Intersecting Lines

Chapter 3

I used to believe that when you do something good to the universe, the universe will give it back to you by making your life easy. That's why I never broke any rules. I did what my parents told me to do. I said yes when mom told me that I'm going to take piano lessons even if I hated to play the piano-don't misunderstand me, I love to listen to piano. It's just that I don't like to play it myself. I joined tree planting campaigns, recycled, became nice to other kids even if they do me wrong. I used to be good to the universe. And the universe used to be good to me, too. But like all good things, it all came to an end. One day, universe decided to mess up with my life. And I lost everything all at once. Meaning, I lost the guts to even look at an ice skating rink. It makes me nauseous. The universe said "no" to me all at once. It closed all of its doors completely, leaving me outside in the cold shivering to death and no one seems to notice. I didn't want to die. I now know and accepted to myself that I don't want to die. Maybe the guy last night was right. I wanted to live. I so wanted to live that the only way for others to notice my struggle to live is to tell them I want to die. Maybe I just needed someone - just someone to hear the voices inside my head. And just when I thought that that psychotic guy is another spitting "no" from the universe, he proved himself to be one of the few "Yeses" I received, not to mention in a very unconventional way.

I know that people think that just because I came from a well off family with a big house, a car or two in our garage, a hardworking father and a loving mother and the potential I used to have in figure skating, everything is ideal in my life. They think that nothing ever goes wrong in the life I live, that all the things that happen to me falls exactly where it's supposed to be. They think that my life is a faultless puzzle piece with everything in place. But that's not the case. It was never the case. Like any other human being in this very faulty planet of ours, my life had bumps too. Some pieces were never in the right place. Dad used to cheat on my mom and spend nights on other's house. Mom used to cry her eyes out all night because dad was never home. I was rejected countless of times by a lot of different skating competitions just because I wasn't good enough. But at the end of the day, the puzzle pieces fell into place. Like a torn cloth strewn back together, it all became right in the end.

I went back to the ward at around 4 in the morning. Everyone's starting to work by that time that I was able to blend in like any other patient would. I pretended that I wasn't trying to commit suicide hours ago with some stranger who, only God knows why, helped me in doing it. But I can't. Even if he's there and he promised to fulfill my wishes of ending my own life, I can't bring myself to do it. I know, I'm such a hypocrite for wanting and wishing and praying for my death to come five weeks ago but when it's finally there in the grasp of my hands, I can't do it. I freeze in the moment.

A nurse came to help me get into my bed. And when I am finally under the soothing feeling of the warm covers, I look at him sleeping sound. My mind wonders where he came from or what was he thinking when he said he'd help me do the thing I now, am scared of. Looking at him as he sleeps, he looks so vulnerable and peaceful. He doesn't resemble the guy I was with a few hours ago, the one who didn't hold me back from the death awaiting me, the guy who pushed me to the edge and just looked at me from afar. He was someone else when I watch him sleeping like this and I think to myself what other kinds of mystery this guy has.

I woke up at 6 in the morning. I hardly have enough sleep from what happened last night. When he left me in the kitchen, I had to talk to myself and reorganize my mind with what just happened. I almost died. The doors of death were wide open right in front of my eyes that all I have to do is cross the line. And he was pushing me to my limit. He was telling me to cross the line and end everything.

People say that when you cross the line, it's all over. I didn't believe them when they told me about it. I have a theory about crossing the lines. When we were young, our parents used to tell us not to cross the line. Something about not going beyond your limitations, we used to be very scared of it. But we were a bunch of kids back then; we will eventually grow and cross one of the lines. When your parents told you not to answer back at them, you end up crossing that line. When they told you not to use profanity in talking to others, at some point you crossed that line too. When a father told her daughter not to kiss a guy before marriage, she had to cross the line because she wanted to. So here's my theory about crossing the lines set to us by our parents, by the society and by ourselves. When we cross them, it's not the end of everything. We just make new lines for us to cross over the years and we keep on crossing them and making them and crossing them again. It doesn't really end. Maybe that's the reason why I wanted to commit suicide last night and for the past five weeks. I think it's because I saw suicide as the last resort of everything. Like it's the last line for everyone to cross and I wanted to get there earlier than anyone else. You do suicide when nothing's left for you. You do it when your life is too tangled to start from the bottom. You do it when you get tired of life being a bitch.