[Trigger Warning]
> Suicidal Tendencies & Ideation
I haven't felt like this in ages.
A year, maybe? It's nostalgic, in a way. My mind is racing through seven-thousand shades of nothing. There's nothing to think about, but I think about the nothing anyway, over and over.
The blankness in my head gives me anxiety, and my hands feel jittery. They reach for something that hasn't been here in a million years. My fingers ache for someone who was never close enough.
The house constricts around me, and I fold in on myself. The whole world is this room, and this room is as small as a trunk, as small as my skin. My skin crawls, too tight, and I throw off the blankets, breaking from the too-small in a way that feels like violating someone else's privacy.
I pull myself back in again, now shivering.
The storm rages outside. I can hear the wind howling beyond the window, probably covering the entire city in a foot-tall layer of snow and ice.
I wonder if he's happy. I wonder if he's with someone new, who told him, "I love you, too" when he said he loved them, who kissed him at the end of their first date. And maybe he didn't know that they were the one at the end of that first date, but he knew that they were better than someone like me, better than someone who didn't know what they wanted until it was gone.
Gone. I haven't missed him in months, but I've run out of distractions and he came rushing back. The ocean disappeared and I went looking for it. The tsunami came crashing down on my head and, god, my heart is breaking. I can't hardly breathe.
I wonder if he's okay. He wasn't, when he left. He was so sad, so lost. We both were. We were both so lost and I should've grabbed his hand when he offered it to me, because now I'm alone.
The crushing loneliness. It always returns. When I think about it, the room gets smaller yet, a snake squeezing my lungs, forcing the tears out of my eyes.
"Aedin, how are you?" Paul asked in the phone call this morning.
"I'm good!" I had said.
Fucking liar. Liar, liar, liar. Paul's been so good to you, he's been your friend even though you're insufferable, and you bold-faced lied to him. Through your teeth. You're sobbing, now, you can't be 'good.'
Liar.
Quit fucking crying, no one cares.
I hiccup, gasping in, a stab of pain shooting down my throat at the incompatible motions.
It's been so long since... anything. Anything, at all. Since anything. I miss him so much it hurts.
I reach over and tap my phone, squeezing the sides of it to activate speech-to-text.
This is dumb. He's never picked up. Not even once.
"Call Arthur," I say, despite that fact. Despite the fact that there's no reason he would pick up this time, either.
Click.
"Hello?"
Someone sucks the breath out of my lungs.
"Hel-..." I start, sitting up. I wipe my face and clear my throat. "Hello?"
There's a really, very long pause. I can't hear a thing, just static, wind, something like that. And then,
"Hey, yeah. Who is this? I just got a new phone."
"A new phone? What happened to the old one?"
"It... broke."
I swallow. "How long ago?"
"About a year ago. I haven't been... able to replace it.."
"So that's why you weren't answering? Not because you hated me?"
"Aedin?"
"I missed your voice so much..."
"You tried to call me?" A pause. More frantic, "You tried to call me?"
"Yeah. So... So many times. Over and over, for a week or two."
"I-... I don't..." He sounds like he's choking.
"Are you okay?"
"I just.. I just found out how to be... okay. I just figured it out. I just started to love the world again, and myself, and now... you...? Why? Why is it always you?"
"What?"
"Why is it always you, that ruins everything just as it starts to get better?"
I think I might die.
I think I might pass out.
I smash my fingers against the screen, eventually finding the button to hang up, and shove the phone away, hard, hearing it hit against the open door and plop onto the floor.
I'm going to die. Right here, right now, and who would miss me? Not a soul. Nobody.
My fingers ache for someone who's never been so far away. My hands grip my biceps, my shoulders, the crest of shoulder to neck, I feel my hands around my throat. They move almost on their own, but it's me. It's my choice.
It's my choice. The phone rings and I ignore it.
This is my choice. When I die, and how. That's mine.
It's a similar sensation as it was the first time I tried, in the car. Fading mind, fading strength.
My fingers lose the ability to press down hard enough and I release, letting my arms fall to either side.
Weak.
Coward.
Go get a rope.
I don't. I don't move. My head is spinning, my throat aches. The phone rings for the tenth time.
I ignore it. Even as my phone reminds me, it's Arthur calling. Arthur's calling, and I ignore it. He calls, again and again.
I don't want to hear his voice. Not ever again. My heart is scattered in pieces across the bedsheet. I'm covered in an old wound torn open fresh.
I want to die.
The phone rings again.
It stops.
It doesn't ring anymore.
I sigh in relief.