Sometimes he saw that picture of himself from Wammy's and then looked in the mirror, only to see the reflection of a completely unrecognizable person staring back at him.
No matter how much he dug, he couldn't seem to find an ounce of the person he used to be. That stranger.
It was very odd, and he wasn't quite sure it was normal. Then again, what was normal anyway?
A meaningless standard set in place by people of ignorance. People who didn't realize how forgettable you were if you weren't different.
Though he knew he wasn't the good kind of strange.
He knew how the young, bright-eyed version of himself from his childhood would be so immensely devastated to see what he became, the depression he could never seem to outrun, the unbearable torment that every sunrise forced upon him, the way he'd beaten, battered and mangled.
He'd ruined his own life.
And no matter how much he convinced himself that he could start over, doubt would always catch up to him.
Did he really deserve a second chance?
Could he even find one?
He didn't know, and he was genuinely afraid of himself.
Afraid he'd do something else he would regret forever.
Afraid that he would do something he couldn't take back.
Other times he hated himself for all the mistakes he'd made, the people he'd hurt, and the disappointment he had been, to himself and to all the people who had only wanted the best for him.
It haunted him constantly, and sometimes he just wanted to end it all.
He just wanted to be happy and hopeful, like every young person should be.
But instead he was stuck in this steady state of Hell he had created for himself, trying to move forward but really just running in place.
Half of him wanted to keep trying to move forward. The other fifty percent just felt like it was time to give up.
That was the jaded half. The half of himself that always overpowered the other and fueled his self hatred as if it were coal or gasoline.
...Maybe he would go through with the plan Matt proposed.
He knew there was no getting out of it alive, but did he really even care anymore?