It started whenever.

I can’t pick a specific date because that would mean searching back in time for heartbreak when I need to be all smiles in the next twenty minutes for a high school party, when I’ve always feared being the girl crying in the corner so instead I hid under the high thread count sheets and kissed a boy so wrong for me I think my lips fell off. If I could take back the drugs and shots of vodka I’d think I kissed his nose and his my chin if equations were exact. But we are now a year older and I’ve stopped climbing under covers before bedtime.

There’s always going to be that boy that touched you in all the wrong ways. He felt like ice when your body was on fire and the daydreams of him in geometry class forced a protractor inside of you like a wrench and twisted you like wet laundry, causing you to climb inside of yourself and down that shot like water during soccer practice when you swear if his head were on a sticker attached you’d break crossbars all around the world. He’ll make you angry. He’ll tell you he’s the sun without ever saying it aloud because he has always wanted multiple dogs but never was too interested in being kept on a leash. He’ll make you fall in love with alcohol and the way candles smell when you want to light yourself on fire and suddenly all the jewelry your mother bought you in the seventh grade tastes like poisonous nickel and you want to swallow it. Don’t you dare give in.

I’m asking you to lose an extra hour of sleep at night because the book you’re reading feels like a friend in bed with you but she doesn’t take all the blankets in the midst of night or kick you right in the shin, she crawls into bed with you holding a warm cup of love and all you can do is fit perfectly under snowflake blankets with her and smile. All you can do is smile.

So after you’ve learned that day drinking can’t get you through the day anymore, that hidden vodka bottles aren’t exactly disguised like army suits in the box of scarves in your bookshelf, that your mother knows just where it is but doesn’t know how to approach your sadness, don’t blame her. Give yourself kisses in the shower when the world is collapsing a million miles a minute and you feel like a walking dictionary with all the words and feelings of pain being spelled in your mind, written in nothing but bold font. Scream. Cry. Climb a f***ing mountain and scream at the goddamn world because your heart is broken and your mother warned you broken bones heal faster than a broken heart but it never scared you enough to care.

Some days you’ll swear this numbness is forever and not even ice can bring you back to life. Just wait. It’ll come back. One afternoon you’ll be sitting on a yellow school bus with the same song on repeat for three hours and you’ll hear the boy’s voice in the background that had too much to drink one night, wound up in the hospital with a pumped stomach and blocked memory, with parents that are just grateful you’re alive. Your heart will break for him and the fact that nobody called an ambulance and replaced fluorescent lighting and siren noises for uber rides and credit card bills that your father just pays nowadays. He doesn’t care anymore. Make him care. Let your heart break and piece it back together over and over again. Each person is worth feeling something.

Kiss somebody on the nose and throw a plate at a brick wall, just because. We were made to make messes in the world. Make them. Take down pictures of people who don’t make you grow anymore: you deserve better. Know yourself enough to leave a situation without explanation when you’re uncomfortable, and talk to yourself. Sing to yourself. There’s only one person who will be with you to the end, no betrayal, just life: yourself.

Tell your mother you love her. When worlds are colliding climb into bed with her and watch Modern Family until your bones are growing flowers and it feels like love is possible again even though your heart is broken at this very moment. I’ve never studied cardiac surgery but I sure know heartbreak and people can get you through this. Don’t do it all on your own. People love you. Let them.

And by all means, kiss your best friend and give her bracelets and slip love notes into her backpack when she’s in the shower. Take her on trips. Cry with her. Read with her. Just do something with somebody you love and I swear to the stars it will get better. Remember that somebody loves you, and if you don’t believe that, check the constellations tonight. They don’t shine for just anybody, now do they?