If you're reading this, then that means I am dead.
The words seemed to be the only thing that echoed through the hollowed out walls of my head. My eyes were fixed onto the droplets of dirty rain water that slid down the window, the gray landscape blurring past my vision. It was the first time I had allowed myself into a vehicle. Those words hanging in my head to remind me of the horrors that I had invoked in result of trying to escape. The very concept that those words could be scrawled so effortlessly across the piece of parchment that still seemed to burn through my coat pocket even now was maddening to me.
I could feel my hands quivering from beneath where I had them shoved under my legs and folded together. There was no stopping or even recognizing the way my nostrils flared and tears began to leak down my features. It was supposed to be me. It shouldn't have been them.
It shouldn't have been them.
The nurse beside me was staring, though I was oblivious to her concerned looks. I was oblivious to everyone that seemed to still orbit around me. Oblivious to everything besides this clawing notion that plagued the inside of my mind. The voice of misery that still droned on about how much better it would be to be dead. Instead, here I was, in this peppermint and vinyl smelling van. Everything was white and gray, the woman beside me no exception as she placed one of her bony hands gently on my shoulder in some sort of comforting notion. I didn't respond, simply clenched my teeth and kept my staring, refusing to see the look of sympathy she clearly had hanging from her features. I didn't deserve sympathy. I didn't deserve help.
I was busy picturing her with the quill in her hand, reading glasses perched too low on her slightly crooked nose. I pictured her staring at the rain like I was staring, her wrist arched to write. I tried to think of the way she would have said it to me in person. I tried to picture her thinking she would outlive me at all. I tried to remember the last thing she said to me, as her letter called for, but I had been too high to hear her words. I felt like screaming as the memory threatened to flood my mind, my own nails biting into the flesh of my palms. I refused to remember the last few moments with her. Because all I had done was shove her away.
I shoved her away.
Nails biting into flesh more eagerly now, my arms quivering with the force in which I was implementing. The pain was only a dull flicker, hardly noticeable against the throbbing of my self-hatred. It was sheer force of will that was separating me from a mental breakdown. I could practically hear it, my vision of her in the soft golden light splintering under the weight of what was.
I wasn't aware of my entire frame shaking, until the nurse leaned forward, her hand patting lightly. "Just a few more minutes until we're there, sweetie."
Until we're there. To the place where I was being sent to get better, though I knew damn well there was no getting better. There was no getting over this. There was no silencing the misery that crept in through the back of my thoughts. There was no cure to the self-hatred that had already left white scars snarling up the insides of my hidden arms. The place where the unlabeled van was taking me was only a barrier from what I really wanted. What I really craved. The only coherent thought besides my drowning despair and hitched forgotten memories was the will to die. I wanted to fucking die.
It was supposed to be me.
The ripping pain that I had tried to silence over the past month was menacing, mangling my resolve with one quick swipe. I gave in, letting my head topple into my bleeding palms as I yanked them out from under me. A sob racked down my spine, and my lip pulled up with the uncontrollable agony that plagued my every cell. The nurse moved closer, her hand sliding to my back so that she could comfort from a new angle. Something was muttered from her lips, but I was unfamiliar with anything other than the torture that was dragging me to the hell where I belonged.
I ached for another razor, I ached for the mint walls of the memory that I was ignoring. I ached for the embrace of my mother's arms as she told me everything was going to be okay. I ached for my father's support, a light squeeze of the hand, and his knowing eyes telling me that I was stronger than all of this.
I fucking ached for them, and nothing was going to make that better.
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