Suicide pact

Every Friday, my parents cook the most delicious turkey that has ever existed on Earth. They use natural ingredients that I have never heard of before. Every time they make it, I ask them for the recipe. They just never tell me. Instead, they looks at me with a smile mixed with sadness and joy, and tell me that one day, when their time has come to pass, they will tell me. Tell me the Secret Ingredient. This is the routine that happens every week, every Friday.

Little do they know that their time will be my time too.

Although I know that my parents won’t tell me the recipe, I give it another shot. Walk up to them, give them my best smile, take their hands, and ask. But they already know what I am going to say. They grin and shakes their heads, nodding towards my room sending me the message to get ready for bed.

I sigh and slump towards my room. I stop in front of my door. The door is decorated with pictures from my favorite band. The picture on the very left makes me smile. It’s the picture of my favorite band member making a silly face. I laugh dreamily and stare into his brown eyes.

But I’m not the only one laughing.

Soon enough, my older brother Luke is pounding me on the back and laughing. Not really a nice laugh, either.

”Lola, you’ve got to stop this.” He chokes out.

”Stop what?” I demand, my brows furrowed.

”Stop joking around with your pictures. It’s too funny to handle.”

I raise my eyebrows high and stare at him long and hard. Finally, I shoot him a glare and step into my room. I don’t forget to slam the door right into his laughing face.

See, this is the reason I need to get away from my family. My brother. He is so annoying, you wish that you weren’t born. And I don’t. Yes, I am killing myself because of my brother. It was either this or run away, but if you run away, you just get kidnapped and killed anyway, so what’s the difference?

Once safely in my room and my brother gone, I sneak into my closet and pull out the small but strong bulletin board that I got from my grandmother on my birthday. I forgot to check yesterday’s square on the calendar, so I will do it with today’s. I take the white chalk I have been using the past month out of the box that it was in and slash 2 white lines next to the others.

When done, I carefully put everything back in my closet and lie on my bed. Breathing slowly, I run down the suicide plan in my mind.

When I come back to my room from brushing my teeth, something in the room is different. The lights are off. Did Mom come in here? Dad couldn’t, because he‘s in Miami for work. Oh no. What if my brother came in here? I try to shrug it off and crawl under my covers. The whooshing of the wind outside quickly drowns me in my sleep, and all my thoughts are lost.

The next morning, I get up late. I quickly eat breakfast and get ready for school. I arrive at school on time, but I’m still worried about the lights turned off yesterday. Someone must have went into my room, did something, and forgotten that the lights had already been on when they went in.

My worried look must be severe because Angie, my best friend, asks me if I am alright at lunch.

”Oh? I’m fine. I’m fine.” I reply.

Her head is cocked to the side, and she studies me closely. I try to give her a brief smile and shrug it off. This is a good idea, because Angie knows that my shrugs are all truthful and intentional. I feel so bad, though, for betraying and lying to my friend even though she can help me get out of this mess. I remind myself that some things are meant to be dealt with alone and individually. But I still feel bad, so before the lunch bell rings, I ask her if she wants to come over and her face lightens. She tells me of course.

When school ends, we meet up at our usual spot near the gate and start to walk towards my house. We talk about the usual things; hallway gossip, grades, and boys. When we get to my house, we watch a movie and make slime, which fortunately takes my mind off things. Before Angie leaves, she hugs me tight and whispers into my ear that she knows something is wrong and that she can help me anytime with it. She tells me that I am never alone. If only that were true.

Even after our time together, Angie and I only used up 3 hours of our time. I still have 1 hour left to chill. I get bored, so I decide to slash today’s mark earlier than usual and head into my closet. When I pull out the bulletin board, though, all the tally marks are gone. I’m so shocked that I gasp out loud.

”What? I-I-I, what?” I stutter.

I was not going to let this go. If someone had done this, only my brother could. My mother wouldn’t do such an evil thing. But if my brother had read the notebook, then he would know that he was being such a pain. I wait until he comes home from work and confront him.

It did not work as well as I thought, though.

He convinces me that I cant kill myself becasue of one person. That I need more bad things in my life to hate myself enough and kill myself.

We sort it out and he swears to not be much of a pain anymore. I guess some things are meant to be dealt with by talking and not action.

I have learned my lesson.