I Knew A Boy

A month. Zack had been gone a month. After the talk I had with Brian, I figured things would have started turning better. But I was wrong. That's just what I wanted myself to believe.

Over the course of that month I had finally managed to write Zack a letter. A real letter. A normal, everyday letter. I had gotten help from Sam, who said that Zack didn't want questions about what was going on with him, but wanted to really hear about how we all were. She said t just write it as if it were a normal conversation. So I did. And that letter was three pages long. But I still just couldn't send it. It was sitting in my room, tucked away in a notebook. I still couldn't figure out why I just couldn't send him that damn letter.

I think I spent a lot of time arguing with myself over what I had talked about with Brian that one night. Did I really love Zack? Did I even know what love was? Did I really... want to waste my time 'loving' someone who wouldn't love me back? I thought about it a lot.

I also started eating again. I thought maybe it was just some fluke sickness. My mom finally questioned if I was sick and then found out that the medication I had been put on earlier in the year caused decreased appetite in some cases. I guess I was just one of those cases. But I had been able to get my weight back up to just over 95 pounds. I still had a little more to go to be at where I had been before, but I projected the number higher than that. I wanted to not look so much like I had just died. I didn't want to look so sick.

But even after all the work I had done to get better and all the questions I had asked myself, I still didn't feel right. I didn't feel right at all. My mind felt like it was just crumbling away to nothing. Like I could physically feel it happening in my head. I was never happy, never satisfied. And I wasn't even sure if this looming depression was about Zack anymore, or if it was just the discomfort of thinking that I was absolutely pathetic. I was a pathetic excuse for a human being. Trying to change myself in an unhealthy way for someone I had a one-sided relationship wit. What was that? That was pathetic. Utterly pathetic.

And I began to really hate myself. I was ugly, inside and out. A permanent scowl was etched on my face, and I didn't want the comfort, pity, or sympathy of anyone. I just wanted to lie in bed and let my life just fade away because I hated myself so much. I sometimes went to bed at night hoping and wishing and praying that maybe, just maybe, I could do myself a favor and not wake up for once. I would do everyone a favor. Just not wake up.

Was there even a reason for living? Why the hell was I chosen to manifest this body? Was it a lucky lottery drawing? Did the Ultimate Creator know that when I was made I would become so useless, so empty, so pathetic? Back to that word. The epitome of the description of my soul, contained in one word.

But unfortunately for me, the day never came where I didn't wake to see the light of day. As much as I willed it to, it never came. And one day, I decided I wanted to stop being pathetic, sitting around waiting for death's grip to choke my body. Why wait for death to come to me, when I could come to death?

I didn't even know why then, and still don't remember now today, but there was a shiny new razor in a can holding pens and pencils on my bookshelf, and I could hear it calling for me, beckoning me nearer. I swear, I laid on my bed having a staring contest with a fucking pink razor for almost fifteen minutes before I pushed myself up, crossing the small space standing between me and what I felt I really wanted.

Shakily I pulled that pink razor out of its home of pens and pencils and turned the blade to face me. The silver caught the light coming through the window on that early June day, glinting in my eyes. I slowly pulled the plastic safety guard off the blade, dropping it to the floor and then sat there, the razor in my hand, ready to go.

I put my right wrist facing up at me. The ugly pale skin that covered the bone stared back at me, unscarred. I brought the razor up, pressing the blade to my skin, and didn't move. I felt the cool metal on my skin, almost begging to dig into the flesh beneath it. And then a thought hit me.

Here I was, a damn shaving razor at my wrist. Trying to kill myself in the most stylistically cliché way imaginable. Was I really that pathetic? To follow a worthless trend that had been used over and over and over again? Wasn't I creative enough to at least think of something a little better?

My breathing picked up in my chest and before I could go any further, the razor was on the ground, staring at me as my wrist remained pure and clean. And then I just broke down. I cried out, feeling the tears of pain I had been holding back in the past few weeks of my downward spiral slip down my cheeks, burning the crimson blushed skin as they went, picking up speed and gathering in numbers.

My body slumped back and I laid on the blue carpet of my room, letting out everything I held in until there was nothing left.

I was completely and utterly pathetic. Pathetic enough to not follow through.