Between Two Eternities || Travis Hamonic

preface

I first thought of suicide when I was nineteen years old. Just a year after the death.

And I wondered why I didn't before.

But now that I'm three years removed from that, I know it was only for him that I am alive today...

My grades were slipping. Even some of my professors began to notice and offered me extensions on my work and retakes on exams. Little did they know all I really needed was for them to simply ask what caused my sudden drop off.

My friends disappeared so easily that I just woke up one day and didn't have any. I don't remember the last text, last phone call, last study session, last night out ... It all went away without my knowledge. When I saw some of them all walking across campus together, laughing and hooking arms, I wondered when I got kicked out of the group? I wondered how long it had been and if they remembered me.

My personal health was nothing to be proud of. My eyes had permanent bags underneath them, no matter any amount of concealer. My weight dropped, because I never had an appetite. Coffee wasn't keeping me awake anymore, so I turned to adderall. A kid who had ADHD sold them outside of the campus library everyday. I tried talking to him on a more personal level once, but he was only interested in his business adventures.

One night, after popping a few pills and smoking a blunt, I saw a story in the paper about an investigation involving a suicide. There was a conviction of a girl who apparently encouraged another to take her life. It was a whole big deal that had parents and teachers up in arms. The victim was only in high school.

It could've been the weed talking, but I got a sudden feeling of disgust - not from the girls at all, but from all the public support. There are two things I found wrong with it. One, if this girl was an adult, people would criticize her and say it was her decisions that put her in that place to take her own life. Two, teachers and school boards don't truly care about this girl. They just need to make it look like they do.

I decided in that stupor that my suicide wouldn't be nearly as dramatic.

No news headlines.

No overly sad memorials.

No ridiculously emotional suicide note.

None of that necessary. No one would have to convince me of anything. I could come up with that all on my own.

I tried to overdose on sleeping pills that night. I took thirty three of them and cuddled in my twin sized bed in my shared dorm room; my roommate never slept there anymore. She had too many friends.

The next morning I awoke with a small mound of puke next to me on the purple sheets in which I could see remnants of the white capsules. I cried the rest of the day.

That was attempt number one. I was always a big believer in "everything happens for a reason," so I figured I wasn't meant to die from my own hand.

I didn't try again and never told anyone. I started going around my aunt's house a lot more often. Partly because she was my little brother's legal guardian and partly because she was a zany, lovable woman.

But demons never really go away.

I needed a better plan. A plan that was fool proof. I left my dorm, clad in a navy blue sweatshirt and jeans. I walked down the street, over a street, across another street ... racking my busy brain.

I was suddenly so aware that I was completely alone. It does crazy things to someone when they see others from the outside and see them as perfect.

My feet carried me into a tall building.

It wasn't hard to find a tall building in New York, so I went in the first one I could find. It was dark outside; perfect. The lobby was quite busy but there was no one on the roof, because who in their right mind would be on the top of a steel building in freezing November weather?

The ledge around the frame of the roof was up to my waist. I sat down atop it and put my legs over the side without even putting my bag down.

Too anxious.

It may have looked that I was fearless but I wasn't, I was terrified. The intensive cliff attracted me to lean down and look. Leaning down wasn't even the part that scared me.

The lights from cars were so far away, they all blended together. I sniffled; I must've been catching a cold. I could see the fast paced night down under me, but nothing could be heard. I could barely even hear my own shallow, jagged breaths.

I couldn't think of anything. No matter how hard I tried, my mind could not come up with something to think about, something that would make me forget about doing this, something that would make me smile.

I stood warily, which struck me in that moment because what did I have to be careful for then if I was only going to throw myself off a building within the next minutes?

I took a deep, cleansing breath of cold air, and pulled my sweater tight around me. It was useless, because it just blew right back open anyway. The wind made everything powerless.

I pondered the feeling: weightlessness. Ecstasy. No not the drug, the feeling. I swayed into the wind, my knees locked. My toes curled.

I closed my eyes. I wanted so badly to jump. I took a tiny step forward, so my toes were at the very edge.

And I thought of the darkness behind my eyelids. When I was little
I hated the dark, had a nightlight and everything. How come I loved it so much then? How come I loved the damn darkness?

A door slammed, but it sounded so distant, like how the cars down below would've sounded if I could hear them. My eyes fluttered.

And then ...

Smack! My body hit concrete - hard. But I knew it wasn't the sidewalk. It was the rooftop.

Just as I had lifted my right foot, I was pulled back down. When I gathered my perspective, I see that an arm was around my stomach. My head was dizzy, and I could feel a large bump coming on.

I pushed the arm off me and backed away, sitting up and poising my knees in front of me, ready to defend myself. A boy sat terrified; a young man, really. I bet he's never seen crazy before. This innocent looking man had never seen real, ugly, horrible, vulnerable pain in his life. His eyes were so wide with fear. I learned later that my suspicions were correct.

I was embarrassed that a young man this attractive had to see me like this, about to
kill myself.

He must've been only a kid, like me, not any older than twenty. That's the most embarrassing part! That someone at the same point in life as myself had to see me like this.

I started to cry again. Frozen tears streamed out of my eyes but were carried away by the wind. He didn't know what to do. He tried to speak but I stood up. "I hope I never see you again," I said and run off, shoulders slumped.

"Wait!" I heard him call out, half assed and brokenly.
He was still sitting on the ground when I left, stunned and probably confused.

Back then, I cursed him for messing it up. It would have been the perfect night. And then all I wanted to do was cry. Better than being stone, I guess. At least it let me know I was alive - how ironic.

If one thing goes my way in life, I hoped it's that I never had to face that man ever again.

I changed after attempt two. Partly because I wanted to wash every memory of that embarrassing attempt to end it all.

I stopped dying my hair dark. It looked better in its light brown color anyway; it was natural.

I opened my eyes more, looked up as I walked, instead of at my feet.

I moved in with my aunt; took the subway to school everyday, just so I would be reminded of life.

And my pitiful prayers were answered: I never saw that man again. Until..