Heathens-Joshler

9

         

[Trigger Warning: suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, death mention]

I wish there was a switch inside me that I could flip. Happy or sad. No in-between. And only ever switching for a reason. Even if only Josh could make it turn happy, that would be better than looking into his beautiful eyes and still feeling the void inside eating at me, threatening to swallow me up before his eyes.

    It starts to weigh on Josh. He won't admit it, but I know it's true. It's weighing on him. He worries about me. Worrying makes him unhappy. He's unhappy because of me.

    It's this thought process that haunts me during the night. It's past my nightly check-in, so I won't have to worry about anyone showing up to check on me and seeing me like this, pacing my room like a caged animal.

    I'm thinking too hard. I wish I could just kill my mind. Maybe then I'd be able to sleep. Maybe then I'd be able to survive.

    I wish Josh were here right now. I wish that selfishly. I know I'm destructive to him, I know I'll tear him apart. But for my own sake, I want him next to me, holding my hand, kissing me, giving a fuck, unlike everyone else I've ever known.

    I just hurt him and upset him. I just tear him apart.

    I don't deserve him.

    What do I deserve?

    It strikes me then, like a flash in my head. I'm messed up, I'm destructive to others, I'm a drain on the one person who ever had half the mind to care about me. I deserve to go back to my past, which I can barely remember, or don't want to admit the truth to myself about. But I can't go back. It's all burned away.

    And I deserve the same fate. That was the plan all along, wasn't it? I deserve to die.

    And in that moment, I genuinely believe that I deserve to be dead. I want it now that I've thought it. It consumes me. It's all I can think as I pace my darkened room. Death. I've wanted it all along. I've been delaying too long. I've been delaying my whole life. But no more. Tonight is the night.

    Josh will be sad for a little while, but it won't last. He'll find someone else, a boy with light behind his eyes instead of darkness. He'll find someone new to kiss and hold and care about, maybe even love. He'll find someone who actually deserves his time, who actually deserves to take up space in his head. Someone who's everything I'm not.

    And one day, in many years, he'll remember my face. He'll try to remember my name, but it won't come to him, so he'll stop trying to remember it and shrug it away. He'll remember how I looked, limp on blood-stained sheets, and he'll remember the little pang in his heart when they told him what had happened, but it won't be as big as he thought it would be. He'll ponder how he's learned to live around it, how it never ate a hole inside of him, and how it worked out for the best. One less vile human being. One less drain on his mind. One less barrier between him and true happiness, true love.

    And he'll smile to himself as my face fades from his mind. And that'll be the last time he ever thinks of me.

    I'm going to make that happen. I grab my notebook and tear out a page. And I write a note. Everything is a blur as I fill both sides of the paper with "I'm sorry" and "You're better off" and "I hope you have a happy life." The note is only addressed to Josh, because I don't have anyone else to write to. I think for a moment as I sign off, and then decide to add a small section for Dr. Sorenson and Rhonda the nice nurse, telling them that it wasn't their fault, that there was nothing they could have done, and that I was grateful for all the help they gave me when I was alive.

    I feel like I'm already dead. I'm halfway there. And then, I reach out, across that distance, and bridge the gap between me and death, until we're pressed together, entwined in each other, until we are one, and it's almost like it was when Josh first kissed me, except that death is colder, and tastes a little more bitter. But it opens it's arms to me, and I fall into it like I'm falling to sleep.