Disclaimer: I do not know any of the people associated with the band or TV show "Big Time Rush" and I am not the author of the song "Gloomy Sunday." The only thing that belongs to me are the words that I wrote. I do not make a monetary profit from this story or from any of the characters associated with it.
Author's Note: This is my first published fic! I've always been hesitant to publish my work, but those that I have read it to have loved it! I hope you do too! There are some things in here that may be controversial subject materials, but that was a warning. Suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and unrequited love are all present in this story. I hope that it doesn't offend anybody. This fic has a personal meaning to me because it was written during a time of my own struggles. Let me know what you guys think!
Gloomy Sunday
To whom it may concern:
Well, I'm finally doing it. I'm finally going to get my point across. I'm finally going to show everybody how I truly feel. People think I'm fine. I shrug off their concerns, of course, but that's beside the point. You could clearly see that something's wrong with me. You could always at least sit down to talk to me, to hear me out. You could hug me to let me know that everything's okay. You could let me know that you'll always be there for me, but no. You all go on with your day as if nothing were wrong with me. You're all dead wrong. I'm dying inside. I'm dying so badly that I have to force myself to go, even if I don't really want to. Is there truly anything keeping me here at all? They say that this is a selfish thing that I'm doing, but I have no choice but to do this. I have to. Please, excuse me if I jump around a bit here. Pardon me if my words don't make any sense. I'm just blindly writing whatever strokes the pen decides to put down on the paper. I'm not second-guessing a thing I put down.
Let's start off with the current scene here. I'm here alone with just Fox, sitting at the kitchen table. Things are tidy and kept like they always are. The only difference is that I can't stop sobbing or shaking. I can't sit still. My teeth are chattering and I keep rocking back and forth. My heart is racing and my thoughts are twisted. I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll just start wherever. I'm listening to a haunting rendition of "Gloomy Sunday," and I now understand why they call it the 'Hungarian Suicide Song.' It's definitely fueling my thoughts and emotions. I can't help the fact that I can relate to the words though. They're speaking to me, calling to me. I'll let you take a gander at them. I'll jot down the lyrics for you.
"Sunday is gloomy,
My hours are slumberless,
Dearest, the shadows I live with are numberless.
Little white flowers will never awaken you,
Not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you.
Angels have no thoughts of ever returning you.
Would they be angry if I thought of joining you?
Gloomy Sunday.
Gloomy Sunday,
With shadows I spend it all,
My heart and I have decided to end it all.
Soon there'll be candles and prayers that are sad, I know.
But, let them not weep.
Let them know that I'm glad to go.
Death is no dream for in death, I'm caressing you.
With the last breath of my soul, I'll be blessing you.
Gloomy Sunday."
It was hard for me to write that, but it's so true. Everything that seems near and dear to me is dead. My sanity, my happiness, my dreams, my hopes - everything that I have ever desired. All gone. I have nothing to live for. Call me selfish, call me a coward, but I can't take this anymore. I feel terrible that I'm doing this to my family, my friends, my bandmates, and my Rushers, but I can't help it. Just call my life's circumstances and state of mind another tragedy. If you people only knew what I had to wake up to everyday. Yeah, my life is good, but you have no idea what I'm going through. Yeah, I may have it all, but my battles are internal, which makes even the most joyful of things a travesty to deal with. If you're going through physical hardships and have a great support system and an upbeat attitude, that makes it all easier to deal with. If you've got a great life but are rotting away on the inside from your own emotions and thoughts, what's the point of even going on anymore? Everything's an effort and you can't enjoy your blessings. If I could, I'd give them away to somebody who deserves it. What's eating at me, you ask? Why is it going to cost me my life? I'll explain it all to you.
First of all, I don't know how you missed all the signs that I gave off about this. I make comments all of the time. I'm a boy, so it must not matter. Boys can't have anorexia. Bullshit. I do. Haven't you noticed that I've been gradually losing weight? Don't you pay attention to the way that I eat and the way that I verbally abuse myself after I do? Of course you don't. Guess what? It's one of the things that's killing me. I wake up every morning and cry. I look at my reflection in the mirror and trash talk myself. I claw at my skin. I hit myself. I slice myself open to bleed away some of the poison. I want it gone. I want my emotions gone. I want my fat and imperfections to melt away. I constantly compare myself to people. How much thinner are they then I? When somebody I know talks about how they've lost weight, I get so jealous. They sometimes notice and get mad at me. I feel terrible about it, but I can't help it. I can't help that I try to conceal my body as much as I can, abuse myself for the hopeless goal of trying to become thin, cry myself to sleep at night, drag other people down into my madness. I am the main cause of my personal Hell. My thoughts. This disease. It's all eating at me. It's eating away at my flesh, my bones, my energy, my happiness. It's trapping me inside of a void of my own emotions. I want to be free. I don't want this grotesque shell of my soul anymore. I want this body to finish rotting itself away from the eyes of other people. Will the shrunken flesh pulled against my rotting and brittle bones be thin enough for my demented psyche? If God decides that I'm worthy enough to be resurrected, will this be my glorified body? The truth is that I don't want this. I don't want to be an emaciated freak who's still dissatisfied with my looks while having heart palpitations crying in the corner on the floor. No. I don't want that. I don't want this. I want to be free. I want you to help me. I want you to save me from myself. I want you to save me from my obsessions, my compulsions, thoughts, emotions, from my own worst enemy.
Don't lie to me. You know that I annoy you. I annoy you with my constant worrying, obsessing, whining, bitching, and complaining. I know you roll your eyes at me, tell me what I "want" to hear to shut me up, talk about me behind my back. Just tell me all of this to my face. What am I truly good for? Absolutely nothing at all. Nothing but a pretty voice that still needs improving. Nothing but a heartthrob whose heart is being torn into shreds with every single beat. If you only knew. If you all only knew. Well, guess what? You all know now. Shame I couldn't tell you this all to your faces. I'm doing it the cowardly way by putting it into a suicide note. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a coward. Deface my grave with every derogatory term that you can think of when I'm dead. I don't really care. Call me a bore, call me a chore, call me a whore. Just tell me the damn truth.
Another thing. I'm a lonely person. I long for somebody to love me, to care for me, and call me their own. I can't help but to feel like the odd one out when everybody I know is either with or talking about their significant other. My heart aches. I've got nobody. Yeah, I've got people I care about, but that void is still there. It's still there and has completely overshadowed my life. It teamed up with my anorexia and is tearing me apart. I want somebody to hug me, to spend time with me, to kiss me, to say that they want to hold onto me and never let me go. It kills me inside every day. I'm 21 and I'm still single. If I've got such great looks and a great personality, then why doesn't anybody want me? I want one person, but I know he's probably got his eyes on somebody else. I love him. I really do. I need him in my life. I need him to complete me. I need him to hold me without letting me go. I need him to tell me that I'm perfect and that I don't need to change a thing about myself. I want to fall asleep in his arms at night. I don't have this, of course. I don't have him, I remain broken, I don't have his healing touch, I only have my thoughts to tell me what I need to hear, and I fall asleep alone. Yeah, he does try to comfort me and whatnot, but it's not enough. I want to be his. I need him fully in my life. I love him so much. Yeah, I tell him that all of the time, but it doesn't mean the same thing. He loves me as a friend. Nothing more. That's all we ever were and will be. Friends. My life is meaningless without my other half. I want him to know that he isn't the cause of this. My emotions just got the best of me. Kendall Schmidt, I just want you to know that whether we are friends, lovers, or enemies, I will love you the same no matter what. Whether I am dead or alive, I will exist somewhere for you and for you only. I wish that I could see you one last time to tell you how I truly feel, but this will have to do. All you would do is try to stop me and I can't have that. I have to do this. I have to escape all of this. I have to escape myself and my demons. I have to escape my life. There is absolutely nothing there for me anymore. Could you just please do me a favor and make sure that Fox goes with my parents and that they are taken care of? It breaks my heart to leave him, but I want to make sure he is well taken care of. You'll probably be the first to find me here, anyway. If not, then I hope this message is passed on to the appropriate person.
God, it's so hard to put all of this onto paper. I don't even feel like I'm moving or writing. It's hard to breathe and I can't see straight. I'm so damn dissociated that it's making me feel worse. God, please help me. Please, save me from myself. Please, have mercy on my tormented soul. Please, don't condemn me too harshly. I tried being a good person. I tried being there for others and being kind to people. Don't judge me because I couldn't be strong enough to fight my own demons. Don't hate me because I couldn't stand to breathe anymore. I love You. I need You to protect me from myself. I need You to hold me and make me stronger. I need You to not condemn me to eternal damnation. Please, help me. I've prayed and prayed for You to help me. Is this the help that I've been seeking? If it isn't please give me a sign. If not, just let me join You.
To my friends, family, and bandmates: I'm sorry to have disappointed you. I'm sorry to resort to these measures. I'm not blaming you for anything. I just couldn't live with myself or with these circumstances anymore. I love you with the bottom of my shattered heart and it hurts me more than you all may ever know to do this to you. Keep my memory alive, if you wish. I won't be disappointed if you don't. Just know that I always did and always will love you forever. I could've probably done great things with my life if I chose to live. I want to bestow the legacy to my three bandmates who deserve it and to be recognized more than I do. I know they'll make it farther and I know that they'll keep the band alive. Just know that I'm going to be watching over you all, I hope. Wherever I end up, I'll be thinking of you all. Please, don't waste your tears on me. Live your lives as you always did. In a few hours, you'll be laying flowers on my life. I love you all.
-James
I threw the pen across the table as soon as I wrote the final letters onto the paper. I was a sobbing and shaking mess, but I knew what I had to do. I knew that I had to do this. I couldn't keep putting this off. I let myself slide off the chair and collapse onto the cold floor. My feet couldn't even hold me up. Thank God I was close to what I needed to get this done. The sooner I did this, the sooner my heart would quit racing, my body would quit shaking, my breathing would become calmer, and my thoughts would cease to exist. I kept this in my mind as I pulled myself over to the counter and up to my feet. I hastily grabbed a knife and walked blindly into the next room. Fox was looking at me and whimpered.
"I'm so, so, so sorry to do this to you. Please, don't come near me. I might not be able to let you go. Just stay back. I love you with the bottom of my heart and made sure that you will be taken care of. Just, please, don't come near me right now. Just don't." I don't even know if he understood a word that I said because I was sobbing so badly. I was shaking and I couldn't catch my breath. He looked at me as if he understood what I was saying. I couldn't explain it to him again. I didn't have the strength to. I just wanted to get this done.
Carefully stretching out my left arm, I gripped onto the knife and placed it delicately against my skin. Tears were spilling down my face and I was hyperventilating terribly. "Good bye, Fox. I love you." With those final words being said, I ran the blade of the knife quickly across my skin, leaving a giant gaping wound on the underside of my forearm. It stung like crazy and blood was pouring out of it. Fox began to bark and run around, which made me cry even more. It made me repeat the process over and over again with the knife until my arm was extremely marked up. I couldn't even tell what it was underneath all of the blood. It made me gasp for air, which made the sickening and metallic smell of blood enter my lungs. This made me extremely nauseous and want to continue the process even further.
My arm hurt to all Hell, but I switched hands and continued the painful and dirty process of slicing deeply into my own flesh. I cried out with each slice and winced with each drop of blood. I felt my breathing become painful and more labored with every passing second. My vision was becoming distorted and I became more at ease with every passing second, ironically. Death must be creeping ever so closer to me. This was the most comforting thought of all. Death was coming on swift wings to carry me away.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of the door open behind me. I heard a scream and I slowly turned around. It was Kendall, my knight in shining armor. I couldn't keep myself on my feet much longer. I felt consciousness begin to leave my lightheaded body. A small smile spread across my face as I dropped the knife. My knees began to buckle. "Kendall, I love you." With these four words being said, I collapsed to the ground. All awareness left my body. Kendall ran over to my lifeless body and cradled it. He dialed 911 and poured his tears all over my empty shell. The deed was done. Wrong has been made right. This ending was bittersweet. A beautiful end to a tragic life.