To This New Year (C)

Where It All Began

"Okay, so when I was little, about 5, I had lived with my family, my brother, his name was David too, my father, and my mother. David was 13 already, he always played with me and took me out to the park or the zoo. On my birthday, May 24, we had went to the zoo and I had saw my very first penguin in person. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. David noticed how Id been staring at it, so he bought me a toy penguin, I named him Mr. Waddles because well penguins waddle and I was 5. David had walked me home and that day, he- he k-killed himself. I walked in the next morning to wake him up so we could go to a park, but all I found was my brother in a puddle of his own blood, both wrists slashed. I didn't know he did it to himself at the time, but come along a year of me barely eating and going to visit my brothers grave every saturday my father had finally given up. They lied to me, saying that somebody came and killed him because he was bad at school. But no, at 6 years old I found out the truth. My father was yelling, "It's your fault he killed himself! He's gone because of you!" My mom was pregnant at the time, with one of my sisters. That was the last time I've heard about my father. All he said was he had to go away for a while and that he loved me. He hasn't came back, I'm not even sure he's alive. My mother decided to have me forget about David, I wasn't allowed to talk about him around my sisters or at all really. To my sisters, David never existed. I never let anybody touch mr. waddles since then. I sleep with him everyday, it makes me feel like a part of David is right here with me." I picked up my bag and brought out Mr. Waddles "You can pet him if you want, just dont hurt him. Anyways, fast forward to my 13th birthday, I woke up earlier than anybody else and I went straight to the graveyard. I bought a monkey for him, because that was his favorite animal. I set it down and told him how life's been without him, how much I missed him, and why I stopped visiting him. My mom found me asleep with Mr. Waddles in my arms next to his grave, I woke up to her crying and saying how sorry she was. Im still not sure if this was to me or to David. After that I thought, hey, I'm worthless, people bully me, nobody would notice I'm gone. I got very depressed, I starved myself, cut, burn, you name it. I was trying to slowly kill myself. I had tried a couple of times, and I would've succeeded if it weren't for the constant waking up in the hospital. Until 9th grade, that's when everything changed, Jason and his friends stopped harrassing me and Jason confessed his love for me. I still think this is a joke because nobody ever even talked to me unless its a dare or something horrible. Then you showed up, you talked to me and defended me, you cared about me, I was so amazed. I didn't think anybody would even think twice about me, but you did. So thank you so much. And well yeah, thats basically it." I said, my face was drowning in tears by now.