saving me

Trigger warning: suicide

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

My feet wobbled as I neared the edge of the cliff. Tucking a loose strand of my damp hair aside, I viewed the abyss down. Nothing could be seen, everything was so blank engulfed in mist and fog, besieging the terrain below it from unostentatious perception.

Why was I doing this?

A single tear slid down my cheek, letting me out a small whimper. The thought was sickening and it made my stomach roil in arbitration. It was unlike me to be so...rebellious.

Rebellious because I was neglecting the very reality of my sole existence in this world of wrath and fury, and empowering myself to be tangled in its web. No, I wasn’t being serious. I was definitely allowing my mind to take the control over my emotions, without a permit. If I had the strength to get past that, I would have but not owing to the feelings for my deceased mom and a heartbroken dad. 

Because I needed a reason to censure my actions.

I inched another step forward, keeping myself in balance. Or, so I thought. I was waiting for my body to react before I ever aspired to live.

Why was I doing this?

Is it because I hated them calling me names that I was never supposed to hear? Or, know? I tried my best to pull my heart away from their talks and live that life I loved the most. 

But I was crumbling inside.

The wind dashed past me with humongous fervor that I almost ceased in my stand. My heart always felt like it was in an iron grip, unable to make out sentiments and marshal them. But now, it had hammered against my chest as I clutched onto my pinafore, forcing me to tremble in fear.

Lone mountains could be traced out plainly through the layer of mist that formed a shield, athwart me. They stood peacefully, silencing out very ounce of voices, and yet it was taunting. I almost felt like I could relate to their permanence. In a sanity that I would never move, even when people ascended on me.

I gazed downwards once more, letting in all the morose vehemence. 

My body ached in pain and protested me to back away. One more step and I would see my life end before me. It would take less than a second and all I could hope was that it could be worth it. 

But isn’t this all I ever wanted, to die in a quick agony? 

I squeezed my eyes shut and chewed on my trembling lips, striving to retain my quivering body in equilibrium. I helped myself to reflect back memories that always held inside my brain as a nightmare.

Mom left me alone with an alcoholic father who never cared about his older daughter. She was all I had as a sibling, and sometimes I pondered if she never existed to go through all my father’s addiction and the impacts of it on her. Maybe the Lord of the heavens was viewing her from a distance, thinking it was time she came back to him.

That was the one solicitude that kept me asleep, even when her screams woke me up many a time.

But that was not it. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have trusted Tristan to keep my family secret, after all, he broke up with our ‘penny for a thought’ friendship. But somewhere along my cynical thoughts, I knew I coveted someone else to help me out. Because he was there with me all through middle school, and why would someone of my naivety think that he would never accompany me through highschool? 

I should have known he didn’t like me.

Maybe I should have joined the Press Club, ignoring Nancy’s malicious words about them. She was realistically a goddess in front of everybody eyes, but when a loner like me gets a friend like her, my gullibleness took control again. But little did I know she would cause a wildfire that couldn’t be ceased. 

I should have known she faked everything. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have slept when the cramps got to me. But Esme wanted me to be happy and know that the pain would subside. How would he ever know what we girls were going through? It’s not like we wanted to be in this position, we were here because if not for us, the men wouldn’t be here. And yet, why did I become an object of satisfaction for the others? 

I loved him, but I didn’t love him so much as to leave him. 

Roars could be heard from behind, distant ones but they still got my stomach-churning. I fought the urge to double over and give in to the nausea. Was I being so predictable about this? I would never kill myself, will I? 

Dense clouds parted revealing a plain blue sky with soaring birds. Red-tailed hawks were common in the wild, and many a time they were hunted down due to their delicate habits of destroying poultry. I found them fascinating creatures that never invaded in our territories, unless you vexed them. But isn’t that all that humans do? To erase the glory of a family, I mean.

I remember owning a rabbit that hardly spoke any language. He hated carrots, which was weird. But he loved eating pellets and grass feeds that had high sucrose content. The way he nibbled on the food, alternately sniffing it every five seconds and finally chewing on it like it was something that couldn’t be swallowed. I always wondered where he had gone that night. Did he find the cage that dad bought suffocating? Or did he dislike the song I sang for him? I never knew the answer, for I never saw him again. He ran into the wild, never halting to kiss me goodbye. 

All I could hope was that he never ended up in the hands of a blood-curdling hunter.

I forced myself to think again as I heard a rustle of the leaves. The wind was carrying currents in a light whistle and the low hums of hummingbirds could be heard in harmony. 

Forcing another step, shutting out the world that lay like an endless tunnel in front of me, I decided to take a leap. My heart pounding and curling itself into folds, my head being light as a feather, as my body acted gruesomely, my mind appalled with a newfound turmoil, I found my life flashing before me in an endless loop that I never knew, would later become my nightmare. 

Instead of falling down into the abyss stretched as far as the sea, I felt like a bird as an arm draped around my waist and threw me flying backward.

I landed with a thud and pain coursed through my nerves, tangling them into a million knots. Spine-chilling pulse throbbed hard in my chest as my lungs burned with fury. Even though all that, three words swirled in my brain. 

I was alive.

“What are you doing?” A voice, all too familiar, yelled. Before I could move a muscle, those warm hands that once melted with me, pulled me up slowly and closer to him.

Leon Kennedy. 

My vision transmuted from blurry to normal, and I could see his face looming over mine. Those hazel orbs that were always lit, was flickering in desperation. I fell for him the moment I saw him at school that day. Cute, was all that I could say when his cheeks formed lopsided dimples every time they smiled. But I never thought he would love me for who I was and not for the nerdy Jane that people crowned me as. 

“God damn, Jane!” he spoke, his face glistening in the dim light that encompassed the surroundings. “You are one kind of crazy.” 

I fought back tears but I couldn’t help my pent up feelings. They brimmed up my eyes and I bit my lower lip to help myself from trembling like a frightened cat.

“How…” I lingered off causing a wave of nausea to cross my mind. 

“Mrs Summers said that you wanted some sort of remedy,” he sighed, flipping his obstinate bangs in a neat hand gesture. “Even though you never gave into the conversation, she is a mother. And mothers know their kids the best. So she assumed you were depressed.” 

I went to her the previous day, asking for a reason to live alone rather than be with others. She told me everything takes time to nurture and feel like everything is part of this world. Instead of staying with people that change over time and find everything too tiresome, it was better to be with mother nature that gifts us abundantly. She was right about it. Why make yourself feel like a burden for someone else, and rather why not give yourself away to nature? That would have been pretty and I could have my deep slumber, alone and away from this torturing mindsets.

“Seriously,” he sighed again, “I never thought you were suicidal. When did you start having thoughts like this? I mean, come on! We had ice creams yesterday, and did you not like the flavor?”

I frowned at his playfulness, and silently hoped that he stayed like this. I wanted to spend some more time with him, that was the whole reason I agreed to go with him for the evening. Then later, in the morning, he would find me in the news headlines, and at least that could make him give up on my life and move on with another girl, way more precious than me.

“You didn’t think that I would leave you, did you?” he said as he pulled me in even closer, our noses touching. “If there is one thing I love in the world, then God help me, it’s you.”

I nodded, swallowing the guilt that laid at the tip of my tongue. “I…”

“No, no, it’s okay.” he smiled, his fingers slowly rubbing my wet cheeks. “I was worried about you...I thought I would never see you again when I didn’t find you in the class. But...here we are and I found you…”

He did, precisely. I thought I would never find the old Jane in me, so he chose to bring it back when fear paralyzed me. 

Cuddling me even closer, his breath fanning against my face, he leaned in and whispered the very words I wanted to hear, “I love you, Jane.”

Being here with him and encompassing myself in his warmth, I felt even weak. Almost as if I never deserved all this love.

When did I feel so powerless? Yeah, you got the answer.