A Light in the Dark

Chapter 1

TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

Maybe she should just do it already. There was no point in going on. No one would care, no one would even know that she wasn't there anymore. It would probably take a few days or even weeks for them to discover what she had done. Maybe it would be her landlord who would get suspicious because the rent wasn't getting paid anymore. She had never been late to pay him rent. He would surely notice.

She stared at the bottle of pills that was standing on the table in front of her. The solution to all of her problems. She had researched everything carefully. There were other methods, of course, but this one seemed like the easiest. Or the least messiest. It depended on the way you looked at it, she supposed.

What was there left to lose? Why was she hesitating? She had no one. Her parents would probably be glad that she wasn't around anymore. The last time, she had seen them, was at her high school graduation. It was the stupidest thing, she had ever done, to finally come out to them. What had she been thinking?

She angrily clenched her fists. She had been naive to assume that her parents would love her regardless of her sexuality. They had never really paid attention to her, other than nodding approvingly at the straight A's she had brought home. But, God forbid, had it been anything less.

No one at her school had ever understood either. She had been the nerd. The geek. The buzz kill. No one wanted to spend time with the teacher's pet, except to copy her homework or to let her do all the work in group projects.

But it wasn't their fault. It was her own. She had always been shy. Too afraid to speak up, too afraid to socialize. Just the thought of being in the cafeteria with all of the other students had been too agonizing for her. Instead she had just hidden in the bathroom. It was better to be alone than to be unwanted.

It hadn't helped her that she soon started to notice another difference between her and the other girls. They were obsessed with boys. In the changing rooms all they had ever talked about were the football players in their school or some famous singers or actors. They had talked about how hot they looked and had daydreamed about them.

But not her. She had only ever admired the cheerleaders, never the jocks. It were the famous girls and women that she daydreamed about. But she accepted that about herself. She was a lesbian and there was nothing wrong with it.

Her parents saw it differently. They had been furious. There had been screams and tears, hurtful insults and desperate pleading. But she had held her head up high, knowing that she had been born this way, that she couldn't change. The result had been the packed suitcases in her car after a frosty goodbye from her parents and a tearful hug from her little sister Sofi.

That had been over a year ago. She had moved to New York City, trying to build up a new life. It was hard; harder than she had imagined. During the day, she went to college and, in the evening, she worked shifts as a waitress in a crappy diner. It was a shitty job, but she needed every penny she could get. NYU was expensive and, without her parents' financial support, she was struggling to pay for her tuition and rent. There was no way she could go on like this for another year or even a month. It wasn't worth it. Nothing was worth it.

She had thought that it would get better after high school. That she would finally make some friends. Something that she had yearned for all those years. But no, it was just as lonely. Soon after the first few days, people had formed their groups of friends and she was left alone. Again. She couldn't get over her social awkwardness and start talking to some stranger. And now it was too late. She doubted that anyone, other than a few of her professors, even knew she existed.

She tilted her head to the side and looked at the bottle of pills. This could end her miserable life. No, not end. It would release her. Maybe it would make her parents proud again. They wouldn't have to be ashamed to have a lesbian as their daughter anymore. And Sofi? She didn't know how her little sister would react. But maybe she had already moved on. Who knew what their parents had told her? What kind of lies they had fed her? Maybe she resented her too. Maybe she even hated her.