Immortus

TEARS FRAGMENTS

TEARS FRAGMENTS

“Some things are worth breaking college policy for.”

I was angry now. They were going to fail her. If she slipped through the net, we would lose her for good.

“I have a daughter at home who is the same age as her. Don’t assume that I’m not taking this seriously.”

“What if she goes and kills herself tonight?”

“Adam, you have to stop. You’re angry, I know. So am I. But shouting and screaming about it is only going to make things far worse. You could land yourself in serious trouble if you’re not thinking straight. You could break confidentiality and breach the staff code of conduct.”

“I’m not going to stand by and let her die because society had failed her.”

I slammed my tightly clenched fist down onto the desk, the scars on my skin from long ago standing visibly on end. A lasting reminder of my time here as a student, seven years ago, when the child protection policies failed me too.

“I warned you not to take this too personally. Don’t.”

“You haven’t just spent a half hour progress review with her listening to her talk about how there is no point in her coming to her progress reviews because she knows her progress has stagnated, and the fact that she considers herself a burden and apologising for herself being born! You have no idea how helpless and how frustrated it makes me feel. No matter what I say to her, she always goes looking for the most negative aspect and sticks to it. It feels like I’m trying in vain for a miracle that everyone knows isn’t going to happen. I hate how vague and distant she’s become, and how much she lacks effort and is drowning in her own despair.” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “She’s just a mirror image of me at seventeen.”

My manager stared at me. “You’re far too emotionally involved. I’m spry, Adam, I really am. I’m going to move her out of your form. She needs help, and you’re not yet ready to give her the support she needs, because it’s too soon for you after your own experiences, and too soon after finishing university for you to be experienced in matters like these.”

“Fine.”

I knew I had no other choice. I made myself a promise that if she died, I would resign.

My voice was so calm as I had spoken that single word.

“I’m sorry, but you know I have no choice. I have to keep the needs of the students and the staff balanced. It’s for the best.”

They’d killed her.

I left the office, needing to be alone to collect my composure before my afternoon tutorial session. I was toying with the idea of teaching the college seniors a lesson, but I had no logistics beyond the planning. I saw a flash of red hair on the stairs ahead. She didn’t even have the chance to speak to me before my plan clicked into place- ready formed and ready to go. The lesson to be taught was now clear. My anger and passion all collided together, making me into the monster of all things I had said that I would never be. I spoke those spine chilling words, the words that haunted me still. I watched as the small spark of the positivity that accompanies life went out inside her eyes. I watched her go, feeling no remorse at all. Everything had broken. But everything had it’s time, and everything died. I had wanted to teacher the senior staff a lesson in how to provide proper care for people like us. And yet, I had already done so, in the most cold hearted and soul destroying of ways.

I had killed her.

As she pushed past me, her jacket fell from her arm. She didn’t stop, just kept going, oblivious. I picked it up, and took it with me to my office. At the end of the day, as I left to go home, I put her jacet in the boot of my car. I had to take a small detour on my way home to reach her house, but I knew I could do it. I meant to drop it in to her, but I knew that she would not want to see me. Worse still, I could not face seeing her myself, the guilt already killing my soul. Instead, I just sat outside her house in my car for hours and hours as the silent stars passed by, and I wrestled endlessly with my doubts as the words I had said to her reverberated inside my head.

“Do you know what I think you are? You are a fucking failure of a crazy bitch. You are worthless and have no use alive. If you had any humanity and dignity left, then you would slit your wrists and kill yourself, because at the end of the day, let's face it: that's all you are good for."

A fatal mistake.