1 - The End

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I don't believe there are any words to express how writing your own expiration date feels like. When one becomes suicidal, such as I am, the world is not viewed the same way the lucky ones see it. It is blurred by your unhappiness, the static sound of harsh actuality pounding against your ears. With each miserably-pointless day, it gets harder and harder to inhale and exhale. Tangled in grey, you doubt you will ever be okay.

And eventually, after years of desperately clinging on to the thought of the smallest possibility that things will get better, you realize two things: 1) They're not and 2) They won't. Once this occurred to me, it drove me to where I was now: Standing at the edge of a lake at five in the morning, ready to drop into its depths and never emerge after. It's funny – yet not really – how much it took me to unravel: nineteen years of crawling through my own version of hell. Now, my hands were dirty and my knees were bruised.

I stole a glance around, but I was sure that I didn't need to worry about anyone else being here. It was Tuesday, and nobody in their right mind would spontaneously decide to visit the lake at this godforsaken hour. If this were any other day, I would be buried in my bed, allowing sleep to claim me and take me as far away as it could. Not being awake was one of the few things I enjoyed.

But this wasn't just another day. This was my last one.

Quiet tears streaked my face and I let them run . . . run . . . and run. If I had to guess, this was the thousandth time I was crying, which was pathetic. I should have been relieved – I finally mustered up the willingness to let it all go. I knew I needed to do this. I was beyond the point of depression and laying on the border of madness now. I didn't deserve to use up so much oxygen and I didn't want to face any more angst. Everything would be better if I was just gone.

Focusing my gaze onto the sight before me, I could slightly make out the water mildly weaving back and forth, motivated by the whispering wind. Everything was inky – perhaps the same shade as the hollowness in my chest. Now, the pale moon was out and shadows of the dense forest behind me danced across the lake's navy surface. Wisps of clouds traced the starless sky. If it weren't for the street lamps located a good distance away, I wouldn't have been able to see anything.

The longer I stared at the water, the more I wanted it to swallow me whole . . . into nothingness. I thought of it so many times – vanishing just like that. As if I never existed at all. Undeniably, it was alluring in a horrible way. The darkness was terrifying – the darkness inside of me.

Blowing out a shaky breath, a glint of anxiety burned in the pit of my stomach. The overwhelming sensation stretched through me. I was sick – mentally and emotionally. Sick of being sick. Sick of everything.

Words that had been left unsaid rioted inside of my throbbing head. At the same time, my brittle heart was aching so much that I had the desire to wrench it out from between my lungs myself. It was like paper and I could just envision it crumpled and ruined beyond repair.

"God," I muttered as a sharp gust assaulted me, so cold that I could have sworn that I felt it in my bones. The low howling of the wind mingling with the rustling of the trees filled the crisp air. My body quivered.

Why did I have to be born? The bleak question slithered across my brain. They should have aborted me when they had the chance.

After being rooted there, on the edge, for what seemed to be forever – but really, it couldn't have been more than half an hour – my mind abruptly hissed: Come on . . . It's time.

Even during the moments leading up to it, I couldn't quite believe it.

Don't stop.

I was truly going to do it. I was going to kill myself.

Nobody will miss you.

The words weren't a warning sign or a threat anymore. It was too late now. It was happening.

It was, at long last, the end of June.

Jump.

And I didn't give myself permission to hesitate any longer.

Plunging into the lake, gravity – for a fraction of a second – seemed to stop and hold me right there, right over the water. It was in that moment a few faces flickered before my eyes and a word hung on my tongue.

The word was why.

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