This is a work of fiction, and I in no way want to trigger anybody into doing anything. So if you have struggled with any of the warnings and think it may be a trigger, PLEASE do NOT feel like you have to read it.
Please R&R
Chapter 1
Goodbye
POV – John
It was my fault. My entire fault. If I hadn't asked to stay out longer, we wouldn't have been there. She wouldn't have died.
They all blamed me. My family blamed me for what happened to mom. I blamed me for what happened.
Dad was always at work; and when he was home, he could barely even look at me. I could tell though… he didn't care about me. He probably wished I'd died instead of mom.
Scott. Well, he had his arms full. He was looking after all of us; getting us to school, making sure we did our homework, get to bed on time, and still keeping his grades up. With the Terrible Two to look after, I didn't blame him for not noticing what was happening to me.
Virgil. He hadn't so much as touched the Grand Piano in the living room or picked up a paintbrush. Oh how I wanted to hear him play again before I went through with what I was planning.
Gordon, aka one half of the Terrible Two. Our little fish. More at home in the water then on dry land. I hope he'd keep on doing his pranks, no matter how much they annoyed the rest of the family.
And Alan, the other half of the Terrible Two. He's only six. I hope that he can forgive me one day. All he knows is that we went on a skiing holiday when he was five, I went out with mom, and she never came back.
I'd been trapped under the snow, mom protecting me as much as she could. She talked to me until I fell unconscious. I don't know how long we were trapped, but I'd woken up a week later in the hospital with a fractured left arm, dislocated shoulder, broken collar bone and a concussion, to be told mom was dead.
That's when I first started to feel the blame. The hurt in dad's eyes, the tears in my brothers. And Alan asking where mom was and when was she coming back. He didn't understand that she wasn't coming back.
It was when we got home, that's when dad started going to work early and coming home late or not at all. He started locking himself away in his office for hours when he was home.
Grandma helped where she could, but she lived about an hours drive away from us, so she wasn't around all the time. She'd also lost Grandpa Grant in the avalanche that took mom, so she was grieving as well. She probably blamed me too.
I'd been self-harming for a while. Nothing where anybody could see easily like my wrists, but on my stomach, hips and thighs. I'd also lost a lot of weight due to not eating, and throwing up what I did; not that anybody would notice the weight loss because of the baggy clothes I wore. And the bags under my marine eyes were more like bruises. The curse of nightmares and being a light sleeper.
And like the packrat I am, I'd hid some of the tablets the hospital had given me for depression. Hidden them away on the top shelf in my room, along with a razor blade and a note for each of my brothers, my dad and Grandma.
Only when planning this, I'd forgotten how hard is was to get to the top shelf. You had to climb on the desk, stand on tiptoes and lean to get to the shelf; and you had to be extra careful when coming back down.
Using this method I was able to grab the envelopes, the blade and the pills, but slipped on some of the loose papers on my desk and fallen to the floor with a thud, and dropped what I was holding.
There was a bang on the opposite wall.
Crap!
Scott was finishing the last of his coursework in his room before the start of the summer holidays; which started in a couple of weeks.
"Cut it out, John." Scott's muffled voice came from through the wall, "I just want some quiet to finish my work.
"Sorry." I called back, grabbing everything up, "I didn't mean to make any noise. I just slipped.
"Just try and keep it down."
"I will."
My last words? I though it was going to be something sentimental or meaningful, but I wasn't going to track down somebody and do that, and I doubt Scott would appreciate me disturbing him again. I didn't want them to know what I had planned or stopping me.
So this was it. I could feel the tears prickling at the corners of my eyes, threatening to overflow the moment I blinked.
I stood up and deposited everything on my desk, before putting all my letters in a line by my computer. All of them individually named and each having their own individual letter; Gordon and Alan weren't going to know why I did this. Virgil would probably guess the reason. Scott, dad and Grandma would know though. They deserved to know why.
Next I grabbed the pill bottle off the desk, my mug of luke-warm tea from the bedside cabinet and sat down on the edge of my bed; emptying out the contents of the bottle onto my bed.
Damn! I hadn't collected as many as I'd thought. So much for being a packrat. A rough guess… I had twenty to twenty five. Not enough to kill me if I was found in time, but enough to send me to sleep; and possibly kill me if I wasn't found for a few hours. I'd have to use the razor too; if I was to be sure I'd die no matter what happened. Something I hadn't wanted to do.
Taking a couple of the pills and my tea, I started to swallow them two at a time until they were all gone. I never could get to grips with dry-swallowing medication or anything like that.
It would've been nice to just go to sleep, not realizing that I was never going to wake up again. Not being in pain anymore. But I was an idiot for not hiding more of my tablets.
And waiting was hard. I didn't just want to swallow the pills and then slice my wrists. I wanted to die in as little pain as possible; and if that meant waiting for the meds to kick in, then so be it.
They started to kick in about half an hour after I'd taken the first pill. Also having nothing in my stomach helped them kick in faster too.
"Shit." I muttered to myself. I'd left the razor on my desk when I took the pill bottle and tea over to my bed. Now I had to get up, cross the room, grab it, and make my way back. Given how quickly this fuzziness had come on, I doubted I'd even be able to make it back to my bed before I fell asleep.
Screw it. I'd just have to cut my arms as soon as I get a hold of the blade. This was turning out to be the worst plan I'd ever come up with – and this included my very unsuccessful prank on Virgil last year; in which I planned to try wake him up using an air-horn; not realizing the Terrible Two had beaten me, and had put mouse traps all over his floor. That hurt.
I stood up, swaying slightly, and made my way over to the desk, grabbing the razor in my left and slicing down my right wrist; before switching hands and doing the same to my left wrist.
To be honest, it felt good. The sticky warmth running down my arms was a bit unpleasant though.
But because of the combination of the pills and blood loss, I barely even noticed I was falling to the ground; until I hit it with an impressive thump. I just gently lowered the rest of me onto my side.
It wasn't as bad as I though it was going to be. The blood loss was a nice way to go; it wasn't as painful as I'd imagined.
And just as I started to black out, I could just about make out a pounding on my door and something being shouted, but I couldn't make out what.
It was then that I let the darkness consume me.