What Follows

~ what a shame . . . beautiful scars on critical veins ~

-graphic suicide details will be included toward the end of this chapter, proceed with caution and know that this story is meant to be there for you, hold your hands and raise awareness-

15th of May, 2019

My first experience with the concept of death was when I was ten.

I was pretending to be asleep under my bed’s fluffy blankets after a long school day, with Mom’s phone clutched tightly in my small, clammy hands. The screen was bright against the room’s darkness as I gleefully played Snake, when a notification chimed way too loudly for my like (cause what if Mom heard and was on the way to takes her phone away?).

It was Mom’s friend sending her a message about something I surely had no business with.

My indispensable curiosity encouraged me to read it nevertheless and I just hadn't had the heart to let it down. It was about her husband’s death. A car accident, she had described. Pray for him, she had typed.

I remember slowly removing the blankets, getting off my bed and tiptoeing to the kitchen in my white, nightdress. Mom was standing, drinking milk or water (I don’t remember) when she turned to me, surprised at my sleeplessness, and questioned me if something was wrong (if I had a tummy ache?).

In response, I handed out her phone and simply whispered the news to her, because shush, perhaps no one should listen to this huge secret? Mom’s reaction was to cry over her friend’s loss and call her to ‘comfort’ her. I barely understood her reaction back then, but I did cry too because I thought that that was what everyone did. That was what Mom did. Because death was, apparently, supposedly, a sad, bad, far-away thing.

And here's the thing with growing up, 'far-away' things keep stealthily inching toward you and the people you love.

We all grow up knowing that death is just a part of life, that we're all entrapped in a life cycle just like that fly you swapped dead a day ago. That, yes, we're as small as that fly. Yet, yet there'd be days when we'd hold our pillows tight and cry about some demented fantasy where you've killed your parents and you're crying for their loss.

Normally, everyone fears death. And I did. At least in the very beginning. I saw it as a scenario to fear not to accept. I feared the idea of it and anything that can cause it. I didn't like hearing about it and I hated being reminded of it everywhere (like, okay, Rebecca, I know your dog died, but what you don't know is that you've awakened an endless trail of deeply philosophical, not-very-happy dead thoughts).

I have a vast imagination that did nothing but creatively terrify me of death. I'd keep telling myself; imagine dying, imagine your family crying, imagine bones, dust, maggots, imagine dying, I'd tell myself, imagine dying.

So of course, I did. I imagined dying; and thus feared crossing streets, standing close to the ledge in my high balcony, fights and cancer. I feared the ceiling falling over my head when I slept on my bed.

But let me tell you that it didn't last for long because sweet sixteen arrived.

My sixteen was everything but sweet. And maybe where I am right now is making me want to thank it (I'll explain later).

So yes, finally, life got way too heavy to handle. Way too miserable and meaningless. I carelessly crossed streets and drove fast, I would lean, without any reason, way too much over the balcony to watch people pass by. I would eat unhealthily and toy with the concept of death like play-dough. Like how if I’d leaned any further over the balcony’s ledge, I would stumble down to my certain death, or how if I didn’t eat for long enough, I might starve myself to nothingness.

It seemed like I had (finally!) seen the inevitability of it. The fact that it’s going to happen one way or another and that it isn’t something I can control.

Until I realized it is. That it is something controllable. That I can very, very simply end my life whenever I want when things get too flawed and painful. And it won’t involve the fate of another person who would do the deed of ending my life; whether it be a driver who hits me with his car or the cashier who sells me that chips bag that gives me cancer.

Today is my birthday and I’m spending it in my water-filled bathtub in the beautiful scarlet, full-sleeved, long, flowy dress I specifically bought for today. With a blade in my left hand.

My chin-length golden hair is wet and cascading all over my face as my lips quiver uncontrollably. The water, I realize as I shift, is really cold. But surely, in a few moments, I shall cease to feel anyway, right? I will drift away into pleasant nonexistence. I will morph into a memory of a seventeen-year-old who, oh, what a pity, killed herself in a tub.

Look, I don’t have thirteen reasons as to why I want to kill myself, but I have seven horrible ones.

Starting from the least to the most severe:

1- Not feeling Joshua’s scorching betrayal when he ditched me and used all my insecurities against me, making what is bad much worse. I won’t be forced to relive the memories about how easy it was for him to call me ‘boring’ and ‘plain’ after I’ve entrusted him with the fact that I hated how I looked and felt about myself. All seem to be very alluring reasons to just skip my life. And, no, don’t worry, I will not just kill myself because of a boy. I am, at least, smarter than that.

2- Quite importantly, I wouldn’t need to eat at all! I’d be dead. So there’ll be nothing such as ‘getting chubby’, ‘letting it go’ or some stupid, appetite-oppressing remarks that Joshua used sparingly. There won’t be chips that can’t be spelt without hips and there won’t be Oreos. There won’t be imbeciles who call themselves seniors while body shaming me and making me wish for the ground to split open and swallow me whole when I leak on my, good Lord, heavy periods.

3- The definite absence of a grade-oriented society. Essentially, I’ll be going to a place where I won’t be marked as 'stupid' because of some test I messed up in. Another seductive reason is the absence of a mysterious, scary future. There’ll be no worries of a good or a bad tomorrow. This constant need to stay prepared for whatever the hell might happen will be gone! I needn’t worry about a pathetic future. I needn’t worry about whether or not I’ll end up as a drug addict and I certainly needn’t worry about how I get to die.

4- And thankfully, Lord, there will be no internet. I won’t go through cyberbullying that social media seems to be very keen on flagging as ‘harmful to others’ and ‘suicide-causing’, but always, seemingly fails terribly at eradicating it. Because how can some posters with our favourite celebrities change millions of people’s sick mannerisms? I won’t be called an ‘old hag’, a ‘fake’, and many other delectable insults that are simply too painful to recall and write.

5- And, of course, I will finally not have any siblings to get constantly compared to. I won’t have a smarter Jacobson or a wiser Aiden. No. I wouldn’t have nights where I’d question my existence in that balcony of mine just because of an insult Mom or Dad threw in my way. I wouldn’t need to go through all that negativity and suffering that my parents thought was amusing.

6- As it happens, dying seems to be the only option left that’s worth discovering to escape that unpleasant tug at my heartstrings every time I’d watch my parents fight over stupid things and so openly discuss their divorce in front of me, like my existence and opinion in the matter doesn’t bother them the least bit. I refuse to go through the pain it leaves behind, again and again, every day. I refuse the panic attacks it causes. I refuse all the tears wasted at their selfishness.

And if that doesn’t seem like enough reasons why to kill myself, then I’ll be forced to tell you the major one. And no. It isn’t rape. This isn’t Hannah Baker’s stuff. It’s much simpler than that.

7- Loneliness, agonizing anxiety, and the 'd-word'. Depression.

If this seems ridiculous to you, then I’m not sure we’re experiencing the same level of loneliness and anxiety I’m talking about here. I’m talking about crippling loooneliness (yes triple 'o's!). I feel lonely when I’m supposed to feel loved and secured. With my closest friends (Sierra and Mason), I feel lonely. With my waste of space of an ex-boyfriend, I felt lonely. With my pathetic family, I feel lonely. I mean, hell, who feels lonely when they’re with their parents? Everyday?

Yes. Me. Roseline Bracken. And it’s all because no-one cares about me.

Look, I know that suicide means getting my buttocks kicked to hell because my ‘parents’ are religious and are always chattering about all the wrong things humans commit every day and how they won’t escape God’s curse. They always speak of God’s anger and strength. They never, however, speak of his mercy and love to us.

It’s like love and care don’t exist in their universe.

So yeah, I know that suicide is horrible, terrible, lemon, horrible. But I mean, how can hell be more painful than this worldly pain? I mean at least the pain won’t be mentally confined, with no drugs to heal and no place to go beyond this face of mine and atop this delicate neck.

And I know that this seems odd- the way I seem to be very easily and lightly discussing a dark matter, ie. my suicide. So I’m sorry if this method of coping disturbs you, but as it is, me killing myself is heavy on my heart, I’d hate for it to be heavy on paper too. And honestly, I don’t want to talk about it.

So, I want my death to mainly be a major blow to my parents when they see me in my blood. I want them to think where they’ve gone wrong and maybe, just maybe, they’ll remember to care enough to miss me.

So I’m not going to kill myself with tears in my eyes- I’ve already cried myself to sleep for many days (and that’s an understatement). Today is to be celebrated. Hell, I’ve spent at least half an hour lighting up, precisely, a hundred and twenty-five candles and arranging them all the way from the front door to the bathroom. I want the last candle that my parents blow away to be the one in my mouth for my belated birthday.

Yes, right there. My teeth are sunk right into its bitter, melting wax that’s dripping on my favourite dress.

I lift my left hand and realize that I’ll never go through the anxiety that plagued my mind every time I made a mistake. Even a silly one. I wouldn’t need to torture myself with poisonous thoughts whenever people whispered around me. Cause guess what? Death is the only loneliness one can look forward to. It’s the only unjudged loneliness.

I slit my wrists vertically, biting into the wax through the searing pain and tearing up in the process. It is almost a wonderful, blissful feeling, watching the water taint in the scarlet colour of all my pain through the years.

Well, that is until I realize that I made the biggest mistake ever. And I’m going to pay for the consequences for eternity. Literally.