My hands slips off the toilet seat on my third convulsion. I slip into a spattering of my own vomit and violently cry. I'm sickening myself with my own miserable existence. This is a baby pity party of the worst degree. I wipe up the mess I've made with tissue a flush the toilet. I clean the vomit out of my hair and hands and run upstairs to my room.
I scoop up my knife from where I left and sit on my bed heavily. Nice volleyball skills! Loser! They're right, I am a loser. This is for facing that truth. Slice. Not so epic damn right I'm not epic. Streaks of red appear one after the other. I hear the door open downstairs and Seth and Hannah go to their rooms. My tears sting my arms and someone tackles me. The knife is wrenched from my grasp and thrown out of sight.
"Drew stop!" Micah yells.
"Get out! Get the fuck out!" I yell jumping up in his face.
"I'll get the fuck out when I'm ready!" He runs his hands through his hair. "Drew, whats wrong?"
I sit on my bed and bury my face in my hands. "I don't know!"
"Talk to me, Drew. Cmon."
"I'm a loser, Micah. I'm a fat loser."
"You're not a loser."
"How would you know that?"
"Because I've met you and you're awesome, and special, and strong dude. And if you're fat I'm obese. I weigh much more than you!"
"Micah I'm 142.5,"
"I'm 157 something. You have a solid six pack. I have a questionable four pack. Look, I know how you feel."
I laughed bitterly in his face, "You don't."
Micah yanked up his sleeve showing a mass of bright scars. Bitter scars. Scars that whisper a story once screamed.
"I used to do it too. I wanted to die so bad. But then I met someone who I honestly thought cared,"
"Really? Who? Todd?"
"Nah, not Todd." He sighed, "His name was Jonah." Micah's face clouds over.
"What happened to Jonah?" I ask hesitantly.
"He, um," Micah coughed, "He had leukemia. He didn't make it."
"Micah I'm sorry I shouldn't have..."
"It's fine because he's fine. He lived every moment of life like it was his last because every moment had the potential to kill him. He always smiled and laughed and joked and saw the best in people. then he found out I tried to kill myself. He told me 'Micah, you gotta live life to the fullest cuz you don't get second chances. You don't get redoes'. I've tried to live by that ever since,"
"What are you getting at Micah?"
He grabbed my wrist and pointed at the agonized lines, "This. This is what I'm getting at. This has got to stop, Drew. You've got to stop torturing yourself and you've gotta live," He said passionately.
"I get it." I take back my arm and yank the sleeve done, "I'm fine. I'm better now. Thanks, Micah."
He looks skeptically into my eyes with an intense seriousness about him. "Okay, Drew. Okay," He stands and begins walking downstairs, "I'll let you go. I'm going home to do homework."
"Micah!" I call.
"Yeah?" He pops his head back into my room.
"Thanks."
"Yeah, whatever, see you tomorrow, Drew,"
Tomorrow. What an interesting word. Tomorrow, the day after today day. You can always make your tomorrow better than your today if you try. And when living life to the fullest try is the most important word in your arsenal.
YOU ARE READING
In Need of Earl Grey
General Fiction[Going through editing] I promised I would try. I promised not to get bad, but I did. A fuck up. A let down. A suicide case. What am I supposed to do now? In a new world and a new life Andrew has to make through middle school, first love, depressio...
