Going On

Theo

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.” 
― Jim Morrison

I kicked at the legs of the chair and stared at the ground.

Noelle sat next to me, and she was pretending to pay attention to the teacher while he talked about how we needed to stop ourselves if we ever thought of jumping or cutting or stabbing or burning or otherwise hurting ourselves again.

He didn't seem to understand that the mere act of living hurt us more than anything we could do to ourselves.

"There is nothing to dying," he said. "You die, and that is it. Sure, if you're religious, there's something after; a waiting room, in simple terms. You sit and you wait, and you sit for all of eternity. You get to sit with your family and your friends and everyone else who has died, and you wait for other people to die so you can sit with them, too. The afterlife is completely reliant on the death of others. What else would it be if it wasn't? It would be you, sitting in an empty white space. And how is that different than the worst days we all have?"

I looked at Noelle, and she looked at the ground. She twiddled her fingers and kicked her legs, clearly uncomfortable and wanting to leave. I followed her eyes; she kept looking at where the stapler used to be. I could tell from her face what she was thinking:

I want to kill myself. I want to staple my head until I die. Maybe my neck. Would it bleed more? Would it get on Theo's shirt? He is a dashing young man. I'd like to get on his dick.

At least, that's what I thought.

"There's only something to surviving. It's the only thing worth talking about. I don't give a shit that you managed to get a promotion. I care that, against all the insane odds against you, you managed to survive today. You didn't get stabbed, or shot, or run over, or get stuck in an elevator and starve, or drown, or get blown up, or die in a terrorist attack, or get hit by a meteor, or, God forbid, kill yourself because you had to go to Wyoming. You managed to stay alive, to keep breathing despite all the air around you that is clogged with death and pollution. Congratulations."

Congratulations. You can keep living in pain.

"And that," he said, turning to Noelle, "is why I'm mad. Someone in our group, I won't name who, thought that it was a good idea to betray our trust in them and try and throw themselves off a bridge. Thank Christ for Mr. Theo, here, their own personal angel."

He nodded at me impersonally, as though he had never met me before.

Noelle's face grew red, and she stared at the ground.

The teacher turned his face back to the small semicircle of us, each one looking at the other trying to determine who had more scars than they did at the last meeting, if there were bruises or rope burn around their neck, if they looked like they had suffered a long fall. The only one that was a pain in the ass was pills; you can never tell when someone took too many pills last night. That's not fair. Everything left a mark but pills. Even love left a bigger mark than pills did.

I knew that from personal experience.

"You see, kids," he continued, "I have trust in you. I don't care about anyone out there. Frankly, I have no reason to. But everyone in here, you've made a difference. You've brought attention to some sort of issue, do you realize that? There's a reason we have this club. It's because so many fucking teenagers are upset that we have to shove them all in a room and blow smoke up their asses for an hour. Isn't that incredible, in a sick little way? You guys are making a difference. I want you around. Believe it or not, I like seeing your depressed, sunken little faces every meeting. I like seeing your scars heal and your eyes soften a little. It brings me happiness. So when I hear that one of you tried jumping off a bridge, it makes me fucking furious. But you know what? One of you saved her. That shows me that my trust was well-placed."

He stared at the ground.

"I took all of the staplers out of this room for a reason," he muttered.