Story Slam is an event that took place in June at The Duke's Theatre as part of First Fridays as organised by Lancaster Arts City.Sadly only three people turned up to this event however, I enjoyed it very much. I will certainly go again if it is held again. The idea behind Story Slam is to share stories and they were to be fictional stories derived from real life. I decided to write a story about an experience I had with a guy at university. Even though I am now miles away from university I decided to keep names completely out of the story, not only does this protect me from any potential backlash but I feel it add a certain something to the piece. As children could be at the event I had to try and keep the piece somewhere between a PG and a 12A - for those of you who no idea what those ratings are Frozen is a PG and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a 12A. I thought that I would share the story here on Maddie & Books

Summer, the season where everyone comes out of hiding and I out of the other side. Healing hurts always takes longer than expected and it never takes the course you want it to take.

Heartbreak is why I am healing, but it's not your usual heartbreak. It's the heaving to regrow your hear, relearn to trust, remembering your judgment is the flawed type. It's the heartbreak that you will only ever experience once, but you'll replay the lead up to the heartbreak again and again. And again. The heartbreak almost breaks you, everything hurts, food becomes the last thing on your mind, all you can do is try and melt into your bed, praying something will swallow you up because you feel it is the only way to escape from the mess created.

The heartbreaker concerned was a boy I met at university. At first he seemed lovely. I was naive, young and confused. I didn't understand what love was, he was the guy I'd ever fallen head over heels with. The only guy who ever seemed interested in me, though I now realise this was just an illusion. he was a magician in the way he played with my emotions, toying with me, manipulating me like I was a lump of clay that he could turn into whatever he wanted. I went from naive and quiet to silent and drinking. I didn't know who I was. Innocence was gone from me. he had taken everything he could, everything his girlfriend couldn't, wouldn't, or didn't want to give him. He took without care for my regard, he didn't really care what happened to me. In a fit of rage when I dared to try and salvage some of my self-worth, he cut me down using the sharpest, rusiest blade he owned. He admitted everything, how he didn't care, how he saw me as an easy target, how his girlfriends saw me as the bad guy.

I was the bad guy. Not the one who said he wasn't dating them or that they were clingy, suffocating, vapid beyond belief. No, me. Me, who had fallen for mind tricks. I mistook manipulation for love, yet I ran back when asked and this continued for longer than I dare to admit.

I now may be years older and I am still hurting, still healing. He was an experience I never want to repeat, but sadly and stupidly have. I'd like to say it was years between the two, but sadly it was only weeks. Luckily, I learnt one thing and that was to run as soon as I realised I was being played and oh I ran. I ran from my university to London and then to the North of England, it was a week before I dared to return to university.

Years on, he is still calling, but I am not running. It's no longer worth me running, not that it ever has been. He could be standing under my window with a boombox over his head playing my favourite song and I'd just put my noise cancelling headphones on, pretending to not be home.

If I see a guy with tattoos, piercings and spacers in his ears, my heart drops to my stomach because I worry for two reasons. The first reason is that it might be my manipulating heartbreaker, and the second reason is that they might also play with me and break me and I won't be strong enough to run away. And if I can't run away then I am stuck where I was at university, getting burnt playing with fire.

Madeleine.