What you know (Hamilton cast)

Forty-six

"Kelsey." Lin asks, softly. I stop tapping my fingers and look from the ceiling to where he sits at the desk. His compute now closed. My legs are bent, my heels to my bum and my knees up, my back against the bed as well as my head. He leans his elbow on the desk, leaning back in his chair. "You don't have to answer this if you don't want to. But If you chose to, I would really like to know- well I've been wondering about a few things involving your attempt. I swear that I won't share any of your answers with anyone but maybe Vanessa, without your permission." I push myself to sitting and turn to him, my legs crossed as I lean against the wall. It's late at night and I think Vanessa and Seb are asleep.

"I guess I need to learn to talk about it."

"Stop anytime you would like."

Lin's POV
Kelsey nods, waiting for my question.

"The first is, what were you feeling before then? Like- do you know what I mean? Like- were you feeling alone?"

"I felt trapped." She answers before falling silent for a moment. "And then," she picks at her jeans, "when I thought about dying- escaping, finally, it didn't feel so bad. I guess everything just sorta got to me from throughout my life and I was doing so much to keep it away to keep a job and friends, that it all came crashing down on me. The only way I felt that I could escape the pain from that was death. Because I know that it will always be there." She speaks quietly, choosing her words carefully and not looking me in the eye.

"And when you attempted- how did that go? Like- were you- I'm sorry- that's too much to ask."

"I think I can answer it."

"Really?" I ask, glad. She nods. Again, she is silent, choosing her words.

"Could you be more specific?"

"What was the pain. Or did you just drift off? And the meds took the pain from your wrist away? What was it like?"

"It was the most painful thing if my life." She almost laughs. "It's not peaceful. You didn't just go. I started killing myself with aspirin, slowly shutting my body down but I couldn't take it so I just filled my prescription and used my remanding and the ones I never saved and swallowed them after burning my insides with vodka.

"I didn't wait and instead I just grabbed the knife and cut my wrist in the sink which was also so painful. It feels like you're shattering you skin into billions of tiny pieces. Like your flesh is being torn apart. It kinda is.

"Your entire body just feels like it's in fire. You get convinced that you are on fire. And then your head is pounding so much that you swear your brain had exploded. Especially because your vision is going. All you want to do is scream but you can't even do that. Your brain floods with thoughts of someone finding you before you die or taking too long so that you're stuck with this pain forever. It feels like hours of excruciating pain, stinging, burning, pounding, and more nausea than you could ever take but your body won't even throw up. After a few minutes that feel like hours, the ringing that you didn't even hear over the pain goes away and you feel absolutely nothing. Everything you ever did and whoever you were is gone and your just at peace. And then you open your eyes, and you're in a white room, in a gown, with a bandage and you just don't know what to think and what to do anymore."

It's silent for a long time. She stares at the sheets as I stare at her. I have no clue how long. It could be seconds, it could be twenty minutes. All time is lost as her words replay in my head.

"My friend died peacefully senior year after seventeen years of sexual abuse and harassment starting with his father and then the local college kids. I wanted to do it peacefully and not with those meds but I don't know. I couldn't be like him. It would say that I was exactly what I am."

"What's that?" I hear my voice crack.

"Abused. Used. And weak. I never would have died that first time I tried. I just wanted to prove that I would take the pain to not be like him. I didn't want to have a similar story. But I'm just the same as him." She pulls her knees to her chest, sobbing as she hides her head. I sit down next to her and pull her bony body into my arms, letting her cry into me as my hear aches. I stroke her hair and kiss her head, holding this daughter figure of mine as tight as possible.

-
A/N- well, that was sad.
Please, no one attempt suicide! If anyone reading this has thought of, things will get better! Hang in there!