Verboten

“Sir?”

Jack glanced up to see Alex in front of him, his hands shaking and biting his lip. It was break-time and even on the third floor, he could hear shrieks from the pupils messing around outside. “Alex, what’s wrong?” He nearly added ‘dear’ to the end of his sentence and wondered what was going on with him.

“It’s…” Alex sighed and closed his eyes briefly, then had another attempt. “I feel…not very good today.”

Jack nodded slowly, motioning for Alex to fetch a chair and join him at his desk. “In what way?” he asked gently, hoping that he hadn’t upset the student yesterday when he’d brought up the topic of an eating disorder.

“Suicidal.” A tear raced down Alex’s face. He wiped it away ferociously, as if he was ashamed of himself for crying.

Jack had never been in this situation before – God, what should he do? Tentatively, he questioned, “Are you seriously considering it?”

Alex nodded, burying his face in his hands as more tears escaped from his eyes. Jack grabbed a box of tissues and pulled a few from it, scrunching them together and offering it to Alex. With a shaky

“Thanks,” Alex accepted the ball of tissue and wiped his face and eyes.

“I’ve never been in this situation before,” Jack began, not totally aware of where what he was saying was going to end up, “but I can tell you one thing: I care about you, and I know a lot of people here who do as well. Understand?”

Alex nodded, still apparently pretending that he wasn’t crying.

“Now, what you have to think about is what happens when you commit suicide. I don’t mean the impact your death would have on people and all that stuff that just makes you feel guilty about being suicidal, but I mean the actual dying part.

“Your body is an incredible thing. Right now, there are millions and millions of cells in your body. Some of them are carrying blood around your body, some are fighting disease, some are making up various parts of your body like muscles and organs.

“You have an intricate system of organs that digest your food for you, and take out all the nutrients that you need to survive. You have an amazing skeleton that had so many bones all knitted together and enabling you to do brilliant things with your body.

“If you killed yourself, all that would stop. Your brain would stop working, your mind would just…stop, completely. Your heart would stop beating and pumping blood around your body. It would become still and empty.

“Your organs would shut down; your kidneys would stop doing their job, so would your liver, stomach, all of them.

“Your muscles wouldn’t ever be used again. Neither would your bones, or any other part of your body.” Jack paused and rested his hand on Alex’s leg. His student hadn’t stopped crying yet, but his eyes were focused on Jack, as he rubbed the tears from his face. “I know what you’re feeling right now is terrible. I don’t think I could even comprehend feeling like you do now, but I know that it is a terrible ache and possibly the worst thing in your world. But do you want your body to stop working? All of those spectacular things that are happening inside you right now – do you really want them to stop?”

“No,” Alex whispered after a few seconds. “I don’t.”

“Good,” Jack said softly. “Now, I know you will still feel like this, but now whenever the feeling or the urge becomes especially strong, just think of this conversation we’ve had and remind yourself how strong you are.”

Alex nodded and stood up, wiping his eyes one last time. Jack, happy to see that he was no longer crying, helped him return the chair he’d used to the correct desk.

“Sorry for wasting your time, sir,” Alex muttered, avoiding eye contact with his teacher.

“It isn’t a waste of time, Alex,” Jack said firmly. “I’m here whenever you need to talk about anything, and in the unlikely event that I’m not, Mrs Gregor is, and she’s very good on these issues too.”

“Okay, thank you, Mr. Barakat.” Alex slung his bad over his shoulder and headed towards the door.

“No problem.” Jack called after him, having to restrain himself from saying ‘dear’ again. He ran a hand through his messy hair, worrying no only about what was going on in his mind, but also about Alex. And if his eyes weren’t mistaken, when Alex had pulled his bag across his body, his sleeve had ridden up, and he had a fairly large, irregular bruise decorating his wrist, black, purple and angry.

It was probably nothing – Jack himself currently had a bruise on his hip about the size of a fifty-pence piece, from an enthusiastic attempt at dancing that had taken a horrific turn for the worse when he had smashed into the corner of his dining table. Still, he worried about it – when was his next after-school session with him? Tomorrow. He would ask him about it then.