Falling Colors

Chapter Twenty Six: To Feel Relief

One week before…

       “Odette, you’ve been really distant lately.  You alright?” Sharon asked, touching my shoulder.

       “Fine,” I answered, shrugging her off.  “Just can’t believe high school will finally be over next week.  It seems surreal we’ll be walking across that stage, collecting our diplomas—“

       “Don’t get all sentimental,” Sharon teased.  “You hate this place as much as I do.  I’m ready to go away to college.  Away from my parents and all that nagging.  I hear the parties at State are great.”  She sighed dreamily.

       I continued to talk to her, going through the motions.  I had no idea what I was saying though.  My thoughts were some else.  How could she think of such stupid things like good parties?  Everyone was thinking about stupid stuff like that.  Everyone around my age at least. 

      Wasn’t there something better to think about?  Like why they exist?  Or had they found their existence and that’s why they partied?  It was a celebration.  They finally found why they were put on this Earth and now they were letting it all go?  I’d like to know why they knew and I didn’t.

       For months I had been contemplating my death.  The only reason I had held out this long is because I detached myself from the world.  I wasn’t really there anymore.  It was my body and my soul two separate things.  I pretended I was watching myself live.  That’s how it made living bearable.

       “By the way, why’d you cut your hair?” Sharon asked, running her fingers through my new pixie cut.

      Ducking out of her fingers, I shrugged.  “… Just needed a distraction,” I mumbled, shaking my hair out, realizing that the comforting swish of my hair covering my face wasn’t there anymore.

      “A distraction?” she asked, an eyebrow arching.  “From what?”

      I rolled my eyes at her.  “Don’t you start thinking it’s because of Matt again.”

     She smirked.  “I’m telling you, he is in love with you and you guys would be so cute together!”

      “And I’m telling you, I’m not interested in something like that right now.”

      “Whatever, O.  One day you’ll see Sharon knows what she is talking about and you should have listened to her all along.”

     “Is Sharon going to stop speaking about herself in the third-person?” I asked, annoyed.  “Because Sharon is annoying as hell when she does that.”

       “Sorry, babe.”  She shrugged.  “I can’t help myself sometimes when you’re acting so stupid.”

     “Right.”

      Just then the bell rang and Sharon grabbed my arm firmly.  “Come on, we’ll be late for class.  You know how Ms. Silver hates us being late.”  She then led me through the throng of people holding on tightly like I was going to leave.

***

     On my drive home from school I thought about how I could end my life right then.  I could drive into a nearby lake or crash into the highway walls.  There was a lot of ways I could end it – but not that way.  I couldn’t kill myself in public.  I didn’t want news reporters coming from all over raising awareness about suicide.  People thriving off the story of my death… It was disgusting.

      The thing people mix up suicide with is they think you do it for the attention and to see who really cares.  You don’t do it to test people.  You do it to feel relief.  I wanted to feel relief. 

      But right now, I felt like I could hold on for a little longer.  I continued driving home in my detached state.  My body in one place and my soul on its way to another.

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Short chapter I know, but the flashbacks are going to be shorter than a usual chapter.  

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