Perspectives

15. Nahuel

I didn't want to be at school on this Tuesday morning.  I had never particularly liked Tuesdays, but this Tuesday, in particular, was not going to be fun for me.  I walked into Mrs. Dimas's class and saw her.  She looked at me pitifully for a second, but when she saw that I saw her look, her eyes quickly darted to her desk.  I tried to ignore her beautiful face as I walked back to my seat.  I sat next to Paul and stared straight down at the desk with my head in my hands.  From the akward tension, I could tell that Paul wanted to say something to make me feel better, but he just didn't know what to say.  I glanced back at the clock.  One full hour left of class.  I felt her cool ice-berg blue eyes on me.  

Getting out of that class was a relief.  I did not see Claire walk out of the drama room so i walked to science by myself.  I sat down in my seat feeling so weak.  Without even realizing that I had been crying, I felt Claire's soft thumb come up to my face to wipe the tears away.  She looked at me sympathetically.  She knew.  She knew what happened.  She didn't ask me what had happened and she didn't tell me to stop crying.  She knew what it was like to lose the one you love.  She knew what it felt like and she knew what I needed.  She hugged me tightly and told me it was going to be okay.  Over and over she told me.  It's going to be okay.  It's going to be okay.  Jacey. Jacey.  Never again would she be mine.

Why had she said it as though she expected that it wouldn't affect me.  She said it like it wouldn't hurt me, wouldn't kill me at all.  The one thing I had left in this world, now that was gone too.  Where was i supposed to go after I had lost that?  What was I supposed to do now?  No, things were over.  They were all over.  

It wouldn't change things that she "wanted to be friends."  It wouldn't change things that she had been as nice as she could.  All that mattered was that I had lost everything.  Everything important to me.  Everything that I loved more than anything.  Everything in the world.  

I sat there, looking in my mirror at home.  What was good in the world? Why was this life mine?  Why did I have to live for?  I looked down at my hands.  They were shaking rapidly.  I slapped them individually.  They wouldn't stop shaking.  My wrists itched.  I scratched them lightly with my fingernails.  The itch wouldn't go away and I knew what I needed.  I knew what would make them stop itching.  I closed my dor, which was useless as nobody was home except me.

I opened my desk drawer and picked up the folded paper that had remained un-touched for a very long time.  I unfolded the paper and saw a glint as the silver blade came into my view.  I picked it up and slid it across my wrists.  Both arms.  Multiple times.  I rinsed it out with hot water.  Hot water that hurt me.  I still remember the entire scene so clearly.

The cold sink.

The deep wounds.

The hot water.  

The blood.  

The tears in my dark brown eyes.

And behind closed eyelids, Jacey.

Her face 

Her eyes

Her smile.  

Her teeth.

Her lips.

Her imperfect perfection.

My love

My beauty

The fantastic

The amazing

The wonderful

Jacey.

My Jacey

Not anymore. 

Never again.

Never again would she be mine.

I want to die.  

I need to die.

I was going to die.

I was going to die and I was going to do it to myself.

I stood up from the sink and walked into my mothers room, trailing blood across the hard-wood floor.  I heard every drop on the floor, killing me with every drop.  Every drop of blood I lost was slowly killing me.  I opened up the mirror cabinet and started sliding all of the pill bottles out of the way.  They clattered to the floor loudly.  I didn't care.  I didn't care at all.  I knew what I wanted.  Knew what I needed.  Knew what made sense.  I grabbed the bottle of sleeping-pills and and ran to my room.  Throwing the pills to the floor, I ran to the kitchen and opened the liquor cabinet.  I reached into the back of the cabinet and grabbed one of them.  When I pulled it out, a different bottle, a glass one, fell to the floor and broke.  The shattering rang out in the quiet night as the glass flew everywhere, stinging my bare feet. 

"FUCK!" I yelled loudly.  Screaming into the quiet night.  I collapsed onto the floor.  I sobbed.  I cried.  I screamed.  The silence was shattered by my screams.  I choked with sobs as I lay there.  Slowly the sobs quieted and I drifted into sleep.  Losing blood.  Hugging the bottle of alcohol to my chest.  Lying there as my mother and older brother were off staying with my aunt.  Somewhere I didn't want to be.  I remembered the terrible screaming scene in the back of my mind. 

Yells, slaps, yelps, cries exchanged.  Tommy getting beat around and hit into the walls.  The walls that closed in on Tommy and me.  Trapping us inside with our mother.  Trapping us in the home that neither of us wanted to be in.  I sit in the corner crying.  Holding my head in my hands out of utter fear that she was going to come hurt me next.  Tommy had given in.  He didn't want to get hurt anymore.  I always wonder what his friends at scool would think if they knew that their tough friend, tommy cried.  If they could see his face.  The fear in his eyes.  The screams behind his lips.  The screams dying to get out.  If they could see a vulnerable side to Tommy, their view of him could be different.  To them, he might be different.

So I lay there.  Waiting for sleep to finally come.  Bleeding.  Crying.  I was not okay.  I would never be okay.  I couldn't kill myself yet.  I still had to say goodbye.  I had to say bye.  I had to tell everyone good-bye.