Some people shower when they feel dirty. Other people pray. Other people cry. Some people do more than one thing. Almost all people, when they feel dirty, get a squirming feeling inside—a feeling that there's something deep down that you don't want but can't get out.

I got that feeling.

That sensation deep in your mind, body, soul, that I was wrong. Not that I'd gotten a question incorrect on an exam. Not that I'd misspelt a word. But that I was unnatural, just… wrong.

I did all I could to deal with it, the wormy sensation eating away at me.

First I put up a front. I said I was fine. That it didn't matter. Then someone used the wrong (or right, depending on how you see it) words, and I cracked. I couldn't put up a front any more. I made a hasty retreat while a single tear leaked out of my blurring eyes.

I found myself curled to take up as little space as possible on the floor, dry-sobbing my heart out.

It shouldn't feel like this, I thought. It shouldn't hurt this much to lose someone who was never mine.

But it did. I felt an empty chasm open somewhere in my chest, and I remember wondering if such a melodramatic-sounding thing as a broken heart could really exist. I remember wondering if the someone who'd never been mine could have actually been my first love. I remember wondering how I was going to face her every single day for the rest of my life, what it would be like passing her in the halls, seeing her walking down the street, whether she'd glare, I'd lower my eyes, or we'd each awkwardly pretend the other didn't exist.

I remember wondering if I'd ever uncurl myself, ever face anyone ever again. It didn't feel like I wanted to—I just wanted a book, hot chocolate and maybe a few hugs sans judgment.

Eventually, my beautiful plan is foiled. My arms and legs already lost all feeling, and my stomach's started growling.

So I'll get up.

I'll face the world, face the someone who I wished was mine, face parents and siblings and expectations and I'll face them all with a face that's not mine.

My face is something I can't show anyone anymore. The nice ones will suffocate me; the not so nice ones will poke at it, drag out my agony, make everything worse.

But I'll get up.

I will.