Peace

"Please, don't do it."

        My body freezes when I hear that voice. I didn't expect that person to say those words to me, out of all people. I always assumed they didn't care about my existence. They never spoke to me since we were finishing up middle school.

        I lower the knife from its position at my lower ribs and turned around to see my cousin, Lauren, standing on the other side of the main hall, looking at me with anger and fear.

"What do you care?" I asked, my voice cold and rough. "You never wanted to be seen around me when we're here during school hours. What's changed?

       She hesitated when I spoke. She's never heard my voice like this or even seen this expression of anger on my face before. She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. When she opened them again, she had a reprimanding look in her eyes that just infuriated me more.

"This isn't the answer, Patty," she began in a calm tone. "Killing yourself would just hurt the people who care about you, including me. Just let me take you home and we can talk this out. Like we used to as kids. You liked to do that, right? We can start that up again, and I promise I'll listen to every word."

"Talk it out?" I start quietly. "We haven't talked since you stopped responding to my letters two years ago! I was so worried. I almost stopped five months in, but I couldn't do that to you. I decided to continue writing and sending them all this time, thinking you would be happy at least you had those letters to think of me.

"When I found out you were coming back from Kansas, I was so happy. My best friend will be back and I'd be able to finally have someone to talk to at home and at school. Hoping I could ask you for help! But no… As soon as you got back, you pushed me away and told me to never talk to you when we were at school or at home unless I absolutely had to. I was hurt, but I still kept hoping you would at least say hi to me. Nothing!

"And just when I decided to just leave this place, NOW you want to talk? Do you honestly think I would let you help me now!?!"

"I didn't know you were being bullied in school, Lauren! You never wrote about it in your letters and-"

"Yes, I did."

        She looks at me in surprise when you interrupted her with those words. I looked back with both anger and sadness in my eyes.

"I did write about the bullying. I also wrote to you about how my mom didn't care as long as I didn't ruin her 'reputation' by getting called to the office or causing problems with the other students. Or my dad calling me a weakling because I don't 'fight back' when the football team treats me like trash. I wrote about every little thing that's been happening in my life so you wouldn't miss it. Just like I promised you."

        By the shocked and guilty look on her face, I realized something. Something I wish I was wrong about. She couldn't have gone that far. She promised that she would read every letter I sent her.

"You stopped reading the letters, didn't you?"

        Her cringing and looking at her shoes after I said this is all the confirmation I needed to know I am right and my heart sank even more.

"How long?"

"What?" She looked up at me in confusion.

"How long has it been since you've stopped reading my letters, Lauren?"

        She looks away from me again and replies under her breath, "Since July of last year."

        My birth month. She hasn't read my letters since MY BIRTH MONTH?

"And you have the audacity to say that you care about me? You don't know what's been happening to me for over a year!"

"I'm sorry, okay?" Lauren yells back at me. "I'm sorry I stopped reading about your crappy life, but I was having my own problems."

"Like what? What could have been so bad that you stopped talking to me for two years?"

"My own life, Patty! I had to start fresh when I moved to Kansas. New school and no friends! I was alone! I had to work for months until I got back to the status that I had here. I had no one to help me!"

"You had the others! You had moved in with grandma and the rest of the family lived over there. I had NOBODY! Just my abusive parents. So you know what I ended up doing? GIVING UP! Yes, I gave up on any chance of getting help from anyone. How could I if everyone treated me like dirt? So screw you, Patty! Screw the kids at school and screw my parents. SCREW EVERYONE! I'm just DONE, Lauren."

"So that's it? You're just going to kill yourself? How selfish can you be?"

"'Selfish'? You think I'm being selfish? Go look in the mirror before you call people that, Lauren. I was never the one that was selfish."

       She freezes in shock. Not believing that I would call her out on her crap like that. She didn't think anyone would notice. Ever since she came back home, she was always demanding things from everyone. Whining like a child to my parents and her own, who gave her everything she ever wanted. She had no right to call others selfish.

"If you want to preach to me about selfishness, Lauren, then you have to acknowledge your own first," I spoke out. I was just so tired now. She would never understand.

        With my piece said, I picked up the knife and quickly plunged it as hard as I could straight into my heart. The pain was swift. Just as quickly pull the knife back out and drop it on the ground next to me with a loud clang echoing in the hallway. I fall to the ground quickly and land with my back hitting the ground hard. I look up to the sky since our school's main hallway ceiling is glass. The sky looks beautiful all of a sudden.

       I close my eyes and a small smile forms on my lips. I feel a sense of peace going through my body.

        The last thing I heard was Lauren screaming desperately the first words she spoke to me tonight.

"PLEASE DON'T DO IT!"