Ezekiel Jones has tried to kill himself three times.
The first time, he was nine and his parents locked him in a closet for a week. He didn't know when it would end, if it would ever end, and as every day went by without food, he felt himself grow weaker and weaker. It was dark in there and he couldn't tell how much time had passed.
He wrapped a scarf around his neck and pulled tight, because he was going to get out of that closet one way or another. He felt his face begin to burn and tingle and he felt himself fade...His head hit the wall with a crack and his body went loose.
His parents let him out a day later, not once commenting on the dark marks around his neck. He learned to pick locks.
The second time, he was sixteen, and someone had scrawled a nasty word across his stomach with a knife. The five of them found him with his boyfriend and they didn't like it too much, making that clear with sharp blows and harsh words. He walked away with a black eye, split lip, and thousands of cuts, including the one that would scar into the word, the painful reminder.
He tore it open four times, praying he'd bleed out. Tore open every cut he could find. He laid in the bathtub so as not to make a mess, letting the warm water lull him to sleep he hoped was eternal.
His foster sister found him. She was surprisingly level-headed as she brought him to the ER. She made sure the word on his stomach would never be readable. He made sure she never worried about anything for the rest of her life.
The third time, he was twenty-seven. It had been eleven years since he'd felt so low, and he stopped trying to keep himself safe. He made a stupid, stupid decision on a mission that came so close to removing him from the earth, once and for all.
Stone and Baird raged for days at him, but Cassandra just looked at him with sad, sad eyes. She held him and she cried and he cried and he knew she understood.
Cassandra Cillian cannot count the number of times she has tried to kill herself.
Never enough to seem purposeful. Always the small things. Innocent little mistakes that anyone could make, really.
She stopped looking both ways before she crossed the street. No longer wore a seatbelt. She'd skip meals, claiming whatever treatment she was trying now sapped her appetite. She picked fights with the mean girls and their boyfriends. She took more meds than she needed, more than was recommended. Just enough to dissociate for a while.
She lived with death over her shoulder yet she always prayed for it to get here faster. Until she found her purpose, her place at the library, she'd had nothing to live for.
So when Ezekiel stopped eating, stopped looking both ways, stopped wearing a seatbelt, Cassandra started waiting. She started saving up notes for him, love notes, friendship notes, telling him he was important and cherished and loved. Never, ever expendable.
Sitting on a bed in the back room of the library, they read the notes together, one by one, until the bed was covered in scraps of colorful paper hearts. They cried again, but it was happier now.
For the first time in a long time, Ezekiel knew someone understood, and cared enough to help.
I just kind of. Started writing and this is what flowed out. I found it very therapeutic as I also struggle with depression and mental health issues. I feel like Ezekiel is covering up a lot of insecurity, and I wanted to explore that. As always, I'd love to know what you think. If you feel like you need help, this website is an online chat-based suicide hotline. .