One Step At A Time

A Failed Attempt

No one will miss you when you're gone.

Virgil carefully walked down the beach, picking up stones as the angry voice in his head spit cruel words at him, pointing out every one of his insecurities. As he did his best to drown out the voice with a small hum, he pocketed the rocks and took a letter out of his jeans pocket, brushing his thumb over the four names on the envelope. Patton, Roman, Remus, Logan.

His family, of sorts. 

Roman and Remus were related, but Patton had fostered and adopted all of them, and done his best to treat them like his own biological children, of which he had none. Of course, Patton had always told Virgil that he didn't just treat them like his kids, they were his kids and he loved him, but the voice in Virgil's head couldn't let him believe that he could be loved that much. 

He was just another foster kid with bad bio parents, a small rock in the ocean that was the foster system. 

He wasn't special, sometimes he felt like things would have just been better if he had just died a long time ago. Surely Patton was only taking care of him because he felt a duty to do so.

Peering up through his bangs at the old house his strange family called home, he looked over the old wood and peeling paint one last time. The front garden had five stones he could still for the most part see from the beach, and if he got closer the five names of the family members would have become clear.

He feels sorry for you. You're nothing but a burden, you only slow them down. They have to take care of you all the time, you're so needy.

Gingerly, Virgil bends down and sets the red envelope on the rocks, grabbing one more stone for good luck and slipping it into his pocket. Slowly, he steps forward into the icy cold waters. He shivers, but closes his eyes and breathes in, relinquishing the cold instead of stepping back and rushing inside to ask Patton for some hot chocolate. The water rushes into his sneakers and drenches his socks, making his feet numb and stingy.

Virgil grits his chattering teeth and takes another step, and then another, and continues until he's up to his waist in the cold.

Small waves lapped at the shore, pushing and pulling continuously in an endless pattern. The sound of water, flowing and rushing had always been a comfort to Virgil. Water was constant. It never changed, no matter where the world cast him. Maybe, if things were different, Virgil thought he'd like to live on a boat, surrounded by the ever expanse of sea, the people on land unable to hurt him ever again.

But he couldn't wait for that day to come.

It's not until the water reached Virgil's shoulders, the boy shaking violently, and his brain numb with cold, that he heard Patton scream.

Starting to panic, he pushes aside any doubts and pushes off the lake floor, diving under the water. Water fills his ears and Virgil sinks to the bottom of the lake, the top only a few feet away, but he didn't want to be above the water.

Virgil didn't want to breathe anymore.

As his lungs start to burn, Virgil feels a shockwave of water pushing over him, bubbles swarming him as someone leaped off the pier and into the lake. Strong arms wrap around Virgil's waist and he struggles to pull away, black spots starting to appear in his line of vision as his oxygen began to dissipate.

The hands grab Virgil again, tightening around his middle and squeezing out more of his air as they start dragging him to the surface. He weakly tries to push them off again, and their hands scramble into Virgil's jacket pocket, pulling out one of the heavy rocks. Virgil squirms around more, feeling himself losing consciousness.