Morose ✔️

25

I stared at the date. And the clock— it kept ticking, even though it felt like time stood still.

It had been a whole year. Exactly one year since my dad decided it was time for him to go. Since he left me and my brother without a note. Without a goodbye. With so many questions I still had no answer to.

I woke up feeling all sort of things, from anger to sorrow, to happiness that I'd made it through the year, until the black hole started swallowing me again.

The never ending darkness grew bigger with every tick, more tempting with every second closer to the one-year mark of the phone call that changed everything.

It started as a silent whisper in the back of my head, but after sitting on the edge of my bed alone for an hour, the voice in my mind was getting louder and louder. "It's all your fault," it said, "It's all your fault and you don't deserve anything of the good you've had this past year. You're nothing. You're worthless. You're shit. And you know it. You should join him in death, see him again and tell him you're sorry for not reaching out, and for not joining him sooner."

The voice was my own, but angry and sad and empty. Like an echo filling the void inside my mind.

It was like a siren's call, trying so hard to convince me to let go of the tiny branch I was still holding on to at the edge of the hole. It was ready to swallow me, and for the first time in so long, I felt like I wanted to let go, and let it swallow me. It seemed nice right about then, to get out and just stop feeling, I mean. Stop the hurt.

I wasn't supposed to wake up alone, I wasn't supposed to be alone at all, really, but I insisted. I didn't want to see anyone, talk to anyone or be with anyone, and they all respected it. But as I sat there, staring at the ticking clock, I regretted it. I wished Helix sat behind me with his arms and legs around me, his soft lips kissing my neck and shoulders, while he just let me... feel. I wished Jesse was humming some annoying song out in the living room, that he was ordering pizza for lunch and making fake, disgusted noises to tease us for our affection.

But none of them were there.

I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. I wanted to scream, but my lungs hurt too much. I wanted to feel nothing, but I felt everything. Sorrow and pain and suffering and stress. My own voice echoed through my head again and again with the same words as before: "You're worthless, you should just let everyone else out of their misery and die already."

When I felt so much, so hard, I was convinced my friends and family thought of me as a burden. There was always something wrong, always something weighing me down one way or another, threatening to ruin everything at all times, and it was tiring for me, so of course it was tiring for them.

So... I swallowed and decided. If I was to do this, what better day than the one-year anniversary of my dad's decision?

I'd thought of it before, of course. After everything seemed to be okay, I thought that this day would be my relief. I'd picked it about six months ago, just in case I wanted it. I planned it all silently, but never thought I'd go through with it.

Not really.

I pushed myself up off the bed and walked over to the closet to find my clothes for the day— my last day. I found my rose-patterned top, my Wolves-jacket with my name and the rose bush attached to it, and a pair of jeans. It would have to do.

Through the whole day I tried my best to figure out how I could tell people. How I could let them know it wasn't any of their faults like it was mine last year, and like I struggled with for a whole year. I couldn't. I only cried every time I started to write, but I wouldn't wish it upon anyone to know I decided to do this, but didn't leave a note.