Page 603 of The Tempted

I stared at the two masks hanging from the mirror above my dresser. One mask featured a smile while the other displayed a frown. My freshman year of college I took a drama course, and the professor gave us these masks to use as a tool to summon the emotions of the characters we were portraying.

I dropped the class but kept the masks because for me they were so much more than a tool. Those masks are who I am.

The smile conveys how I feel when my maker is silenced.

The frown reminds me it will all come crashing down, and I was only smiling during a brief pause from my truth. My maker will return and bring me down from whatever manic state of happiness I was now experiencing.

I’m not one of the lucky ones.

Over the last month I have slept more than anything else because when I sleep…I dream and in my dreams, I see him.

I dream of our story.

I dream of the smiles.

And then I wake, try to hang onto the happiness of the dream, pray it guides me out of the depression I am in…but it doesn’t.

I want one more chance to smile.

One more chance to be a girl in love.

One more chance to be normal.

It doesn’t come.

It never comes.

And so I close my eyes again.

Maybe next time.

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