you- Logan.



He needs to talk. Hearing stuff like that has always scared me. I have trust issues. I tried not to think about it too much, so I went and took a shower. I dried myself off, and pulled on some red skinny jeans. I really didn’t feel like putting on real pants, but I figured I should look nice for Logan. When Logan finally came over, I was absolutely terrified. He sat me down on his lap and started talking.



“Veronica, I saw your arms last night. It’s not okay anymore. I think we should go to a support group together. I found one close by here, and we could be together and hear other’s advice and--”



I cut Logan off right there. The truth is that they weren’t any worse than before. Maybe the red skinny jeans made them more obvious, but I swear I hadn’t hurt myself in a month. I like to keep track of my progress. I didn’t feel okay on the inside, but my body wasn’t physically harmed. I would never lie to Logan about cutting myself. I had always been completely real with him and told him almost every time I did it. It was different with him in person, though. He could see the scars lining my wrists in real life, and it made me uncomfortable in a sort of way.



I burst into tears immediately following this. Logan and I had never been this serious with each other. I totally regret it now, but my first impulse was to scream.



“LOGAN! YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT TALKING ABOUT MY FEELINGS! I”VE DEALT WITH THIS FOR OVER TWO YEARS AND I THINK I CAN TAKE CARE OF IT BY MYSELF NOW!” I jumped off Logan’s lap and made him leave. He was the one person that understood me the whole time, and he was gone too. I ran up to my room and the first thing I could think to do was scream. I grabbed my memory foam pillow and screamed into it as loud as I possibly could. Tears of anger were still screwing up my black eyeliner. I reached under my mattress and found the plastic bag with my emergency blades in it. I rolled up my sleeve and pressed it onto my forearm. I got a rush of adrenaline when it first hit, but afterwards, I realized what I had done. I had just ruined a whole month of being clean, but I didn’t care at this point. I held a rag on the gash to stop the blood, and layed down to sleep for a while.

The next few days were a battle between me and my feelings. I missed Logan, but I missed my mother even more. I loved to be with Logan, but I realized that sometimes it’s good to be alone. I needed the time to myself to think about everything that happened. Was I over reacting? I came to the conclusion that no, I wasn’t. He knew how I felt and he betrayed me, even if he did just want to help me. I didn’t need help. I made it here today somehow. I’m not dead yet. I also went back and forth with cutting again. It was the only way I had dealt with my feelings for so long, I felt lost without it. I decided that I didn’t need my razors. I didn’t need Logan. I didn’t even need my mom. I’ve always been a person who likes to be alone, but not lonely. I don’t mind not having people around me, but I like to know that they’re there if I ever need them. I knew that Logan was.



I didn’t see Kristopher for the whole time I was in the hospital, and I felt bad. At first I was like, “If he wants to see me, then he should call me”, but then I realized that I need to make an effort too. Kris had no idea what happened with the train and Logan or really anything that had been going on the past few weeks, so I called him up. He offered to come over, and we ate ice cream together on the couch and watched some soap operas. Kris insisted on us going shopping together, so he dragged me out to his beat up, old pickup truck and we drove to the mall. I felt way more comfortable in his car than in Logan’s fancy convertible. I was never the kind of kid who wanted to be a superstar, with Gucci hand bags and Marc Jacobs boots. I’d rather be wearing skinny jeans and working at a cool pub or something.



We walked into Hot Topic, one of my favorite stores. I put up a fight with Kristopher, because I wasn’t in the mood to shop. He dragged me by the hand into Hot Topic, where I saw the craziest thing. It was Logan. He was standing there, dressed in a black tee shirt and skinny jeans. It was simple, but he looked so damn good in it. He had a bouquet of red roses, and a box of a large pepperoni and bacon pizza. That was the exact moment where I realized that I was wrong. Sure, Logan shouldn’t have pushed me to do something that I didn’t want to, but I could’ve at least given it a try. I’ll never be able to get better if I don’t try. You don’t choose to have a mental disorder, but you can choose to be happy. It just takes more work. I decided that I was willing to work for it. It was like a fairytale. Logan pulled me into him and kissed me; slow, long, and passionate kisses. Tears streamed down my face. I knew that Logan would now force me to go to the support group, but I realized that I didn’t mind. Whatever I had to do to be with Logan, I would do it. I couldn’t believe that he and Kristopher had planned all of this, all for me.



The next week, Logan and I started going to support groups. I had Kristopher with me too. I liked to think of us as the three musketeers. Even though Logan and I are dating, and Kris is just my gay best friend, we all kind of became best friends. We stayed together through it all. Times were hard. Our lives weren’t perfect at all. Logan and I fought and made up so many times, but we decided that our love is strong, and to this day, we still believe that. We hope to get married someday, but even if we don’t, our love is forever. My experiences with Logan came with so much good and so much bad, but I came out healthier and stronger, and so did the ways we loved each other. It’s not a “normal” love. My life isn’t normal, and it never will be. Normal doesn’t exist, and striving to be normal in any way is unhealthy. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. But trust me, if you feel like you’re at a breaking point, remember that I made it, you can too.



Attending Arizona State University for journalism would be a dream for me. I understand that it’s a long shot. I didn’t get the best grades in school and I have a lot of problems. I also understand that the prompt was to write about one life-changing experience, but my life-changing experience was Logan. He changed me for the better and for worse, but no matter what, we’ll always be together. I believe that going to ASU would also be a life-changing experience, and I’m ready to re-start my life. It’s me and Logan; against the world.

Sincerely,


Veronica Fielding: Survivor.