Break my Heart and Hope to Die- Chapter 1

*This is the chapter where you can really see where the story is going. I would love some feedback about the idea of the story.*

Chapter 1 - Danger-Magnet

What do you do when you can’t move forward in life, when you truly know that’s an impossibility? Time seems to have stopped right in front of you, yet it goes on in your absence. The sun rises and sets the same way it always has and life persists in the most dire of times. The Earth doesn’t listen to you, it will revolve beneath you whether your alive or not. It seems to be one of many variables in life you can always count on.

*****

My name is Jen Marie Bakers and I am a normal teenage girl. I have a stressful life, my parents get on my nerves often, and there is absolutely nothing special about me. Except for the fact that I’m a danger-magnet and have the worst luck on earth.

My life as a hazardous person started when I was thirteen. The first friend that I had ever made moved to Arizona and the plane happened to crash, deeming my best friend a cripple, but thankfully not a corpse, for the rest of her life. I visit her time to time, but she doesn’t even remember me. My visits to her hospital room has lessened and lessened, because I usually leave her room sobbing, blaming myself for everything.

A few months later my mother had a miscarriage, which was a devastation to my whole family after months of waiting eagerly for my new brother or sister. I started getting suspicious afterwards, when my house caught fire, leaving my dog to burn in its flames. It started to seem my life was one depressing event after another.

This continued in the same pattern, having many tragedies follow my path. It’s funny how no matter how often shock hits you your body still reacts with that same rigid intensity. I can no longer count how many times I’ve cried for the ones I’ve loved, for little things like my favorite stuffed bear that was lost in the fire or my best friend. Hoping for it to end got me nowhere, it just worsened.

Age fifteen was the first time I had fallen in love. He was Ryan Mathews, a gorgeous soccer player who stole my heart like no other. I would count each tick of the clock until I could see him once again. He wasn’t just a jock, he had feelings like no other I had ever known. Ryan became the best friend I was never allowed to have, going to movies with me and laughing when there was no one to laugh with.

Ryan had been coming back from our Sophomore Formal Dance when he happened to get into the car with his drunk friend. Rowdy and in a stupor, his friend drove ninety miles per hour off road and into some trees. Ryan’s friend had died instantly, but Ryan was brought to the hospital minutes later and was brought to the ER where he was immediately.

A tree branch had shattered the glass and broken through into Ryan’s left side. Most of his organs were bruised or damaged and after the crash, but he was still alive. I learned later that what had caused him to die was him shifting and rupturing one of his very delicate organs and unnoticeably causing it to kill him. I knew I would never accept the truth though, it was my twisted fate that had caused his death.

I was fearful of this happening to him, so I had learned to keep my distance, but even that was not enough, I suppose. My heart had already touched his soul, poisoned it, and deemed him my fatal fortune. Each time I caused someone else to suffer it ripped away at my heart and each time someone died it was like a little part of me had quickly been snatched away without the proper time to really know it was there.

For years I had kept my distance from those I loved, my family, my friends. They tried to reach out towards me, but I wouldn’t have any of that. I didn’t want them to have the same fate countless others had had by simply being in my presence. But when Ryan was around it was too easy to have fun, forget about my life and feel free. It seemed like all of that ended all too quickly.

How could one person suffer through this over and over again and still live? I’ve asked myself this before and answered that I must be soulless, selfish, or unable to feel the true extent of emotions, like love. But I found the real solution when I was sixteen. Maybe I wasn’t as normal as I thought I was.

At age sixteen I found out someone loved me and I loved them. That’s when the struggle for freedom from my accursed soul truly began. But would I ever win the battle? That was one answer I was yet to find.