Diary Of A Murderess [Completed]

Section Two - The Suicide Note Writer

Carefully, I turned the notebook over in my hands, the hands with all that blood and the lives of others on them. It was time that I told my tale. Maybe no one would ever read this, but I needed to write down what had happened. Stroking the red leather with my fingertips, I opened the notebook and began to write in my signature forest-green pen.

 

 “I was eighteen when it first started, when I first felt it. My name was Casey O’ Hara and I lived as an adoptive child in Dublin. My uncle came home from the pub late, beer on his breath and the stench of stale vomit hanging in an aura around his clothes. He had been miserable for the past two years, drinking his way through the sorrow of the death of his favourite nephew. That wasn’t all he’d drunk away though; our allowance, our home, my security and our whole lives were also in the metaphorical bottle, ready to be tipped back at the next wave of melancholy that overtook him. Because he thought Sam’s death was his fault.

 

Yet this particular night was different. My uncle’s pub mate walked through the door after him. A garbled conversation took place, so slurred that I could barely understand it. However, I could feel the emotions in it. Anger, frustration, and fury, undermining their friendship to eventually create fallout. My uncle laughed sarcastically, spitting out a distorted comeback. This turned out to be a mistake.

 

The hand reached out so fast that I didn’t see it coming, didn’t realise what was happening until it was too late. Instead, I just stood there, drowning in my own powerlessness, unable to stop this so called ‘friend’ strangling my uncle until he fell to the floor. I never found out what they were arguing about until later. Me.

 

The knowledge I possessed showed me that my uncle wanted me to leave home, to build my own life and not have to try and survive under his heavy, woebegone shadow. But at the time of the event, I had no idea why this would cause arguments. With anyone. It was none of their business, and I wasn’t connected to them in any way.

 

The friend advanced towards me, his mumbled speech almost unintelligible. “You don’t want to leave here, do you sweetheart?” His hand reached out and stroked my cheek roughly. “Come here, beautiful. Show your uncle that you love old Jimmy here as much as he loves you.” Ugh, no. I stepped backwards, afraid, as he opened his arms, ostensibly for me to step into them.

 

Jimmy advanced, scaring me more now. “Honey, you mustn’t be afraid. Now, come here.” His voice was getting angrier, more insistent. My voice rang out, shaking, but clear.

        “No.” At my response, his hand reached out and smacked my cheek.

        “Oops. Wrong answer sugar.” This incensed me. I was not going to be flirted with by this man - twice my age - who had just strangled my adopter. Still, he continued: “You can’t leave. You saw what real life did to Sam, honey. You’re not ready for that pressure yet.” Yes, I did see what real life did to Sam. Convinced him to leave me behind with only a suicide note in replacement of my lifelong friend and protector. But that wasn’t the world’s fault. It was my uncle’s. And I would’ve left this place a long time ago if I’d had a choice. Still, how dare he bring Sam O’ Hara into this mess? This comment fed the flames of my fury rather than extinguishing them.

 

Irate, I pulled back my arm and, with all the force I could muster, punched him in the temple. On impact, it smashed my thumb, which made a nasty cracking sound, but in my anger, I kept pummeling him until I had made a sizeable dent in his head. He screamed and insulted me with his last dying breath. Then old Jimmy’s eyes went still.

 

Alarmed, I jumped over his still body to my uncle who, to my relief, was still breathing, just unconscious. He would be all right. I slumped into the armchair opposite him, nursing my broken thumb. Something ran through me and I realised that it was a surge of power, from ending someone else’s life; that power rush that was already addictive. Then I grabbed my pen and proceeded as well as I could now that one of my digits was no longer functional, to write Jimmy a suicide note of his own. Say hello to Sam for me, old man.

 

The next morning, my uncle woke to find that not only had he lost his voice, but that his best friend was lying on the floor, dead, next to him, and his second adoptive child was now gone.”

 

 I closed the book, the thumb that had never properly healed aching after writing so much.