In A Week I Will Be Dead

Chapter Five: Abandoned

!!!TW!!!

SH, bullying

IF YOU'RE STRUGGLING, CALL THE SAMARITANS 116 123 <3 <3 <3

Noah

I don't make a sound for a little while, but when I do it's the weirdest noise I have ever made. My mother has finally allowed me to actually do something I want to do! It's remarkable. I went downstairs with my hidden scalpel I stole from biology class, enclosed in an envelope marked with the simple message.

Mother, enclosed is a scalpel from biology class.

I'm sorry I lied, but I needed it in my life.

I don't anymore, and now have a new distraction to help me.

There's a person at school who I am friends with.

They are a boarder and I would love to stay the week to get to know them.

Noah.

P.S This is a deal, I give you the scalpel and you give me a friend.

Upon receiving this letter my mums face showed the exact reactions: confusion, extreme anger, sadness, and then happiness. She – although I was stood there – wrote me a letter back.

Noah, you should have given me this earlier.

I will accept your deal, but with one exception.

You see your therapist every single day, rather than once a week.

I hope your new friend is a keeper!

Lovies, mum

P.S please stop calling me mother, it's irritating.

I don't even know if the person who wrote the letters is a boarder, but I figure that it would make sense not to leave anything to chance.

When evening begins, I pack my overnight bag. It takes me two hours. Not because I don't know what to bring, but because I can't get the letters out of my head. I am me, and I am appreciated as an individual. I am free. I am free in seven days. Seven days. A week. I have to find this person in a week. Oh god.

Systematically, I pull up a wooden block from my floor to find my secret compartment. But it's not there. I gave it to mum in return for my week. Its building up inside me, the Man is coming. I wince, and the throbbing begins behind my eyes. My feeling is being drained. I collapse into a heap, and for the first time since I received the letters I cry. Uncontrollable, untameable, but determined. I will save them. I hardly remember the evening after I get dropped off at the school; I'm too out of it. I don't even remember how I ended up at dinner.

Myself

At night is when I write the best things. It's a week night – a Friday – and I'm curled up in my bed with my laptop. I often do this when I want to forget. I want to turn the world into a pixilation, and then hit escape, delete. I don't want to remember everything that's happened. But then again, I don't want to forget either. Life is a character building exercise. But who am I being built into? What am I being built into? I must remember what's happened, and I wince with the remembrance of it.

A girl at my school claimed that they overheard my name being heard. This occurrence is odd because normally I remain invisible to any types of gossip. But as it turns out, it wasn't gossip that it was being used in context with. It was, as always, verbal abuse. This happened over two years ago, but has left me scarred ever since.