One Little Line

I was sitting in my room, back against the cool brown wall of my room, cross-legged on the ground. My long, mousy light brown hair fell in strands in front of my eyes and I sniffed my nose and, with a free hand, pushed the stray hairs behind my ear. 

The dark red liquid dripped down my wrists into a pool of sorts on the ground, huddled there like a pack of frightened animals, cowering in one spot. The blood that stayed on my hands was starting to dry and crust where it had not succeeded to get away from me. Beside me, a small knife I had found in the kitchen drawer downstairs glittered threateningly, half of its' body concealed by my own mark that I had left upon it.

Finally, I could not stand looking at those things for another minute. I looked up to the opposite side of the room. Hanging on my half-painted wall, which was now almost entirely dark, chocolate brown, was a cross. Four letters were inscribed in it but I could not read them from where I was sitting. I didn't care anyhow. I had been a good Christian for my whole life, sixteen years, even though my Atheist boyfriend had not. That didn't matter though to me.

My eyes welled up with tears as I looked at the cross and I looked down suddenly, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand that was not covered in dried blood. More blood dripped on the ground. Drip. Drip. Falling from me. Wet hot tears fell from my eyes and into the large cuts on my hand, burning them. I hissed as the reaction went through my body, but the pain felt nice. And in some ways, I welcomed it.

I opened my right hand for the millionth time that night and looked at the contents of my hand. Pure white pills sat there. Ten of them. Waiting for me to swallow them whole, effectively ending my life. 

I had been over the scenario a thousand times in my head. I'd take the pills, overdose, and my heart would stop. My parents would find me in my room, probably slumped over by the wall, almost entirely bled out now from the cuts, a knife by my side, and a good bye letter, explaining how I loved them but how I didn't think I was needed anymore, that it was my time to go. They'd be sad, sure, but with three other kids, they would get over it. So would Josh. He'd find some other girl to go out with. To be his one and only. They would get married, have kids, the works. While I rotted in a grave. Life would go on.

I wriggled my fingers, making the pills move around in my hand. Then, taking a deep breath, wiped my tears one last time and picked up one of the pills. Slowly, I put the poison to my lips, saying my last goodbyes. Beside me, my phone buzzed, the screen lighting up with a bright purple. Just another reminder of life outside of these walls. I nudged it with my foot to see who was calling me and accidentally pressed the answer button.

I dropped the pill into my hand and rapidly made for the phone. I couldn't let who ever this was hear any of this. It was Josh. Again, I held my breath and stuck my phone up to my ear. Bad idea. Josh was speaking into the phone, he probably thought that he was sent to voice mail since my phone didn't have a message system.

"Hey," a pause, "I just wanted, just wanted you to know that umm, that I'm praying for you hun. I know you are goin' through some stuff but I'm here for you. I'll be here whenever you need anything. I need you too. I just, yeah. Anyway, I gotta go. Call me back. I love you." 

I dropped the phone from my ear halfway through the message and covered my mouth with my hand so he wouldn't hear my sobs. I could still here the message though it was a little hard because of how bad I was crying. Sobs broke through my lips and my body started to convulse. I sucked in little breaths of air that smelled strongly of chemicals and iron. 

My boyfriend. My Atheist boyfriend. The one who thinks praying is a waste of time. Who doesn't believe in anything I do, was praying for me. I couldn't contain myself. He was actually praying. And for me. He may have not known how much that meant to me. Me, here sitting on the ground ready to end everything.

After that, I couldn't do it. Couldn't end it. As much as I had wanted to earlier, I just couldn't now. My resolve had been washed away with his simple words. I called him back right after I was finished crying and he drove straight over my house and after his initial surprise of seeing me in this state was over, he crossed the room and scooped me up in his big warm arms, smoothing my hair and telling me everything was going to be OK. We sat like this for a while, me crying again in his arms, a complete mess. Blood all over the place, and him just telling me everything was going to be alright. 

After a while, he pushed me back a little ways from him, unwrapping his arms from around me. Gingerly he took my face in my hands. I was so sure he was going to say something like, "let's get you all cleaned up," because let's face it, I was not a real beauty with my hands and mouth covered in blood, eyeliner completely smeared across my eyes, hair a mess, and eyes all big, red and swollen. Instead though, he looked at me for a few moments, taking in everything about me, from the cuts, to the eyes, hair and face, and then looked me in the eyes and said, in the most sincerest voice I have ever heard someone speak to me in,

"You are so beautiful"

Reviews

[Ama May Cooper]

What a heartwrenchingly beautiful end.... a sad tale of a sick and morbid hatrid discribed with great care and empahsis in all the write parts. The cries of a defeated soul the gathering and obvious climax and as much asi hate happy endings i can say that i loved yours the beauty and the compassion so well described that you can feel it radiating from your story.

Such a painful journey all the way from teh start, the ending not even all that perfect still the scars remain and you can feel the protagonists very soul weeping in distress a wonderful piece of work.