unsteady

insomniacs

i find it kind of funny, i find it kind of sad.

the dreams in which i'm dying are the best i've ever had.

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Kaycee

"You really," the boy said, stepping out of the shadows, "shouldn't do that."

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Last night had been horrible. Kylie had undergone another round of treatments, and Kaycee had had to see her not grateful for the chemo, but angry that they wouldn't just let her give up. "Let me die," she screamed at my mouth, clawing at what was left of her hair. "Just kill me already."

"Kaycee," her mother had begged, once she realized she couldn't reason with her, in a last-ditch attempt to get to Kylie. "Talk to her. Tell her everything about life, Kayc. Don't let her be ridiculous. Tell her good things."

But she couldn't think of a single reason for anyone to keep living, so she just sat down and held Kylie's hand as her sister cried, and she tried not to.

Some sister she was.

Kaycee had gotten home, and wondered the same things Kylie had, except she wasn't brave enough to say them out loud. Then she'd taunted herself with more slashes, in a bitter way, living for the torment that ravaged over her body. In a weird way, it was satisfying. Every drop of blood that slicked down from her wrists, staining the tile floor, under the eerie glow of the moon outside her bathroom window, it just felt like she was in another universe, ridden from the one she felt didn't deserve her.

Then she had decided to take that next step. Just do it, the razor urged. No one will care.

As close as she'd come before, she didn't think it'd be any trouble, but as she raised the razor each time, to deliver that final, awful hack, she just couldn't. She knew she wanted to, but cutting had always grossly fascinated her. She needed to be in it to win it, and there were too many times to back out. She needed something mindless. Something irreversible.

I just need time to think, she thought, as she set it down, careful not to make such a clatter as to wake her mother.

So she scribbled out a note, pulled on a jacket, and started out the door.

Five minutes later she came back, shoved the note in her pocket, and left again, shaking her head at how dumb she was. A note would only hurt the people she left behind more, and she'd worry if she got everything and everyone. She just wished she could tell them it wasn't them, it was her.

Except for Gabe. The only thing that made her blood curdle was the thought that at her funeral, Laura would pull him in, crying, and whisper "She loved you so much, Gabriel." She knew he'd pull away and go "Yeah, wonder why she never said so," in a snarky way that, even at her funeral, would make him the victim.

Kaycee had an obsession for planning. OCD afflicted her in the worst way, but since her depression had kicked in, it was all about dying. She'd always hated the whole unknown air surrounding it. You never knew when. You never knew how. Until it was too late. What did you see? What did it feel like? She'd become fascinated by reading accounts of people who had reportedly died but come back after. They always described it as a blinding light they were lead into, that blinked out and sent them tumbling back to reality.

Kaycee wasn't quite sure about that. She didn't picture light when she pictured death. She thought of it more as darkness. Final. Cold. Lonely. Darkness. That's how it was when you died. You were on your own.