Sooner Or Later

In a dimly lit room, Claire sat slouched over her computer. Her fingers ran over the keyboard as she wrote to her friend Ray over the Internet. She thought back over the year, and how her daily conversations with Ray had been so simple, and unchanging. But lately over the last month the Ray would come online, feeling… well what she guessed was suicidal. So Claire would attempt to cheer him up, he’d act defensive, they’d get in a fight, block each other, unblock each other and make up.

Although they had never met, Claire had feelings for Ray, and she guessed he felt the same way. As she sat there waiting for him to come online she couldn’t stop thinking about what was going to happen next month. It was Ray’s birthday and she planned to go to his party and meet him for the first time. He had asked her out many times, however, each time she refused. She wanted to meet him first before she said yes.

Ray came online. She was so excited to talk to him even though she knew before they had a real conversation she had to sort out all his destructive thoughts and problems again. She didn’t mind though, it was nice to know she was wanted.

Clare-o: Hey

Rayman; Heya ?

Claire thought this was unusual because his ‘heys’ were often followed by a sad face, not a happy one. She was relieved that he seemed happy, but a part of her longed to help him with what ever problems he had, it was like he almost enjoyed his sadness.

Rayman: I got a girlfriend, her name is Karrie

Claire’s jaw dropped. They had planned to meet in a month, things were meant to happen for them. Not for him and some other girl. She forced herself to type back

Clare-o: Cool..

There was one benefit to the internet; no one could hear emotions in her voice and no one could see her excited expression shatter. From there the conversation just went downhill. Claire and Ray usually argued but never like this. She couldn’t believe he could do this to her. He had just been stringing her along, getting his kicks out of making her happy than watching her fall.

Once she had had enough of his hurtful comments, she signed off. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She could only remember crying like this twice. She hated tears. She could never sit and watch anyone cry, all she saw was weakness. She would get so mad staring at others as their eyes began to well up and the first tear ran down their cheek. She would glare in disgust thinking that they were pathetic. They didn’t know real pain like she did. And now here she was crying over some guy she hadn’t even met. She hated herself.
She crawled over to her bed and got out her pencil case and sketching pad. She turned her music on as loud as possible. It was a good thing she was home alone so no one would complain. Claire looked out her window for almost half an hour before she got out a pencil to draw.

As she flipped through her sketchbook she stared at her drawings, she couldn’t stand them. They no longer held the same importance. She turned to a new page and thought for a moment before she began. She put her pencil to the paper and scribbled. She scribbled so hard that she tore a hole in the paper, which tore easily because it was soaked from her salty tears dripping on it. She continued until the hole went almost all the way through her entire book tearing at all her previous pictures.

When she was satisfied that she had destroyed all her old doodles she grabbed her pencil case to put her pencil back in. As she undid the zip she saw her bright blue scissors. They were calling out to her. She was still crying and her vision was blurry. She reached for the scissors still unsure what she was going to do with them. She held them to her arm and closed her eyes pulling them across her skin as fast as she could. She looked down and saw a dribble of blood which caused a huge grin to form over her face. She did it again and again. Adrenaline was pumping through her body and before she knew it she was going deeper and deeper in all directions.

She looked at her blood covered scissors and back down at her arm realizing what she had done. It shocked her little knowing what she was capable of. The adrenaline began to wear off and her arm was beginning to sting so she walked down stairs with her head spinning. She looked in the cupboard and grabbed all the painkillers she could find. She popped a couple from each swallowing them down with a cocktail of all the different kinds of alcohol she could find. She figured if she used a little from each no one would notice.
She walked over to the sink to wash her glass out. Once she’d done that she dropped it into the murky water that filled the sink. She caught a glimpse of a large knife and fished it out. She grasped it in her hand suddenly feeling empowered. She couldn’t watch herself. She held the cold dirty blade up to her skin. She tried a couple of times but she didn’t have the courage to cut as deep as she wanted to.

She didn’t want to die. She just wanted to feel something other than a broken heart. She held her wrist; she had only engraved her sadness into one, and went back upstairs. She needed to talk to Ray it was his turn to help her out. She needed to yell at him, blame her foolishness on him. She thought she loved him, although she told everyone she didn’t believe in love. He had ruined her life. Before him she was happy, before him she could have easily said life was perfect, uncomplicated. She was fairly popular, had awesome friends that she would go out with every weekend.

Now, however, she always felt depressed, she took more notice of all the bad things, nothing was simple and she lost contact with most of her friends and because distant.
As she waited for MSN to sign her in she could feel the pain in her arm building up slowly. She watched the fresh blood from the deepest cut dribble out. Claire regretted what she had done already.

She looked back up at the computer. Ray wasn’t on but Bob, Ray’s arrogant friend, was. He had opened a conversation and had begun to type. He was calling her a slut, a bitch and much more. She didn’t take much offence however, she had already said the worst possible insults to herself many times, but she wouldn’t just sit there either. He had no right saying those things; he had no idea what she was going through.

She began to rapidly type back. Her fingers were controlling her as she typed all these words without giving them a second thought. Her fingers came to a stop as she looked up at what she had just typed. She had let it slip out and she burst into tears once again.
She wished she could take her words back, he didn’t believe her at first anyway. Part of her wanted him to know what his friend had done to her. She wanted the world to know and feel her pain but she also felt like she had to take it on alone if she were to be strong.
She looked back down at her arm. The bleeding hadn’t stopped. Claire became frantic. Her head was still spinning, the painkillers where setting in and her body felt numb.

She just wanted it to stop. She didn’t want to feel like this anymore. She got up and walked around not knowing what to do next. She had to make herself stop bleeding. She needed to get out of the house. When she sat back down at the computer there was what seemed like a million messages from Bob. Claire didn’t understand why he cared, as far as she was concerned he hated her.

He had asked her to meet her, she needed to see somebody but she didn’t want anyone she knew to see her in this state so she reluctantly agreed.

She put on a long sleeve top to hide her mistakes and stumbled down her driveway. She didn’t know exactly how to get to where she was meeting him because it was on the other side of town but she hopped on a bus going in that general direction.

Claire had dazed off into a daydream, gazing out of the bus window. The bus stopped and she slowly walked out. When she looked around she couldn't recognize her surroundings. She didn't know how long she had been on the bus; she knew to see Bob she needed to have stayed on it for at least an hour.

As she left the bus she was sure she heard the other passengers laugh at her. As the bus drove off she looked around. There were no houses, no shops; she was in the middle of nowhere.