Short Stories

Leap of Faith

Title says it all

This is partially based on real life. My Chinese teacher is...
Yeah

Olivia - 13 years old

TW: Suicide, swearing (like F^ck but not censored), depressed thoughts
if I missed any, let me know!

"Ugh. It's Chinese after this. What's even the point of living?" I groaned again for the umpteenth time that day. It was finally lunch break after three and a half hours of agonizing torture, and as usual I was eating with my bestie, Mia.

She sighed. "Liv, if you give up on life, life will give up on you, okay? There's always a point in life." Yeah, right. Trust her to be optimistic, to be the last match lit, flickering with light, in the dark. "Yeah, easy enough to say. I can say that too. It's the actions that's hard! Maybe I should just kill myself."

After four months of complaints from me, Mia snapped. "Well, you know what? Fine! Go kill yourself for all I care!

Fuck, I've crossed the line. "I told you to keep your fucking mouth shut!" I cursed at myself.

Mia glared at me, then stood up and sat with someone else. As packed as the canteen was, no one even batted an eye at her outburst. I stared after her for a few moments more, then returned to my lunch. Although I had lost my appetite, I still spooned some mac-and-cheese into my mouth. It glued to the roof of my mouth but I choked it down, washing it down with a swig of water. When I finished it, I dragged myself to the return area and dumped my plate into the pail before heading back to class.

When I stepped into the class, I noticed that Mia's usual seat was empty. I looked around. There she was, talking to the Hannah-Madison bunch – the most popular group of people in my class. Oh great. They chatted loudly, laughing once in a while. Well, that's fantastic! Another friend lost to those bitches.

See, the Hannah-Madi bunch had been together since the start of the year. It was always the same few people. I hated them because of their easy lives. Good results, good looks. Yeah, I was what they called pretty. And my results honestly aren't that bad. But they had friends. Good friends. Close friends. From other classes. Even other schools! All I had was Mia. The only person I had trusted with my life. Any other.. acquaintances had already been so obsessed with them. Mia sort of liked their popularity, but stayed away because she knew I hated them. And now she's abandoning me for them.

The whole week, Mia, whom I now consider my ex-bestie, grew closer and closer to Madi and Hannah while we drifted apart. Though we sat next to each other, we never talked, as though there was an invisible wall between us, separating us.

Every break, I'd see her chatting with Madi and Hannah. Apparently, they liked her enough to welcome her to their "inner ring". I would feel a flurry of emotions burning deep in my bones. Jealousy, pain, hurt, misery and fury. These emotions became my only company. They goaded me on as I stared at their easy friendship and life.

Since then, whenever I got home, I would try all kinds of things to forget about it. I tried reading. Drawing. Venting my anger by furiously scribbling and complaining to my diary. Throwing my pillow around. But the success was temporary. Those emotions and feelings always came back. It was like a boomerang that I couldn't dodge.

Eventually, I resorted to self harm. I started out small, a little wary of the idea, such as banging my head on the wall and starving myself, though I'd always go back to eating a week or so later. But the misery was lost to the pain. Finally.

But as the pain grew, so did my craving to overwhelm it. It escalated to cutting. I found a small blade in my mom's room and sliced down on my wrist, unsure how to continue. As blood oozed out, a smile grew on my face. I gave my wrist a few more cuts, then washed it under a cold stream of water. I clenched my teeth in pain and satisfaction.