On Friday night after the Knicks vs. Nets basketball game in Madison Square Garden, I was sitting next to my boyfriend on the L train staring into thin air. He was talking to me. I wasn't listening. I managed to tune him out completely. I was looking at all the people on the train trying to figure out what their stories were. I wondered if some of them were truly as happy as they looked and if others were truly as depressed as they looked. Then I became very aware of myself and that I could be being examined as I was examining them. I tried to imagine what my face looked like at that very moment. As I locked eyes with the woman sitting across from me, I wondered what she saw when she looked at me. I became very self-conscious. I fidgeted. I was nervous. I looked at Jay and asked him how many stops we had left before we could disembark this wretched train. This train was making me think of myself and who I was. My face began to redden. My hair began to stick to t!

he back of my neck. My thin leather jacket

e knew what was haunting me. No one knew I felt like I was going to die. I felt so alone. I was in a room full of people and yet, I felt so very alone. No one understood me. No one even imagined that I could possibly be going through so much torment. I was the same old Valerie I had always been. No one could see through the smiles and the laughter. I'm sick of smiling and laughing. I'm sick of putting off my own needs to make everyone else happy. I'm upset. I'm hurting. Me! Over here! Me! Somebody help me! Somebody listen to me! Of course I didn't say that, but just thinking it made me realize that something is wrong. Maybe not something wrong with me, but something wrong with my situation-something wrong with the way I was dealing with it. All I knew was that something was wrong.

I was up every hour on the hour. Finally I took Tylenol PM to help me sleep. I slept about four hours. I woke up in a terrible mood. My head was aching, my face was swollen and I looked like I had two black eyes. I was miserable. My mother sensed something was wrong. I wouldn't budge. I couldn't tell here I was crying over my father. She wouldn't believe it. I was too strong for that. I knew how my father was and I couldn't change him. Everybody knows Louie. There's something wrong with him, my mom would say. It's not you. I know, mom, but I just can't take it anymore. I wanted to tell her, but I couldn't. It just hurt too much. I was embarrassed because I was crying over my father. My mother would tell me that I don't need him and I know she's right. I didn't know why I was crying. All I knew was that it hurt so badly. It hurt so badly I couldn't breathe. It hurt so badly I didn't want to get up to face another day.

So after shopping with my mother for my grandmother's birthday gift, I cleaned my bathroom for three hours. I scrubbed and scrubbed as if I was scrubbing away the pain, but the pain didn't come off with the sponge. The Tilex wouldn't remove the mildew stains. No matter how hard I scraped and peeled and rubbed that unrelenting pain in my chest would not go away. I inhaled the fumes hoping they would make me pass out and I could temporarily be relieved of my suffering. Instead, Jay came home. He said that the smell of bleach was so strong he felt dizzy after only being in the room for five minutes. He opened all of the windows. I told him I felt dizzy. He put me to bed and massaged my feet. The poor thing never ate dinner. My father didn't call again today.

eel like you're going to die? To feel like you want to die? I'm almost ashamed to say that I do. I never want to feel that way again. I will never let him make me feel that way again

was unbearably hot. I couldn't take it anymore. I took my cell phone out of my bag and realized I don't get any service on the subway. The display on the phone said I had three messages. Anxiety filled my body. I began to shake my leg and twirl my hair with my finger. I couldn't wait to get off that train to listen to my messages. I knew one of them was from my dad. His number was the last call I received according to the trustworthy display on my telephone. I stood up three stops before ours and waited impatiently for the train to stop on Bushwick Avenue. I ran up the stairs of the subway forgetting Jay was with me. The moment I reached the

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2266
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)