My Saving Grace (Book 3)

April 25, 2030

In the next few weeks things took a turn for the worst. No, Mitch hadn't gone back into hospital. He was doing great. His chemo was working and the tumours we shrinking by the day. No, Scott and Alex hadn't had a fight. They were as in love as ever. No, Jessica wasn't back to her old ways. She had made new friends and joined the athletics team. Her new school made it easy to fit in and she felt right at home. It was Toby that had finally given up.

After Scott and Alex's conversation on Jessica's first day of school they watched him with a sharp eye. But Toby wasn't showing any open signs anymore. To any other person he would have looked like a shy, emo kid. So Scott and Alex let him deal with it by himself, often prying him with a couple of questions, giving him the chance to speak up if anything was wrong but he never did. They just assumed that he was alright.

Toby on the other hand had begun to abandon all hopes of getting any little string of his life back together. He was finished in terms of doing anything. Any interests that he had like reading or drawing or watching TV slowly become boring and uninteresting to him. His brain was at a constant shout. He barely gave enough time for the cuts on his wrists to scab over before he was cutting again. He was dead on the inside. Completely and utterly emotionless.

The bullies had mostly gone away. They got bored at his lack of pleading now a days. He just didn't have the energy to call out for help anymore. In the literal and mental sense. It didn't matter though, that they had gone away, because he had tipped too far. He had finally reached the point of no return and he was spiralling deeper and darker into the hole that he would never come out of.

He often thought about the eminency of his own death, something that had always terrified him. The idea of being stuck in a dark pit just like an eternal sleep. Never coming back and seeing the world and the stars and hearing music and voices. It was so so terrifying but something about how the world has changed just made him want to die.

He couldn't understand, if he was so scared of death then why did he want to die so much! Because the world had become an ugly place? Because the stars didn't shine as bright anymore? Because the music seemed to be stuck on the same old track which was burning out, skipping, jumping? Because the voices were now screams that filled his every waking and sleeping moment? Maybe it was for the best.

It came to the point when Toby couldn't take it anymore. He gave himself three days. In which he looked for signs. A small slither of hope. Something that gave him reassurance. But the world gave him nothing, as usual. They were just normal days were he felt just as empty as every other day!

So on the third day he planned it all out. It would happen on the Friday, between the time that he got home and when his parents got home. Jessica had athletics straight after school and so she wouldn't be there. He'd have the house to himself.

So, Friday morning came and the day passed along like any other. Scott went to the studio. Alex went to work. Jessica went to school. And Toby ran around in circles in his head. It felt like finally the marathon runner was on their final stretch of flat land. He was panting and his legs were sore but he could see the finish line and finally it was all going to be over.

Toby got the bus home to avoid being late and missing his chance. He had to get out. He wouldn't let himself live like this any longer. He would rather not live at all. This sense of becoming nothing seemed to comfort him today. Just an old memory which will one day be forgotten.

As the bus rolled along, stopping at different houses, Toby stopped to think about his parents. Would this ruin them? Him killing himself? It ruined them when Noah died but he wasn't Noah... He was Toby, why would they care if he just disappeared?

He got home and was met with the silence of the house. In the moment he wished that they had a dog. Something that would be here to greet him and maybe understand just that tiny bit. He played over the day they had found the puppy in his head. How Scott had told him that he would understand. But Toby couldn't see how he would. How could anyone understand what was going on in his head? Even if Scott had gone through it, how would he understand? No, he would just think he was crazy!