A Million Shattered Pieces

Chapter Thirty

"Depression is like living in a body that fights to survive with a mind that tries to die."

Depression is an ugly thing. It is not beautiful. It is not romantic, something to be wanted, something that should be ignored. It is a complete and utter tragedy.

Losing a person to suicide is something no one should ever have to go through. You hear of it happening to other people, but you want to believe it would never happen to you.

How could you ever miss someone falling apart before your very eyes?

Depression destroys a person. It is watching someone you love slowly erode away until all that's left of them is the empty shell of their body. Their soul is what dies first.

And the scariest part about loving someone with depression?

Warnings are not always easy to catch. A person who suffers from mental illness does not always look sick on the outside. It's in the quiet moments after a small argument, it's reflected in their eyes the second you look away. They do not want you to know. Inside, they could be complete chaos. But their physical appearance might remain the same as they die from the inside out.

Loving someone with any form of mental illness can destroy a person. It might leave them in a million shattered pieces, wondering how they ever thought they could handle the task of trying to save someone beyond hope. There is no way to take away their pain, to let them know that, no matter how bad it may seem, they are not alone.

Every single day spent loving someone with depression is hanging on the edge of a cliff.

And when that person finally decides to jump, they take you with them.

My feet hit the ground with enough force to crumble the concrete beneath me. I ignored Zoe's calls, running full speed through the hospital doors. It could not end like this. It just couldn't.

No one bothered to look at me as I ran through the halls, the gasps leaving my body not enough to drown out the currents that slammed around inside my head. I needed to find him.

If it was possible to die from a broken heart, I was sure I would be gone by now.

I know you think you can save him, but you can't. Zoe's words played on a loop inside my head, a twisted mantra. Over and over and over again.

Before I knew what had happened, I collapsed in a pile of tears on the floor. Hands clasped my shoulders, gently pulled me back to my feet. I looked up, and saw dark gray eyes looking back.

Brock's mother tugged me closer, the violent sobs that shook her body making it worse.

"He's going to be okay. I got there in time. He'll be okay."

But that was a lie.

He would never be okay. I had spent so long trying to deny that horrible truth, to convince myself that I would be able to save someone who would always want to die. It did not matter how many times we tried to help, Brock would never find a way to heal. Millions of scars covered but his body and soul. Moments that had once seemed irrelevant came barrelling back to me, the realization that there was so much I could have done to help him, and I had done nothing.

"I'm sorry." The words that I spoke were hardly coherent, the sobs becoming worse with every second that she held me. "I should've tried harder. I should've made him see that life's worth living, that I love him. But I'm not enough. I'll never be enough."