I couldn't bear to tell him what I'd done, what put me in a psych ward for three years. At the same time, he told me what put him there for three years. I felt as if divulging the past would only bring up forgotten pain and memories and bring back sorrow and darkness. He had welcomed me into his darkness, though, so I guess I must welcome him.
I was eleven and it was a stormy Thursday night. School was awful. The boys teased me again, touched me again, and pushed me around, again. The girls beat me again and laughed in my face. I got off the bus in tears, walked home in tears, and cried for hours again. This time, though, something clicked in my head and I realized, I didn't have to live like this anymore, I didn't have to feel like this anymore, and I didn't have to waste away like this anymore. I could end it all, like snuffing out a lamp, that quick. I went and hid in the bathroom for a couple of hours crying and contemplating, praying and planning. Around seven, I heard the front door open and knew my dad was home. I thought it was now or never. I cut along both of my main veins in my arms and sat there, letting the love bleed out of me, letting the happiness bleed out of me, letting the hope bleed out of me. I sat there watching the blood go from blue to red to black. I started to feel as if I could never weigh anything ever again; I was floating around in euphoria. I don't know what drove me to get up and walk out of that bathroom, my sanctuary, but I did. I walked right up to the door in the kitchen and stood leaning against the wall.
Without looking up my dad asked, "How was school, sweetheart?"
And my response, tear-filled and sorrowful, was the one that broke his heart to irreparable measures: "I'm sorry, daddy. I just wanted it to stop; I wanted the pain to go away forever, so I have to go away forever. I'm so sorry, daddy."
I remember seeing him look confused until his eyes landed on my arms. I remember feeling my body slide down the cold, hard wall and hearing his teardrops hit the floor ever-so-gently and his footsteps almost like a whisper. I remember being surrounded in darkness and turning ice cold, like I had become as cruel as the people who hurt me; it was as if all the good I ever had in me had been burned by the breech of reality in my mind: I am going to die; not by anyone else's hand, not by the hands of time, but by my own hands I will die. I shall become my own murderer, my own nightmare, and my own monster.
