Let the Hurt Girl Speak: Let the Hurt Girl, #1

By K.E.ANDREWS

She is the girl who feels too much, left with emotions dripping from cracks in her heart. She is the girl who wants to speak but is afraid of her own voice. She is the girl who is told to get over it and that it could be worse. She is the girl who has spent too long letting the voices of other people define her. She is the girl who desperately wants someone to listen rather than to fix her. She is the girl who just wants to speak.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sonder and Morii
• Release date: Apr 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9798636709862

Book preview

Act I

¹⁹ I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. ²⁰ I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. ²¹ Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: ²² Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. ²³ They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

—Lamentations 3:19-23 NIV

The Night

FICTION. BASED ON A TRUE BATTLE WITH ANXIETY

When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize myself. – Kandee Lewis

This journal entry is inspired by true events. Some of the characters, names, businesses, incidents, and certain locations and events have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Any similarity to the name, character or history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

Each breath feels like it’ll rupture my lungs. Shaky and bloated, too lumpy to swallow. Each second hits like hail, causing me to flinch. I feel like I’m going to shatter at the slightest touch, feeling everything and nothing. Too hyper-aware of each beat of my heart, and I can almost hear my thoughts screaming through my skin as I keep my hand pressed against my ear. The silent scream that only escapes through tears.

I can’t find the words. They used to come freely, always following my fingers and forming the designs in my mind. Bright pieces of the puzzle manifested into physical form. Shimmering and vibrant as they formed and reformed to string together the rich tapestries I used to rend. Strong fragments of steel forged into one element of cutting down to the deepest parts of the soul.

No more. They are dead embers in a dark fireplace.

I turn over in my bed, caught in the throes of another sleepless night. My thoughts hold me captive, slippery ropes I can’t seem to shake no matter how much I try to escape. Another one loops around my wrist as my mind drags me down another dark alley. Not real. Not the truth. "Remember the foundations of yourself," I try to scream, but my feet sink into the black mire underfoot. Inky hands reach up followed by the faces of past pains and failures. I can’t escape them.

So, I sink, held down by the crushing weight of my own thoughts. Echoes of the day haunt my nights, tormenting me with every misspoken word and error. They sense the weakness and flock to it, drawn to its scent. I try to grasp the whispers of peace I recite to myself so many times—the mantra to calm my heart and hold onto. But I can’t hear them.

Or I refuse to because what good are those words? They don’t ease the pain. Raindrops against stone. Useless. Empty syllables strung together by well-wishers who don’t get it. Joy comes in the morning, but I am stuck in the middle of the night.

It will all be worth it.

Once this is over, you’ll look back on it and wonder why you worried so much.

This is only a small thing that won’t matter later on.

Stop worrying about it.

Round and round they go, bits of debris caught in the whirlwind, cutting, and snagging instead of settling the turbulence. Comfort never felt so isolating. My throat clenches, and the nausea comes as it has so many times before. Bending over, trying to retch something up, but nothing ever comes. No purging or relief, only the agony of its lingering threat. Spewing blackness that hides in the deepest recesses of myself, buried with old secrets never uttered to anyone. The fears, the self-doubt, the shame that wriggles around alongside the crippling terror that my vulnerabilities will be too disgusting for anyone to handle. If I don’t throw it up, it may seep through the open wounds and bleed out from my cracking exterior.

I look at my desk where it all sits. The culmination of four years of work and now the final stepping stone to the new world that awaits me. The weight of so many expectations and the proving ground of my worth. I have to summon everything to make this project happen, weave together words and sentences that will withstand the fires of the final test. This is the bookend to close this season of my life and open the path to the next one.

Do I dread the ending of this chapter? Or the unknown beginnings of the one ahead of me?

I can’t summon the words. I try to pull them out, but they end up dead on the paper no matter how much life I try to breathe into them. And the words I used to love so much I now resent, cursing them and myself. I bite my lip against another wave of nausea, curling into myself as I wish for sleep to come. Beneath the pressing weight, another rises up. Something I keep sealed away—the part of me I fear the most. It rumbles and stalks through the inky black, roaring in my ears as it gets louder. At the center of everything is the maelstrom wreathed in fire and fury. It screams out against the fear and makes it cower, tearing