A Plethora of Randomness

Phone Line*

Warning: contains mention of self-harm, suicide, offensive slurs, and mental illness. This writing is not meant for a young audience. Please click away if these topics are triggers or cause any feeling of distress. Take care of yourself!

"Oh, my phone's about to die," The young man stood at the edge of the building, staring down at the busy street below. It was at least 50 feet up if he had to guess, though he didn't care much. "As long as I don't survive, this is a fine height," he whispered to himself as he pulled his phone out, sitting down on the rooftop and sighing. He opened up his messages and started drafting a text to his friends, or well, friend:

"Dear Ashley,

If you're reading this, that means I broke our promise. I know how much you wanted me to pull through this mess so that I could "live my life" and cherish it for what it is, but I'll be honest, it sucks, and you know it does. Nothing ever seems to get better, and despite my countless efforts to convince myself that it will be, it won't. I can't do it anymore. With my dad's constant screams, my mom's obnoxious nagging, and the pressure of being "perfect", I just can't do it anymore. And since I know you'll do this, please don't blame this on yourself, Ash. You did your best, and I'm really grateful for all that you've done for me. I'm sorry that-"

He stopped in the middle of his note, hearing a rustling sound that caught him off-guard.

"Who's there?" he asked, looking around frantically to see any sign of life, but it was too dark for him to be able to tell. After a minute or so, he decided that it must've been a piece of trash or something, and continued writing:

"-I can't be a better person, I guess. I think you'll be really disappointed in me... but it's not like I'll be here to care. So yeah, I'm done. And I'm sorry for anything I might unintentionally do to you, because you don't deserve any of it, at all. I'm sorry that I couldn't have been better for you. This is goodbye. Your friend, Hugo."

He hit send and then sighed as he switched to his mother's text thread. He only texted her when she needed something from him, either for groceries, or if she wanted paper, but otherwise they didn't speak that much. He started to write:

"Dear Mom,

I know you probably won't read this, and you're probably busy in a late-night meeting or something like that, but I figured I should probably write this to you anyways. I'm going to leave, mother. And never come back. It's not like you cared much when I left home, so why would you care now? You only care when you need money from me, and I'm sorry that I'm too broke as a college student to be able to give you any. I can barely pay off my apartment bill, but if you're that addicted to it, I left 20 dollars under my pillow, and left the keys to my apartment under the mat outside-"

He got cut off. It was a call from Ashley. For a second he almost dropped his phone, but then caught it before anything could happen. Time seemed to drag. He could hear the ringtone, it was "Love Sublime" by Tensnake, and was her favorite song. He could feel the phone's vibrations tingle from his fingers up his arm, and he debated answering, simply staring at her contact name instead. But as he tried to go back to writing the text message to his mother, the call picked up.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" The audio wasn't all that great, and glitched in the middle of "are", making it sound like "aa". Still, he recognized that sharp, mid-tone serious voice almost instantly.

"No, but why does it matter?" He said, putting Ashley on speaker.

"You're kidding," she said, sniffling "You made it sound like you more were going to kill yours-"

"I am." He cut her off ruthlessly, staring down at the street below him as he took a deep breath in.

"No you're not, Hugo Stanford Lee, you're not, don't you dare do it," she cried, her voice changing pitch at times as a shuffling sound was all that could be heard for a couple of seconds "Don't do this, please,"

"You don't understand, Ash," Hugo started, sighing as he moved away from the edge of the roof to try and convince his friend that it'd be okay. "My dad is dead, my mom doesn't even care, and no one except you likes me at school-"

"So what?" Ashley said "Why do you care about what they tell you?" in her own mind, she thought"Why am I not good enough for you?", though she didn't say it out loud.

"Look, I stopped caring a while ago, Ash, I stopped caring about everything. The last time my mother came to visit, I had to clean my apartment so much it hurt, and don't ever forget that I bought makeup to try and hide the hideous bags under my eyes," he paused for a second, hearing Ashley cry on the other end.

"Remember how I had to teach you how to apply makeup...?" Ashley laughed, trying to make light of the situation. "You couldn't sit still, I had to redo it twice." she laughed, though clearly, she was crying. "Yeah, I remember that, and then you hid in my closet the whole time my mom was here," Hugo smiled at the memory, it was one of the better times he'd experienced. "Two whole hours."

"Yeah, your closet stinks," she giggled, sniffling again. "Stinks worse than Rylie's diapers, and you know how bad those smell."

Hugo laughed a little bit, Rylie was Ashley's younger sister, only 2 years old. "So? I didn't really care back then, and I still don't," he frowned, he was getting carried away.

"Hey, do you remember when you used to do art?" Ashley asked, because technically speaking, what he did was illegal. "Mhm, what about it?" Hugo asked, starting to get annoyed. "Well, uhm, I may have put some of your old stuff in a contest without your permission," she replied, "And you may have won a place." Hugo stood there for a moment in shock, going completely quiet "But I stopped doing that a couple of years ago..." Ashley cut him off. "I know, but still, it'd be a great way to rekindle that spark of yours, wouldn't it?"

Hugo took another step away from the edge of the roof. He did put time and effort into that graffiti, even if it was illegal, although his mother told him not to several times, and yet he lost interest in it a few years ago. He had lost interest in everything and went from being a straight-A student with excellent scores and amazing mental health to a lowlife C average and an absolutely horrible emotional state. And the only reason he even had C's was that Ashley would drag him out of his apartment to study for tests and quizzes with her. He wouldn't bother when he crossed the street, and once got into an accident, in which he didn't even care about his injuries, leaving them open and not even going to the hospital. He skipped meals at times, sometimes he'd eat too much, and he seldom had 3 meals a day. He never exercised, he didn't see a point in it.

He had become a hollow husk of who he used to be, and it didn't help that people picked on him at school for being gay. Because they didn't care that he was a good student, and even less that he had good morals and excellent mental health, they only cared that he wasn't "normal". And so, he was stepped on, dragged through the mud, and excluded during everything. He felt isolated, and at times, thought that he deserved this, somehow. His mind told him that everything was his fault, and he needed to suffer because of it. So, he started to harm himself, and if anyone looked underneath his hoodie and blue jeans, they'd find a million little cuts scattered across his body like blades of grass in a field. His mental, social, and physical health were absolutely horrible, and unfortunately, he slowly grew to accept it. Though now, as he heard his friend's voice and her opportunity, he hesitated. "Do I really want to do this?" he thought. "Do I really want to do this?"

That's when he heard the rooftop door open, and he turned around to see who had opened the door, squinting his eyes as he did. Though it was too dark "Who's there?" he called out, sure that he'd seen the door open. "You're not alone?" Ashley asked on the other end of the phone. "I-I th-ought I was," Hugo stuttered, starting to get scared as he backed up a little bit, his back toward the edge of the building, and the street. "Who are you?" he asked, still trying to see if someone was there. After a minute or so of silence, he sighed, turning around to face the street. "I won't do it, Ashley," he said as he cried. "I won't, I'll stay here for you."

At this, Ashley started to cry again, "You'll stay?" she questioned "Thank you, Hugo, thank you!" she said, and Hugo looked over the edge of the building one last time to see the street's view.

"Hey, fag," a deep voice spoke through the darkness, and Hugo would recognize it anywhere "Caleb, what're you doing h-"

"Have fun on the other side, pimp." Caleb said as he laughed, and the line cut off.