The end

In the blink of an eye, everything can change, including perspective

I'm unsure as to whether or not this is the end  - I do hope so. I do not comprehend why I feel the way I do, or why I want it all to end, or why I am unable to explain myself better, but all I am aware of is that I hope that this is it - to no longer exist.  To not awake in the dawn when the sun rises, when people yawn and cringe at the sound of their alarms. To observe everyone else, and to witness how simple their life could be without me. I do not crave anyone's pity, I crave pain. If I craved pity, I would have told people I felt like this, I would have screamed for help, cried in public, done something for others to notice me, to notice my pain. I do not crave attention, I crave to be alone. The loneliness comforts me, in a way that a security blanket comforts young children like my brother. I crave what I am not. I crave to be thin, I crave to be pretty, and I crave to love myself. In order to love who I am, I must reflect on who I’ve become and accept the fact I am invisible. I slice in my own membrane, watch the crimson drip down my wrists and thighs; observing the blood trickle down, however I still remain numb. The question I had only answered recently was the following are we alive or are we just dreaming? Maybe we are all dead and just reliving recollections. I used to believe we’d have the answer when we died. Almost like a magic trick, a little “abracadabra” then poof, we’d be gone, simply like that; with the answers to everything. Maybe we have created a fantasy of what people think this extravagant word  “life” is. Many crave death, to the point they taste it with their own lips, touch it with their bodies. However,  none of us have the choice of life until after we have a clear view on what it is. We do not ask to be born, to have whatever life we have. I had craved death upon myself until December 17th, 2012, that is when it was too late to save myself - too late to take back anything I had said or done, too late to breathe one last time, or to laugh or cry. Everyone says life flickers before your eyes 7 minutes prior to death.  They reference and by “they” I mean authors, and generally public speakers; you’ll think of everyone of importance, and things you wish to remember and be remembered by. That’s not the case however…the memories I desired to forget abruptly came back, everything I had worked so hard on letting go, came back to me, almost like being hit by a car.

It is a consistent morning. I put on ripped jeans, black combat boots, and a fairly bulky grey pullover. My long, wavy brown hair is pulled into a messy ponytail. I get in to my red pick-up truck with a Starbucks mug filled with a black coffee, and a cigarette in my mouth. I chain smoked on my way to pick up my boyfriend Nick, a tad nervous for my final exam in Philosophy. I drive up the long driveway, all the way to his front door. His house reminds me of the high school I attended - Villa Maria. I honk the horn a couple of times before he comes running outside and then into my car. “Hey baby.” He gives me a peck on the cheek and doesn't fail to tell me how much I smell like smoke. "You okay?" He asks me with a worried look on his face. "Yeah, just nervous, I'll be okay." "You'll do great, you studied so hard." I smile and continue to drive to CEGEP. We get out of the car and part ways, I have my exam first class, and he has gym.

I sit in the classroom awaiting my professor to enter, shaking my leg, and biting the end of my pencil. I turn to the person sitting next to me, someone who I have never gotten the chance to get to know, despite having been in the same class all semester. "Hey uh, did he say he was going to be late last class?" My peer Samantha I believe that's her name shakes her head and resumes texting. I check my phone; 9:02am, two minutes late so far. My professor rushes into the classroom apologizing for being tardy then hands out the tests. An hour passes before I finish my exam and I walk slowly to his desk with my hands shaking, unsure as to how I just did. I am then dismissed and head to my lockers. My phone begins ringing whilst I am unlocking my locker and the caller ID is my brother's elementary school. I answer immediately considering I am his legal guardian until my parents get back from their vacation in Mexico next week. "Hello? Yes...Okay...Oh my god...Yes, I'll be right there." I hang up and leave school immediately - it appears that he has injured his arm during gym class and they are concerned it might be broken. 

I text Nick when I get in the car to tell him what happened, and that he'll need to find a ride to my house after he finishes class, or to take the bus. I feel guilty for having leaving him stranded, however, family will always come first. Regardless, Nick will understand - he and I have been dating for four years as of tomorrow. He and I met almost six years ago when I first moved to town, since then, he and I have become best friends, and he and my brother are the only people to know any of my inter-personal issues. After sending the text, I begin driving, I turn on the radio and sip on my sub-zero coffee. I light a cigarette and attempt to calm myself down. The nicotine fills my lungs, a feeling I constantly crave. Some even say I have an addictive personality, which I suppose I am unable to deny it.

I pull up to the front door of my brothers school and pick him up at reception. We walk to my car and I open the door for him. He sits in the front seat and refuses to put on his seat belt. I argue with him for 25 minutes without moving the car, until he begins to cry in agony from the pain his wrist is in. I tell him to at least put the seat belton like a police officer. I quickly look through my glove compartment for his Medicare card, and whilst doing so, my brother grabs my wrist and lifts my sleeve. "Okay, just making sure they're just scars and not any new cuts." I smile at him then start my car. We drive in silence until he begins to tell me how he injured his arm. "So I was in gym class and we were doing gymnastics and I was climbing these bars and then I fell and o save my face, I used my arm to protect me. It hurt a lot." I chuckle and shake my head. "I know it hurts, but don't worry, once we find out what it is, it'll be okay."  

When we arrive at the hospital, our wait passes relatively quickly, and discover his left forearm is broken in two places. They put on a blue fiber-cast and I sign it first writing "Love you clumsy little boy" I add a heart and colour it in with silver permanent marker. "You're lucky you're right handed." I say as we exit the hospital and my brother chuckles. "Yeah I wish I was left handed like you right now." We both laugh and enter the car. We listen to a CD Nick made me with all of my favourite songs, humming along to the first track. "My arm really hurts Linds." "I know buddy, I think I have Advil in the glove compartment." Logan scrambles through Band-Aids, hand sanitizer, napkins, straws, but cannot seem to find the Advil. I look down quickly whilst driving slower, keeping my other hand straight. "Here you go kiddo." I look back at the road after a mere one minute of looking; I see a car fast approaching, and I notice that I have swerved slightly into the wrong lane. I move my car as quickly as possible into the other lane, I feel a small bump at first on my car, and throw my arm across the passenger seat to cover as much of Logan as I possibly can. The car hits the driver’s seat hard and in the blink of an eye, I think about my 8th grade boyfriend, and how he called me fat when he broke up with me. I think about how that started my eating disorder. I think about when I broke my arm for the first time when I fell down stairs. I think about the first time I cut myself on purpose and how it comforted me, and made me feel in control of something for the first time in my life. I think of all of the arguments my parents have had, I think of the time Logan came home crying because he had lost his pencil case and was scared of what my parents reaction might be. 

I open my eyes, and Logan is sobbing. I begin to giggle because I have never been so happy in my entire life, that he is still breathing, that he is somewhat okay. "Are we going to die?" He continues to sob and I notice the cut on his head. I cannot seem to move any part of my body to comfort him, to wipe the blood from his face, to hold his now broken cast together so he no longer feels pain. I am completely numb. Number than I have ever been before. We are upside down, and I begin to speak slowly, however it pains me to breathe. "L-Logan, listen, we're not going to die, we're going to be okay, are you okay?" I cannot cry, although I want to - there is a pit in my stomach and not just from the steering wheel that has punctured my lungs. "My arm kind of hurts more than it did, and my head hurts Linds. Am I bleeding as much as you are?" I try to shake my head, however fail to do so. I slip out a quiet "No, no you're okay." Something begins to tear Logans door apart, and I hear sirens and lights flashing. “Is everyone ok in here?” I hear a very husky voice say. “HELP! My little brother is in here! HELP! I’m so sorry. I’m so s-” My breath gets shorter, it’s harder to speak, it hurts more than it did before - harder to breathe, Blood is pouring from my mouth now, and it doesn't taste all that great. Just like that, I stopped feeling any pain, stopped feeling anything, and everything went black for a moment. I was gone. 

I began to watch what was happening around me; I had a bird’s point of view on what was happening. A paramedic yanked my brother out of the car, his cast no longer on his arm, his tears pouring down his cheeks, along with blood pouring down his head. He screams and cries for me, asking if I'm going to be okay. They put him on a stretcher, and put him in the ambulance. A female paramedic calms him and checks his vitals. The ambulance leaves the scene. The driver of the other car sits on the ground crying, attempting to piece together what just happened - he is unharmed. I watch them pull my corpse from what was a car at one point. They lie me on the pavement and call out my name - no response from the body, however I scream at the top of my lungs. "I'm here! I am okay!" But they don't hear me. They check my pulse and shake their head in disbelief. My stiff lifeless body lies on the cold pavement awaiting a coroner to put my body in a bag.

Now, I know that I am gone, that I will not come back. The person who was never noticed until now, the person who will be reminisced as the girl who died in a car accident. Hopefully recollected as the girl who protected her brother from dying, however I could also be remembered as the girl who put her brother in endangerment. This is my end, this was my life. My life was about saving my little brother, to protect him and cause him no harm. He wouldn't have been put in such danger if I didn't look for that Advil, however, I never thought that by attempting to cure him of a minor pain, would cause him such a grand amount, that will last longer. This is my fault - my parents will return early from their vacation with sunken in, red eyes. Letting tsunami tides pour down their eyes. Instead of coming back with a smile, and wonderful memories, they will come back with pain, and will never be able to forget this trip. My parents will have to grieve my death, rather than rejoice my life. I never got to say goodbye to anyone. Nick is at my house waiting for me, instead he is going to get a phone call to identify my body. Maybe it was just my time. Everyone has a precise time to perish, and maybe I was ready. Perhaps, if it wasn't with me, Logan would have been in a car accident with someone else, and perhaps he would have been the one to die. Perhaps everything does happen for a reason. I suppose some questions were answered, yet some answers never came. I used to crave death, wanted a taste of it, however, now, I crave nothing but life, and I regret dipping my toes in the pool of death, because now I am drowning on the deep end.