They saw smiles, I saw demons, They heard laughter, I heard sobbing, They felt love, I felt pain. The words, “saw”, “felt”, and “heard”... all in past tense. I still look back at the moments of my life that were late, dark, and deadly, and I sit in silence as I remain trying to let go of them, even when I know I’m not going anywhere. Even when sobbing stopped, love has risen, and demons ran slow, I believe that no amount of time, will be long enough for me to let go.

I was 9 when I realized that I just didn’t belong.

I was 11 when food started to be my worst enemy.

I was 12 when I thought life was getting better, I was wrong. I had lost both my grandfathers, all my friends had left me, my family wouldn’t stop yelling at each other, and there wasn’t a day of my life that I would wake up feeling glad to be alive. It was like putting together a 1000 piece puzzle.

2013 was the year I met my best friend. He knew that I hated myself the second he looked into my eyes. He wanted to help me, which he did. “You’re beautiful” he would remind me every 5 seconds. He convinced me that life gets better, although, at the time I didn’t believe any compliment or positive remark anyone would ever say to me even though no one ever did. One day, I realized the way he would look at me, and it was that, “You’re my everything” look. From that moment, I knew he wasn’t lying. That he was giving me his absolute truthful opinion.

I was in pain, full of regret, and hated for who I was. He helped me become a better person, he saved my life. He thinks his methods to make me happy have failed, but he has no idea what would have happened to me if he didn’t enter my life when he did. He was the first person to ever call me beautiful. He taught me that life gets better.

I am 13 now, and maybe I still have scars on my body, maybe I have my worthless moments, but I am happier now than I have been in a long time. I learned that everything happens for a reason. No matter how happy or joyful I may seem at the time, it still hurts to look back at who I was a few months ago. I just hope my best friend is there if I ever go back to who I use to be.

This belief doesn’t just show that people change, but it shows that life gets better as well. I use to think that my best friend would just come and go, but I was wrong. It could be days, weeks, months, or years, but trying to let go of what happened to me, is like trying to remember what hasn’t even happened yet.