I Tried

Prologue

Jesse

I'm sorry... I just couldn't take it anymore. My unloving mother gave me away to my pedophile father. I couldn't take another day of rape. So I figured maybe.. just maybe if I cut my face off, he won't love me that way anymore and he'll give me away. Now, I know what you're thinking... Why couldn't you just call the cops or something? 

Trying to cut your face off isn't very rational. And no... it's not rational at all. But I was fifteen years old and decent thoughts don't usually come that quickly to a dumb and blonde teenage girl. But I got a couple of cuts in and my dad walked into the bathroom. "What are you doing?", he asked angrily, "Nobody wants a sexy little girl with a ruined face!". 

He then slapped the razor out of my hand and had angry sex with me. It was worth a try. Later on when he was done with me, I snuck into my closet and hung myself with one of my belts. But right when it was all about to end, the light fixture on the roof broke and the last thing I remember was banging the shit out of my head on the shelf that held my shoes. Then I woke up held to a bed in leather bound straps in a gloomy hospital room with inspirational posters everywhere. 

Great.. a mental institution.

Nick

I got sent to the St Marks Place Institute when I was ten. Then I got sent back when I was fifteen. Here, let me explain myself. My parents were the modern day hippies. And as the hippies they were, they LOVED drugs. 

Specifically ecstasy. One night they were jacked up on you know what and slipped up and got pregnant with my older brother (Tyler) in the year of 2003. Then, four years after he was born, they decided that they didn't want him to be lonely. So they had me. Our lives were filled with our parents abusing drugs and each other. 

Then, when I was ten, our parents drove us to the Brooklyn bridge while high on ecstasy and pulled over to the side of the bridge where a bunch of people were standing at the edge with nooses around their necks. They must have forgotten the purpose of our trip, and/or forgotten that we were there, so they locked us inside and stumbled up to the supervisor and asked for their own nooses. My brother was fourteen so he had his own phone. He called 911, and the cops came right after they all jumped off the edge and ended their lives. They found us, broke us out of the car and immediately put us into an orphanage after our parents were officially proven dead. 

Before the funeral, my brother tried to rationalize the tragedy and blamed me. He beat me up until I literally couldn't take it anymore and I took not-prescribed pills to kill myself. They caught me and sent me to St Marks Place for 3 months. I got out and spent my time at the orphanage with Tyler. When he was eighteen, he was able to leave the orphanage and luckily, they let him sign up to be my parental guardian. 

He and I spent one happy year in his apartment. He was done with blaming me for the mass suicide and was actually happy for awhile. Then, right when I turned fifteen, he suddenly hung himself and died before I found him. I, again, gave up and tried to bleed out from the huge cuts I made in the major blood vessels on my wrists. As you can probably tell, it didn't work and I ended back up at St Marks. 

My sentence was made into 6 months due to it being my second attempt of suicide. During my first day, I re-acquainted myself with the friendly doctors and nurses there and started playing chess with a twenty year old named Hank. Then, right is I finished my turn, an unconscious girl was wheeled in on a bed into the empty room conjoined to my room which was separated by a thick curtain. A new roommate? They don't usually pair girls and guys as roomies, but I guess they were running out of space. 

I told Hank to hold the game and followed them to our room, but they closed the door before I could enter. Later, they gave me a form saying stuff like that I had to respect and/or be kind to my new roommate and make her feel welcome. I was always happy about new friends, so I signed the form. I wonder what her story is.