Absorb Me Into the Void

“Why am I paying for these goddamn therapy sessions if they’re not helping?” Mom rages on. Her anger spitting out with every word.

I hate the drive home.

I don’t bother answering rhetorical questions and she doesn’t wait for me to answer.

“…You know therapy is expensive, and if you didn’t know money doesn’t grow on trees.” She starts the car. Her mouth still on motor about me and my therapy.

A boy leaps off the bridge. I will be that boy on day. I will leap off a bridge and leave everyone behind. I don’t care. Silence is great, silence is everything. Silence is comfort. I just want to sleep.

I jerk form my quick nap just as mom enters the neighborhood area of our house. It’s still afternoon. I can hear my homework screaming at me. My grades tugging onto my arm begging not to be dropped. For every grade below A- I slash my wrists. I have four deep, scars on my brown skin. I am Achieving mom look at me!

Mom walks ahead of me chirping wildly into her cell phone. It’s probably to my aunt. Mom loves to talk about things to my aunt. I think it’s her form of free therapy.

“Hey dad, we’re home.” I call to my father sitting in the living room. The T.V.’s on mute but I can practically hear it. Your son’s gay and worse he’s a lame loser.

“Hey son, how’d it go?” He calls back to me. My foot pauses in the midair foot not yet touching the bottom stair.

I take in a breath and sigh. Can’t they leave me alone? I hate talking about how my therapy sessions and isn’t that illegal or something?

I slide into one of the kitchen chairs directly across dad. He’s changed out of his work uniform wearing his usual leisure clothes of shorts and a t-shirt. His body and head is facing the TV. Idly watching the commercials on mute. He faces me a questioning ‘so’ on his face.

“Yeah it was uh, fine. You know, we talked about things we were supposed to.” We actually talked about the ‘incident’ last year. The thing mom never talks to anyone about or mentions. The time I got sad and bored and upset and I tried to hang myself. Dad found me.

I continue to look down and pick at the dinner mat. I have a hard time looking into his eyes ever since the attempt.

“We need to talk about what happened Erick,” She states voice calm like she’s baiting a wild tiger to its death. “You need to talk and move on from what happened and more importantly why it happened.” She always sits straight up. I never can. Do they have a special school for that? Can I go? Or are emotionally deranged depressed young adults not allowed?

I thought as a therapist that she’d never show emotion, like nurses or doctors but that time I almost told her about what I was thinking the day before the ‘attempt’ she looked like she might cry. It was awkward.

“Alright kiddo, that seems like you’re getting somewhere.” Dad states and I want to cry.

Stop making it so hard. So hard for me to not care, to die. Stop making me want to try, dammit.

“Hey, uh maybe you and I can go fishing like we always did when you were little.” He adds. Mom starts washing her hands. She’s probably about to make dinner. I still want to cry.
Fishing. I haven’t gone fishing since I was twelve. We would go to Lake Hillshire a few miles away from home and camp out and roast marshmallows and fish. Dad taught me how when I was ten. I know how to bait the hook and all that stuff. But I won’t go. I just don’t feel like fishing. Especially not on a weekend when I can sleep in.

“Yeah, ok.” I reply to him. He smiles and goes back to watching t.v.

I decide to get away before I get sucked into any more family bonding b.s.

“Can you empty the trash in your room is over flowing? And tell your sister to clean her bathroom?” Mom yells one hand covering her cell phone that’s in her hand as she holds a pot on the stove filled with water.

Spaghetti, yum.

I nod and turn to head up stairs.

Music blares from my sister’s room and I can hear her giggling. She’s probably talking to her boyfriend of a year, Greg. I think he’s a creep but she seems to like him so whatever.

I knock on her door, loudly.

“..Hold on, Yes!” She yells in an annoyed tone.

“Mom said you gotta empty the trash and clean your bathroom.” I tell her.

Her room needs to be cleaned too. Clothes and boxes of Victoria secret are strewn across her floor.

Her small trash can overflowing with paper. She lays leisurely on her bed, talking into the phone.

“Alright, whatever loser.” She waves me away.

I empty my trash and finally fall on to my bed. The sounds of mom cooking, Sarah talking on the phone, the downstairs t.v. going, all fade away. ]Silence. Twenty pills for eternal silence. Silence. Twenty pills for eternal silence.

Someone bangs loudly on my door.

“Huh?” I call as sleep slowly releases its grip on my body and mind.

“Hey, I was going to go out with Greg tonight.” Okay what is she telling me for I hate Greg.

“Did you wanna get dropped off somewhere?’ She questions.

No car for the suicidal guy.

Huh? Tonight? It’ only two. I grab my phone and blink twice at the numbers displayed. 10:15 pm
“Where’s mom and dad?”

“In their room.”

“Yeah okay, hold on le t me grab my jacket.”

She rolls her eyes and leaves my room.

I take my time getting up allowing myself to get used to light and sound and being awake. Twenty pills, not enough.

I grab my phone and text Alex.

Sis is going out, do you want to meet up?

I grab my jacket and head downstairs. Sarah comes down dressed in tight pants and a short top
exposing her tummy, a full face of make-up on.

Yeah, sure whatever.

Sarah drops me off at the park that’s not too far from the house or her boyfriend Greg’s. I’m not allowed to see Alex. Mom apparently thinks he was the reason for the ‘attempt’. The real reason was everything. Homework, grades, light, sun, leaves, the TV., computer, cars, everything and anything makes me want to kill myself.

Alex finally shows up covered in a dark purple jacket. He still looks the same from high school. He’s still in sports and still wants to play video games at my house well used to. He hardly speaks to me since the ‘attempt’.

On top of being cold, I now feel numb and sad. Twenty pills might have been too much.

“Hey.” I state. Kicking dried leaves and dirt with my shoe.

This used to be our hangout place before. I come here time and time to see him or just find temporary silence.

“Hey.” He states lamely when he finally gets closer.

He’s still mad? It’s been a year.

I want to do stuff, feel rough male hands on my body even though I shouldn’t but yet I also want to sit on the ground and cry for hours and find a vein deep enough to pour out fountains of blood and leave me drained like a dried up grape.

It don’t get better.

My eyes sting from lack of sleep. Can he just get to it already?

He stands a few feet away from me hands in his pants pockets. It just got colder.

“How’s therapy?”

“I don’t want to talk about therapy.” I state as I unzip my jacket, walking toward a darker area of the park past the yellow and green chipped and faded playground set. A big tree seems like the perfect place to shelter us from on lookers or passer byes.

I can hear his footsteps behind me but he doesn’t get closer.

“That’s not want I came for.” He states

Bullshit. What guy turns down another guy who’s ready for sex? He’s not straight so…

“Isn’t it?” I reply cocking my head.

Hands push me up against a tree. Lips against mine. Fingers digging into my arms. His tongue in my mouth, our breaths coming out in fog. Yes, this is what I want. This is what feels good. It doesn’t take hard for me to get a boner and I press up against him but he’s too strong and I’m stuck to the tree.

His lips detach from mine. He stares at me intently. He’s searching for something.

“Is this what you want? Is this helping?” He questions not breaking the stare. I can see small pimples start to form on his dark brown face. Brown eyes so intense, so focused.

Yes, the pain helps. I like itI nod.

Pain makes me feel like a real boy.

“I’m not going to get caught up again in your bullshit mind fuck mentality you have. You tried to fucking kill yourself. Your mom, dad and sister looked so freaked out and hurt and angry when the ambulance came.” He states.
He was there? He saw that?

“Your sister cried on my shoulder for hours at the hospital and your mom…Jesus your dad looked like he was about to break down. So fuck you for that and your demented…whatever the hell you’re doing to yourself stop. And get help. Enough is enough.” He states and turns and leaves without giving me a chance to say anything. Even though I can’t.

I walk home in the night with a lead tongue and a heavy heart and burning tired eyes.

I fumble for my door key, thank god it’s in my pocket and unlock the door. A hand smacks me hard across the face.

“WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU!! I SCANNED THAT PARK FOR HOURS!! I THOUGHT…I FUCKING THOUGHT…” My sister looms over me face in angry rage mode. I never saw her so angry
“Shush, you’ll wake up mom and dad and I went to see Alex and then I walked home.” I shrug. I’m fine Jesus I wasn’t kidnapped or anything, she needs to calm down.

“Then fucking tell someone before you do so, geez you have a fucking cell phone for a reason.” She states tosses me a what-the –fuck-look over her shoulder and sprints up the stairs.

I eat three large bowls of spaghetti and head up stairs. By the time I follow her I hear her on the phone.

“…yeah I found him, thanks…yeah Jesus I thought he’d slit his throat somewhere, like that fucking kid, he never thinks.”

I don’t think. I never think about my actions or about others. My mind is heavy no my eyes are heavy and I’m tired of thinking, of messing up, of being here. Everything takes work. I haven’t even showered in four days. I haven’t done a weeks’ worth of homework.

Loser, freak, idiot, why don’t you ever try? Faggot, dumb. Selfish. I will never get A’s. Lonely, weirdo. Why can’t I try? Kill yourself, jump off the bridge, smash the car, cut your wrists, everyone hates you, you’re a burden, a failure. Just die, just do it. You will never be good enough. You suck.

I am so tired of it all.

How do you treat the damage in your own mind?

Forty-two pills should do it. Before I take them I grab my small box of razor blades from my closet, I dig the most painful line down my left arm, and blood slides in copious amounts. I start to feel dizzy and tired. I grab the bottle of pills down them and…