Shawn & Nikki's Endless Midnight

One

 They say no one knows when they're gonna die. That might be true, but I don't think that applies to people that actually want to die, you know? I think they have their own pace, and so just kinda trudge through life with the rest of us. Then at some point they go 'yeah, I've had enough' and then just end it.

     My name's Shawn, by the way. Well actually, it's Mackenzie, but no one calls me that anymore. Shawn's my middle name. Mackenzie Shawn Nixon. I'm 17 and I play the drums. I guess I'm what you'd call a Norman. That means normal person, according to my neighbor Lilly. She says she's a minus, whatever that is. Yeah, she's kind of an oddball, but I guess she's loveable in her own right.

     Another thing, this is a journal. A journal. Not a diary. I've been trying it as a coping mechanism. Lilly suggested it to me; "Taking note of your thought processes in a visual space should help you better understand what you're feeling and help you figure out how to deal with it."

     Or something like that. Sometimes you can't tell with her. Ever since I met Nikki, I've been trying to understand people who are depressed or suffering from mental illnesses. It's been hard, since you can't really see what people are thinking, but I think I've got the general idea of it. It's hell. I think it's a miracle that people last as long as they do.

     It's also weird how it goes totally unnoticed. I mean, it's not all that obvious. I get that. But pay a little attention, dammit.  Well here I am, emotionally writing into a journal. But it really does help, I guess. I'm not as angry as I used to be, and I guess I could always just set this thing on fire if I get tired of it.

     So back to what I was saying earlier. I guess suicidal people had always existed, but I just never really understood them. Why would you want to kill yourself just because you're sad? It all seemed really dumb to me. Of course, that was before I met Nikki. She helped me see beyond my ignorance. Nikki. You know, when I first met her I had no idea she'd become such an important part of my life.

     It was a Tuesday; I was walking home from school. It was kinda late—coach had kept us longer than usual—and I decided to take a different route home. Partly because they'd finally fixed the roads so it was accessible, and partly because Lilly had called me a 'predictable creature of habit' and I wanted to prove her wrong.

     So anyway, that was when I saw her. I wondered why no one else had seen her before I got there. She was sitting at the edge of a building. It used to be an office building but the company that owned it had gone bankrupt so the building was basically abandoned.

     She didn't even seem scared or anything. There was a certain calmness about her. I didn't know why, but I felt compelled to talk to her. So I made my way up to the top of the building. "Hey." I called from behind her. It didn't seem like she heard me so I went and sat beside her.

     "Whoa." I muttered. Watching my legs dangle aimlessly so high above the ground was a little surreal. One bad sneeze and that was it for me. I turned to look at her and immediately forgot what I'd been planning to say to her.

     She was looking down at the world below her. Her hair was tied up in a messy ponytail and it shook restlessly in the evening breeze. It shocked me more was that she was crying. Without making a sound, or even any movement, she just sat there gazing into nothing with tears running down her face.

     "You uh, you come here to jump too?" I asked casually. I don't know why I said that. It was my first time talking to a suicidal person and I had no idea how to go about it. What was I supposed to say?

"You here to talk me out of this?" she looked at me. Her eyes were soft, but they also contained a kind of contempt...disgust, more like. "Thought I might give it a try," I shrugged. "I mean, this can't be the only way to fix your problems, right?"