I'm gonna keep this short
This is a new thing for me, please be gentle
I've been working on the sequel for Work Things Out, but this idea wouldn't left my mind so I decided to turn it into a short one-shot
This will be very dark, very angsty and possibly triggering. Please know what you're getting yourself into before you read it.
Writing it was quite emotional, not only because the subject is extremely painful to read and write about, but I've experienced it too. Not this heavy luckily, not by far. I felt the need to write about it. Ally will share many traits with me in this story. Almost everything she says, is my opinion, my point of view, my view on life.
If you don't know what the title means, look it up. It makes sense.
TW: CONTAINS MENTIONS OF DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE
I remember the day we met like it was yesterday. We were assigned biology partners. The cliché way to meet. The first thing she said to me still lays fresh in my memory.
''I'm different than other girls.''
And she was. But not in the way she thought. She wore colourful beanies and shirts with bands I'd never heard of. She'd sometimes talk in lyrics I didn't recognize. Her chin was always up high, like she was trying to prove the world that she was superior.
''You don't get me.''
She was wrong.
The following days, I would get out of bed five minutes earlier than usual, so I could 'accidentally' bump into her on my way to school.
Her happy curls bounced lively while her tiny feet followed the tiles that were placed zigzag on the pavement so she wouldn't touch any lines as she kept her chin up high as ever.
Days, weeks passed as this unplanned get-together became something we both expected to do each morning. The smile on my face was undeniable as I watched the girl skip over the stones, her bubbly giggle never letting me down.
I couldn't stop myself from falling for her and she seemed to notice as she kept reminding me;
''I'm not the right girl for a boy like you.''
She was wrong
After a month, she let me take her out on a date, as long as I wouldn't call it one. So I only said the forbidden word in my head.
While nibbling on the breadsticks, she gave me new things to fall in love with, like her outspoken opinion on things only she could find worth arguing about.
''You know what's overrated? Apples,'' she spoke. ''And whipped cream. Except in combination with hot chocolate on cold days.''
I smiled at her as she thought of new things to add to her list.
''Oh, and hot beverages. Tea, coffee; they're not that great. Coffee is disgusting and tea is just hot lemonade. Besides, you burn your tongue at least twice in the experiment of drinking them right after making it, trying to find the ideal temperature, but failing. Then, you give up the fight and let them cool, only to forget about the beverage as a whole,'' she shook her head, seemingly trying to understand people who did like the drinks. ''Except for hot chocolate on cold days, which can or cannot be drunk in combination with whipped cream. Depends on my mood.''
I was about to comment on her rant when she seemed to remember something all of a sudden.
''You know what else is overrated?'' after waiting for her to contine, I shook my head in confusion before she simply stated her answer. ''Disney world.
''You think Disney is overrated?''
''Not Disney, the fantastic movies, characters and music,'' she replied bluntly, finding my conclusion absolutely ridiculous. ''Disney World, Disney Land, Disney freaking Universe, whatever there is left. All over-promoted. It's not half as good as Universal Studios.
When I told her that I did not know the named theme park, she happily led me through the day she went there a few years ago.
And, indeed, after a couple of minutes, I shared her opinion. Only based on story told experience, of course. It was one of her talents I had discovered.
After out food arrived and she attacked her chicken rice, another guilty pleasure she had, she made me the unconscious promise.
''One day, I'll take you to L.A. to let you experience it yourself.''
She was wrong
A month later, she finally agreed to call out weekly hangouts dates.
One time, she decided to take me somewhere, so I followed her, like I was willing to follow her anywhere in the world.
She took me to this huge oak tree in an abandoned field just outside town.
That's where we shard our first kiss after dancing around the trunk while humming our own background music.
She carved our initials in the wood, right under a thick branch.
I could notice the happiness in her eyes she tried to hide when she told me;
''I have a feeling you will be able to protect me from anything.''
She was wrong.
For our one year anniversary, I bought her a silver bracelet.
She would wear it day and night, showing everyone who wanted to see it with the biggest grin on her face, her chin high as always.
Another year later, we started talking about our future together. We had it all figured out.
''We will live happily ever after,'' she said.
She was wrong.
Not a long time after, she started to leave her coloured beanies at home.
Gradually, I saw her chin lowering until it almost laid flat on her chest, her shoulders sinking and her back crooked with it.
Her gaze was always on the ground from then on. So she could focus on putting her feet on the tiles more neatly, I thought. But she quit that habit too as she walked flat over the lines.
Every day I asked her what was wrong.
Every day she assured me she was just tired, thinking I would stop caring after a while.
She was wrong.
Weeks passed until she would refuse to wear short sleeves, even in the summer heat.
She was always cold, she stated. But, I saw when she fanned herself cool air with her hand when she thought nobody was watching and noticed the pears of sweat forming on her forehead.
Her fingers were always gripping the ends of the sleeves like her life depended on it.
The lyrics she used to talk in got sadder every day.
My phone calls started to get ignored and every offer to take her out, declined.
She thought pushing me away would make sure I wouldn't get hurt.
She was wrong.
One afternoon, a summer day of almost 90 degrees, we sat against our tree, her lower arms covered by a dark hoodie. That's when I took matter into my own hands.
''Show me your arms,'' I commanded.
''I don't want to,'' she replied cockily.
''I need to see your wrists.''
''I don't need you to tell me what to do.''
''If you love me, you show me you're okay or you let me help you.''
Silence.
''Fine, you wanna see my wrists? Here,'' she rolled up the black material to reveal the red lines. Her voice broke as she broke with it. ''Happy now?''
I couldn't say I didn't expect the sight of the dozen dark stripes that ran all over her lower arms, but I didn't say another word as I kept her in my arms for hours. Neither of us spoke until she handed me her pocket knife, the weapon of destruction she used, and told me to get rid of it.
''I'll get better,'' she whispered to me.
She was wrong.
It seemed like she improved for a few days, but he noticed the dark look returning in her eyes deliberately. The dark cloud that seemed to hang over the girl's head, made him want to be by her side every minute of the day, in order to try and make her feel better.
She had asked him, begged him, not to tell anyone, not even her parents. All she cared about was not bothering anyone with her problems.
I knew I shouldn't have listened to her, that I should've told anyone who could've helped her. But, at that time, it seemed the best thing to do.
So I kept silent. And she was thankful for it.
She swore she had stopped cutting, but the long sleeved shirts didn't disappear.
To hide the healing scars, she spoke. And I believed her.
One day, I ran into her at the drug store. After a quick greeting, she tried to run past me while hiding her shopping bag behind her back.
He didn't see the packs of cheap razors, she told herself.
She was wrong.
One day, when he finally succeeded to take her out again, he was driving to the cinemas when a deer appeared on the road.
With a stretched arm, he prevented the girl he loved from falling forward in the sudden stop.
She didn't say a word, but something about the silent stare full of tiredness made him believe she wouldn't have minded if she had crashed through the window.
In one of the last weeks of summer vacation before our senior year, she called me at four in the morning.
Crying, sobbing, barely pronouncing words.
Within two minutes, I was outside her window. I had climbed up multiple times, so she wasn't surprised when I opened the bathroom door without any warning.
She couldn't face me though, as she kept grazing the pink, rusty razor over the sensitive skin, reopening old scars and creating new ones while thick tears flowed freely.
I had to pull the tiny object from her weak grip, wrap a towel around her wrist until she finally fell against me powerlessly.
She told me she hadn't been sleeping for weeks.
That every night, on the stroke of two, she would break down.
That the bathroom floor had slowly turned into the place where she would spend the night.
I held her tight, cleaned her wounds and rubbed her back because that was the only thing I knew how to do.
I tried to kiss her to numb the pain, but her lips would refuse to move against mine.
That was the moment I knew I lost her.
''You can save me,'' she hoped out loud.
She was wrong.
I spent that night, and every following, with her.
Every night, I would stay awake to talk to her. Anything to prevent her from hurting herself.
At times, where I found himself waking up from a short nap caused by sleep deprivation, she wasn't lying next to him. That's when I found her, on the bathroom tiles, making another attempt to let the darkness that was hiding inside her, out.
Instead, she created more passages for more and more nightmares to enter through the cuts in her arms.
On nights I did manage to stay awake, I was silent as she talked about the whispers telling her to open her arms.
About looking at kids and hoping they would never turn out like her.
About how she hated herself when she found herself being sad about nothing again.
''I have everything I could ask for. Why do I feel like this all the time?''
''Ally, you're suffering from depression,'' I tried to make clear.
She shook her head determinedly. ''I'm not depressed, I'm just selfish.''
''Depression is a mental disease. It can sneak up on the happiest people,'' she wouldn't believe him, or she wanted to, but the voices in her mind refused to let her. ''I care so much about you.''
''You think you love me, but you don't. You love the thought that you can save me. You love the idea that society taught you; depression is a fairy tale and suicide is beautiful.''
''I love Ally Dawson, I have since I saw her and I will keep loving her forever.''
''I stopped being lovable a long time ago. You don't love me anymore.''
She was wrong.
Another night, she told me about the thoughts that had been running through her mind for quite a while.
That sometimes, she wanted to close her eyes and never open them again.
''Does it ever strike you how easy it is to kill yourself?'' I didn't answer the question as she kept staring straight forward, running her thumb over the skin that was struggling to heal.
''To accidently fall down the stairs. To not see a car coming or run onto a busy intersection. Or simply pull the steering wheel on the freeway,'' she starts to add up.
''I've started to find death in everyday things. It's scary that there are more ways than I thought and they aren't that far from my reach,'' she concludes.
''I love you more than you can imagine,'' I tried to comfort her because I did not know what to say.
''I used to say I wanna die before I'm old, but because of you I might think twice,'' she mumbles the words to the song that was familiar to me.
''Won't you stay alive? I'll take you on a ride. I will make you believe you are lovely.''
Surprised, she looked at him. ''You know Twenty One Pilots?''
''I decided to check them out since they really seem to mean a lot to you. I get it now.''
The singers mainly dealt with depression and sometimes even suicide in their songs. The fact that their songs were written with the goal, beside people to like them, to help people overcome it. He could understand how their music would help her deal with everything.
''I can stay alive for you,'' she told him softly.
She was wrong.
It's been a week since the funeral.
He's sending his car towards the destination, his eyes drifting to her picture he hang under his rear-view mirror.
He remembers himself waking up in her bed with the empty spot next to him that morning. His first impulse was to call her.
She picked up after the first dial tone, something he wasn't used to. He already knew something was wrong right then.
She immediately started talking about how much she loved him.
How lucky she was to have him, but the only thing that was going through his mind, was himself saying repeatedly ''No, no, no.''
When she mentioned their first kiss under the tree, he knew where he could find her, but also what she was planning to do.
And that he would never be on time. So he let himself fall down on her bed, his breath caught up in his throat.
He couldn't cramp a single word between her studied sentences.
Tears appear in the corners of his eyes when thinking about her last words, messing up his sight slightly, but he refuses to let them fall.
It would be easy to let them be the cause of a traumatic car crash, but he notices his car crossing the city's border and keeps driving.
She spoke her last revised sentence before he could picture her stepping off the stool, the rope cutting off her breath.
The big oak shows up in front of him as he takes a final look at Ally in the frame.
Speeding up, he takes off his seat belt while keeping his eyes on the tree.
They had removed the noose from the branch, he saw. She had chosen the thick one, hanging right above their carved signatures.
With one pull of the steering wheel, he exits the asphalt to drive onto the grass.
As he approaches the large, brown obstacle, he steps off the brake pedal decisively and closes his eyes.
''You can live without me. I know you can. You're stronger than I am,'' were her last words.
...
She was wrong.
If you recognize yourself in this story, talk to me about it
If you struggle with anything similar to this story, talk to me about it
If you know anyone who deals with this, talk to me about it
If you've been through this and you want to, talk to me about it
If you find my way of portraying this subject unrealistic or offensive, tell me
Whether it's in a review or a PM. Tell me any time
Thank you for reading