What I Would Say

I always thought that I knew how to deal with people. I knew how to apologize. I knew how to thank. However, when it comes to a moment like this when I can’t do either, it leaves me at an emotion that I thought was nearly impossible for myself to be plagued with: speechless.

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they know what it’s like to be alone, to be on their own. Unfortunately, there are some people who just feel like that all the time. It’s a hopeless stage, when you believe that no one rightfully cares and those who do care are just doing it for their own personal gain.

I have always loved the idea of New York. I, apparently, had been there as a child before I could start remembering my life. Sometimes, I want to go back to that stage, the time where I could not remember and could not reflect and no longer had to lie about what I knew, for I knew nothing.

I had returned to New York at fourteen years of age. Still troubled, for that is something that one can never truly rid, and still bothered. I was still the same old fucked up kid with the urge to run away and skeletal closets and scars on arms that never truly seem to fade.

I planned on doing it on that trip.

I planned on dying.

I planned on laying on the damn subway tracks on the last night that my school group was staying in the city of dreams, the city of dreamers, and the city that never sleeps.

Ironic, right? Going to the city that never sleeps just to never wake up.

I owe somebody. I would say that I owe them my life, but I don’t know how to handle that truth.

But I owe them an apology and I owe them a thank you.

I was, and still am, one of those kids who don’t open up. The kids that are compulsive liars that just want to cover up what they’ll never tell. There was just too much inside that no one knew; after all, all who knew were either dead or gone. I would finally be able to join the fate of those whom I had once trusted.

I planned on doing it the final night; in my mind, I had a free pass to do all that I wanted, to see all I could, to say whatever I felt, because it wouldn’t matter. I would be gone soon.

When you spend your ‘free-time’ cutting in your hotel bathroom and three other roommates don’t notice, you begin to doubt that anyone will notice anything anymore. So on that one particularly shitty night that we were going to work on a group project with our group members, I decided to go for one last attempt to see if there was a single soul that actually cared.

Fuck lying.

I remember that we were by the bar, sitting on the chairs in the lobby, talking about the movie project. I had heard him say the words that I had heard for the billionth time in my life. “You okay?”

But, for the first time in my life, I decided not to lie. “No; actually, not really.”

I had told him that I had a shitty day. I asked him to be my ‘psychiatrist’ for the night. It was a test. I knew that he would decline, like everyone else. He would just return to the sea of common people with common denial of the troubles the plagued everyone.

But he agreed.

He said he’d listen.

We moved across the lobby.

I tested him again. “You can’t want to do this. I don’t think you’ll think I’m normal after this.”

He told me to try him.

I pushed it to the limit. I lifted up my sleeve, asking, “Are you sure?”

He looked at the cuts, little did he know, from earlier that day, but still agreed.

Over the next few hours, I told him a lot. I told him what I was scared of and what I really wanted to do with my life, all excluding what I was planning on doing. He cared, though.

I don’t know why, but he cared.

I told him what I didn’t like about myself and what I didn’t like about life and why I loved the people I did and my theories on existence, and he still cared.

And he kept listening.

I don’t know why, but he kept listening.

“You care too much.”

That was my diagnosis.

I care too much.

Do I?

He said that he cared too much, too.

And I, being as selfish as I am, didn’t touch on it. I didn’t tell him that I didn’t believe that someone so kind could have a fatal flaw. I didn’t ask why he believed that. I didn’t request an explanation as to how he came to that conclusion.

Being as selfish as I am, I kept talking about myself.

I don’t think I ever opened up as much as I did that night, to a person that I was merely an annoying girl to. He was almost three years older than me, and yet, he still sat through the entire night with an emotionally strained, overdramatic teenager that had no one to talk to.

I had the note ready.

Dammit, Creighton, I had everything planned.

The note explained that the school was not associated with my suicide. That the teachers shouldn’t have been held liable and that they couldn’t have done anything to help. It was my decision, and I would have gone through with it even if they had known what was going on. If they had tried to help, I still would have slipped through their fingers. The note said why I did it and my last words burned into it.

I had everything planned.

The note. The subway time. The actions I would make on that day.

I would tell Neewen to choose wisely. I would tell Bickel thank you. I would smile at Aaron and James and tell them to keep doing their thing. I would tell Raffie and Kara and Crissi that they will amount to greatness. I had something for Raffie, too. Something that she will probably now never see.

I would do it throughout the day, so no one would know something was up.

He messed it up.

He knew that I had tried to do this before, in addition to my lying to him, saying I wouldn’t ever try it again. I knew I wouldn’t have a chance of failing this time, though. Subway suicides were 97% successful.

He had actually thought of it before, too.

“I told myself to sleep on it. Think about it for at least a week.”

I had thought about it for months.

If there were two things I could say to him, I would say thank you for caring.

And I’m sorry.

I promised myself that I wouldn’t burden anyone with my issues. I didn’t tell him my life story. I didn’t tell him why I am the way I am. I just opened up. And he cared, in response. That means that I burdened him.

I need to thank him for caring, though. Even though I hate myself for making him do it, it still saved my life.

Whether or not he knows it.

Whether or not I want to acknowledge it.

I don’t know how to repay him. I doubt my five years of cutting will come to an end. I doubt I will never attempt to escape my life again. But, for that night, somebody cared. Somebody unknowingly ruined my plans.

So how do you apologize and thank someone who convinced you, even if it was for just one night, that you deserve to live just one more day?