Author's note: Hey guys! I know that I have not published in quite a while, which is why I wanted to come back with this piece, which is a bit dark if I may warn everyone here to read.
This piece was inspired by a story idea that celrock has on her profile, which is called "Z's Death"; I didn't quite follow the idea word-to-word, but I hope that if you're reading celrock, you don't mind any changes that I've made, and I of course hope that you and everyone else reading enjoys, in spite of the story's sad nature J
Warning: There is a lot of cursing in this story! And this story is very, very, dark… you may or may not like it, as it's different from my typical material.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rugrats/All Grown Up. The shows are owned by Klasky Csupo and Nickelodeon, and I can assure you that if I owned the shows, both would be so awful that I'm quite certain none of you would be interested enough to write fanfiction. I also own none of the characters, but I use them in my stories to create what I hope is an entertaining/interesting depiction of them. Hope you all brace yourselves for the sad story that you are about to read.
Z's Death
Dear journal,
Every morning, I wake up wondering what the point of life is.
People will always tell you different things when you ask them what the point to waking up every day is, but no one really knows the answer. No one really has the answer. Anyone can stay up all night trying to figure it out, but no one ever will.
I think, personally, that life has no point. No one's life has a point, really. We're all just kind of here, really, trying to deal with this screwed up world.
There's billions of us, man. So many different people with different faces, different lives, different stories. So many different emotions, and so many different thoughts and ages…
I think that everyone has a story to tell. No one's a boring person, really, because boring is a subjective term. I don't even think that I'm a boring person, and I hate myself more than I hate any of the assholes in my life.
I'm not boring because I have a story to tell. I have a name. I might be messed up in the head (or "mentally ill," which is what my therapist wants me to say,) but I'm human. I have a life, man, and when someone has a life; their life comes with a story. And right now, before I shoot myself in the head, I'm going to tell my story, and I'm going to tell whoever's going to read this why seeing me with my brains blown out will be better than me living the rest of this fucked up life.
My name's Zane (if anyone's reading they already know that,) but for short, I've always wanted to be called 'Z.' That name's always sounded cooler to me, and well, up until I got a reality check, "cool" has always been what I was aiming for.
I was born in Yucaipa, Cali, and I lived there for the first eighteen years of my life. I lived in a small house with my dad, who was a plumber, and that was just it. My mom wasn't around because she died giving birth to me. I never missed her obviously, but my dad was always missing her. He didn't think I knew, but let me tell you, after you see your dad staring at a picture of your dead mom looking like he'll cry six times, you just kind of know that your dad misses your mom.
Everyone always says that Cali's some sort of paradise, but it's not. It's just the same as any other place, and almost everyone there is a rich, stuck up asshole.
Since my dad was a plumber, I was usually the target of all the rich dicks during grade school. I was "Little Plumber Boy," and the kids at that fucking school did unimaginable shit. I never hated anyone until I got to that damned school; my therapist thinks that going there completely screwed over my perception of the world or something. And I can't really say whether it did or not, because I'm not too into the whole over-analyzing thing, but I do know that I hated everyone at that school.
In first-grade, I would cry every morning before school because I didn't want to go. I wasn't one of those kids that kept quiet about it because I wanted to spare my bullies' lives or some shit like that – oh, no, I wanted my dad to know every word that those dickheads said, because I was a little asshole.
And, of course, since my dad is a way better person than I'll ever be, he did everything that he could to try and help me; he set up meetings with principals and teachers, talked to those kids' parents, gave me hugs every day after school… that man did everything that he could for me. It's making me tear up a little thinking about it right now, honestly; my dad has done all this shit for me, and what have I ever done for him? Used up his money? Been a fuck-up? Damn, I need a cigarette…
By the time I was in second-grade, my dad realized that there wasn't really anything that he could do. I would always be "Little Plumber Boy" at that school, no matter what I did. And so, my dad applied me to a different school, gave me a whole speech about how it would be a lot better for me and all that.
By then, I was a very changed person. I wasn't the innocent little boy that I was in kindergarten, wasn't the boy who cried when one of the fifth-graders thought that it would be funny to duck my head in one of the toilet stalls. All the bullshit that I dealt with at that old school made me determined to find certain something, something that I think all human beings want in some form: acceptance.
I wouldn't have admitted it if you asked me back then, but that old school didn't make me any tougher than I had been before. All that old school taught me, aside from a few basic math equations, was that if I was going to survive in this crazy world, I had to learn how to deal with assholes. But the thing is, even after the screwed up experience at that school, I still didn't want to be an asshole myself. I still wanted to look tough – like a bad boy – and so I changed my appearance.
I dyed my hair green, pierced my right ear, and wore all the "bad boy" clothes that any idiot could think of. I thought I looked cool enough to be James Dean, but really, I looked like every other bad-boy-wannabe. I really don't know how anyone ever thought that I was a "bad boy" at all, with those stupid boots that I always wore.
That's right; people thought that I was bad when I got to that new school. No one really thought that I was cool as if I had hoped – just "bad news." But being bad news is better than being bullied all the time, so I was willing to take whatever I could get. I wasn't popular, either; turns out that green hair on a seven-year old is a real turnoff to most people.
I spent most days eating alone at lunch. I didn't eat in the bathroom, though – that was where the "losers" ate, and one of the points of going to this school was to show everyone there that I wasn't a loser (even though I was a huge loser.) Instead, I ate right in the back of the cafeteria, right where everyone could see me. I saw all kinds of kids whispering about me – a little unnerving on the first day, but after seven months of dealing with that shit, you learn to fake not caring.
Ugh, thinking about this is pissing me off. My therapist thinks that I smoke too many cigarettes – even thinks that I should stop, says that it's killing me – but I don't care if it's killing me. If I gave a shit about what will kill, what and me won't, then why the hell would I have a shotgun right next to me right now?
But yeah, for the rest of elementary, I mostly ate alone. I was an outcast in a way, I guess, and assholes were always "gossiping" about me, but I tried to pretend that I wasn't concerned. That's how I do a lot of things, really. I pretend that I'm not concerned. I don't think I've ever liked most people seeing me hurt, whether I was eight or whether I was twenty.
When middle school rolled along, things were pretty similar for me – I sat alone at lunch every day. Didn't really have any friends. I liked to think that in some sort of way, I was different from the socially awkward geeks at my school; I had heard a few of the rumors told about me, and apparently people thought that I was cool and scary at the same time. For an eleven-year old in middle school, I do have to admit that I was proud of myself (looking back on it, I don't know why I was proud of myself for achieving some stupid shit like that.)
I even tried being a nicer person during that year, not publicly but in private. I did charity work with my dad; I can't imagine doing charity work now (what's the point in doing charity work anyway?) But back then, I remember I described it to my dad as something that made me feel good inside after I did it. It made me feel like a normal person, a normal citizen. I felt like I was doing something good for the world.
How fucked up. I just realized that even when humans are helping other people out; it's usually partly because they want to make themselves feel good. That's nice, but selfish.
But anyways, later in the year, I made a friend… now, I know what the average person would be thinking reading this. 'Was this friend a goth or something who led to me becoming the person I am now?' And I'm going to say this: No, this person was the opposite of that. My first friend was a girl named Kimi Finster.
Kimi was an admirable chick, I'll never deny that. If I didn't want to end this fucked up life of mine right now, maybe I'd look her up on Facebook, see how she's doing after all these years. But even if I could, I don't think that I would, because shit has changed and… well, I'm rambling now. I never even explained who the hell Kimi is. Fantastic. Well, at least everyone reading this has an example right here of me being a bumbling, useless, piece of crap right here.
Kimi Finster was everything that I could have asked the Gods for – she was pretty, bubbly at the best of times, and could put up a good fight at the worst of times. Best of all, she actually thought that I was a good person. She saw right through what everyone else thought of me. Kimi was… different, good type different. Her brother and his friends weren't.
I'm not blaming them for my depression or anything shitty like that, but I do have to say that Kimi's brother and his friends really helped me realize that even though I was at a new school, nothing had really changed about the people. They didn't think that I was cool and they couldn't see through me, not as Kimi could. No, I realized, they were just like everyone else. They looked down on me. They thought that I was messed up, dangerous, an asshole, a bad influence on Kimi… and, you know what? Maybe they were right. Maybe they saw something that I wasn't realizing yet. Maybe those people predicted my future, predicted who I am right now. Maybe they saw that, and maybe they just didn't want Kimi near it. I don't blame them for that. If I were less of a little selfish asshole back then, I don't think I would have wanted Kimi around me either.
I still kind of remember when I realized that they didn't trust me. Kimi's brother, some kid named Chunky or Chuckie or something like that, came on his bike – he thought that my dad and I were robbers or something. Kimi got pissed, and deep down, I was really, really, pissed, but I tried to keep my cool. I kind of wish that I hadn't kept my cool. I wish that I had screamed and yelled at that Chunky kid, maybe even cursed at him a bit, just so that Kimi wouldn't have to deal with me anymore. But things didn't end like that. Oh, no, things ended with Chunky actually trusting me (and I got arrested later that day, but that's a story I never want to tell again.)
Well, like all grades in school do, sixth-grade ended pretty soon, and then summer started. I still remember the summer before seventh-grade. That summer was life changing for me, man. I started realizing stuff about myself… realized that I was no different from any other kids. I had always prided myself on looking different and all that jazz, but deep down inside I was just another asshole pretending to be cool, just like millions of other people in the world.
I took some time to think about how people treated me, and let me tell you, over analyzing that sort of crap when you're twelve can kind of screw you over mentally. I became depressed, all because I started spending every day of my life analyzing the way people interacted with me and the way people whispered about me when I was around. I spent most of my days in bed, thinking about the fact that my life had never really been good, or really even decent. I've always just sort of been… alive.
And I came to a shocking realization: everyone is an asshole, or at least has a mean side. Thinking about that sure screwed me up. I realized that everyone in my life, the few people I knew and loved, were capable of doing some of the worst shit that you can imagine. You never know who someone really is – a person only knows themselves. And I've gotta say, realizing that really, really, messed me up mentally.
My dad was starting to worry about me, even offered to get me a therapist. I didn't want a therapist (never have wanted one,) so my dad didn't waste his time paying for one, but he still tried to tell me that I could talk to him and all that. But sometimes ,when I'm really in a bad mental state, I don't want to talk with anyone about it. It's almost like I can't talk with anyone about it. It's like my mind is just in a state of thinking "Well, what's the point of getting out of bed and talking about it?"
I kind of had that mindset the whole summer. It's not like people really called for me anyway. Kimi called me a few times, asked me if I was feeling okay, but this is Kimi that I'm talking about – she was way more popular than I've ever even had a chance to be, and I'll bet that she's way more popular than me now. Kimi had other friends to hang out with, and even though she was nice enough to give me a call every once in a while, I still wasn't as important as her other friends. Not that I didn't get it, that is. She'd told me that she'd known her other friends since they were babies or something, so I guess they were all important to her, more important than some weird "bad boy" she met in Science because he was stupid enough to blow something up.
When seventh-grade started, I was a changed person. Now I really was someone to fear; I didn't dunk people's heads in toilets, didn't dare do what those bullies used to do to me, but I became more of an asshole than I'd ever been before. I flipped people off, scowled at teachers, and I was always smirking. People seemed to think that I'd always been like this, just that it was "more noticeable or something," but I wasn't always like that. I used to have at least a small nice bone in my body. Now I was only nice to my dad, Kimi, and Kimi's friends (well, except for that one brown-haired guy who got the police called on me,) and that was it.
Kimi still noticed that I changed, though. Kimi noticed everything. I knew at first that she was kind of trying to tolerate it, just because she wanted to stay friends with me… and then one day, I flipped off some nerd walking down the halls. That was when she decided it was over.
"That's it, Z!" Kimi shouted at me afterward. "I'm done with you! I tried staying your friend, but you've become such a… such a…" She grit her teeth, and then she outright said it, "Such an asshole!"
Kimi calling me an asshole is something that I'm never going to forget (and by never, I mean something that I'll only be remembering for the next… ten minutes, maybe, before I blow my brains out.) She said it so spitefully, almost like she hated me. And I still remember that even though my heart felt like it was breaking, I was still kind of glad that she seemed to hate me now. After all, someone like me could never deserve a girl like Kimi. Kimi deserved to hang out with better people, and I wasn't one of those people.
After she said it, I just did what I always do: I pretended that I wasn't concerned, even though I wanted to cry right there. I wanted to spill everything to her, tell her about all the realizations I'd made, tell her that I know that I'm an asshole and that I'm so fucked up that I've given up on trying, and…
Well, basically, a lot of shit was unsaid that day, because when she saw how unconcerned I was trying to look, she just muttered, "Z, when did you become such an asshole?," and then she walked away. I waited until I couldn't see her walking down the hallway to run to the bathroom and cry my eyes out. It hurt so much more than anyone could imagine… and I know that I sound like a pre-teen brat, talking about my pain and how much it all hurts, but I don't care anymore.
After Kimi left me, I sort of went back to being the kid that I was before. Kimi's friends and her brother didn't talk to me anymore; sometimes they gave me weird glances in the hallways, but they didn't acknowledge me unless they had to. I did the same, to show them that I cared about them just as much as they cared about me. I think, deep down, that they were glad that I was away from Kimi.
Middle school continued, and it was worse than ever without Kimi. I did date a few girls (apparently, some girls think that the whole "bad boy" thing is attractive… I don't really see how but I had three girls who wanted to date me, so I went with it,) but like all middle school romances, none of them lasted. I didn't like any of them that much, anyway. I just compared all of them to Kimi, because Kimi just seemed to be so much better than all of them.
After I graduated from middle school, high school started. High school was possibly the shittiest time of my life, shittier than middle school and this crappy college I'm going to now combined. High school took all the people I hated in elementary and middle school and multiplied them by three – there were three times as many assholes there, and all of the kids were either rich and snobby or thought that they were gangsters. It was a mess, really.
I didn't eat lunch in the back of the cafeteria anymore. That place was reserved for all the "weird kids" (not that I'm not weird, but the type of weird kids that wear braces and probably drool everywhere,) and even though I was in high school now, I still wanted everyone to think that I was an absolute badass. I caught Kimi glaring at me sometimes, too, which led me to decide that I should eat in the back of the school.
The back of a high school building can basically be summed up as the place where all the stoners go when they need a cigarette. Since I wasn't that stupid, I knew what I was in for when I came out to eat there, but I honestly didn't care. In my mind, everything was already fucked up anyway, so why not just let things go on that way?
I sat against the wall of the building every day; that stonewall was cold and made of brick, so definitely not my ideal eating spot. I was going to deal with what I had to, though, and so I ate back there every day, even with the smell of all the joints that the kids were busting out present.
One day, when I was eating the tuna salad that my dad packed me, some tall, lanky, kid came up to me. He had a pack of cigarettes in his hand.
"Hey, bro, you look stressed out," he said. He handed me a cigarette. "You gonna chillax with one of these, or nah?"
I just shrugged, and looked at it. Cigarettes were never really that appealing to me. Up to that point, I never really understood why people smoked them. I mean, I'm addicted now (at least that's what my therapist says,) but I think that even I can acknowledge that cigarettes smell awful. And so I don't know what I got into my mind when I was fourteen to glance between that guy and the cigarette nervously before I tried it out.
Cigarettes are nasty when you first try them. If you do it all wrong, they might be twice as nasty. And that's why I scowled at the guy after I tried out.
"That tasted like shit," I told him.
He just scoffed at me. "Well gee, thanks asshole." And then he walked back over to his group with his pack of cigarettes. I certainly didn't make any friends that day.
But when I went home that day on my motorcycle, I couldn't help but keep thinking about how that cigarette tasted. Like I said, it tasted like absolute shit, but something about it was so… addicting. Sort of like candy. I knew that I wanted more.
And the next day, when I came back to the usual spot, I managed to get more. I saw the guy who gave me the cigarette, and I waved at him.
"Hey, hey man!" I shouted.
He turned around to look at me, and scowled. "Oh wow, it's the asshole from yesterday. How are you doing today asshole?" His friends laughed at me, but I tried to ignore them and gulp down my feelings of rage.
"Can I have another cigarette?" I asked him.
He raised his eyebrows. "You? You want another cigarette? But yesterday you said it tasted 'like shit,' bad boy."
I shook my head. "I mean, it did, but something about it was so good, you know?"
He just squinted at me like he was trying to figure me out, and then he sighed. "Well, shucks. I guess it's the nicest thing to do, to give a guy who wants a cigarette a cigarette." I almost felt myself smile. "But you have to pay – don't think I'm giving you cigarettes for free, kid. I don't work like that."
I just nodded my head up and down, and gave him two dollars for another cigarette. I took a drag from it, and let me tell you… damn, cigarettes are good the second time! I know that they're not for everyone, but that cigarette was the one that really got me hooked.
For the next few weeks after that, I bought cigarettes from that guy, until I started buying cigarettes from the corner store. Sure, it was illegal, but a fake ID can do a guy like me wonders.
I'm not really sure how I should describe my next years of high school. All I can really say about high school, in a blatant summary, is that it was all shit and that it was the peak of my depression (almost worse than it is now.) I fantasized about killing myself a lot, almost more than I do now. I still hated everyone, except for Kimi.
Even when high school came close to an end, Kimi never really tried to reconcile with me. I guess she had too much other stuff going on in her life, and I really can't blame her for that; she was so smart that she didn't end up in any of my classes for senior year. I was in the classes that all the idiots took – and last that I heard about her, she was in the classes for AP students. I was proud of her, even though I never said anything about it… and some part of me, even right now, likes to think that her leaving me is part of the reason why she became such a driven person during senior year.
Graduation was fun, I guess. My dad let me get drunk, which was okay. Aside from that, graduation was really just… okay. I honestly hated everyone else in my graduating class who wasn't Kimi – speaking of Kimi, she wasn't valedictorian (that honor went to one of the nerdiest kids in our school,) but she was still one of the first to graduate. I clapped for her when she did, but I tried to make it really quiet so that no one would notice.
I applied to a few community colleges, because I knew that I wouldn't have made it into any universities (not with my grades, at least.) I was lucky enough that a community college that's pretty close to Cali accepted me – a community college in San Francisco. My dad hugged me and told me how proud he was of me; he doesn't know this, but sometimes, when I think about how nice he's been to me, I just become so angry, because I didn't deserve any of it.
The summer before my freshman year of college, I was mostly a nervous wreck. When I was a kid, I always thought that after high school, I would be living the adult life, enjoying a beer, kicking back, and watching some Saturday morning television – but being an adult isn't about that. It's nothing like that. When I was eighteen, everything was more about 'learning how to pay taxes' and 'trying to deal with the fact that I won't see dad all year,' and tons of other stuff I hadn't prepared myself for. Everything seemed like it was happening so fast when I turned eighteen. I hate it when things happen too fast.
College was definitely a huge change for me. I realized that the whole 'bad boy' act wasn't going to work in San Francisco – maybe in elementary, maybe in middle, maybe even in high school, but college? Ha! In college, if you wear a green Mohawk, you'd probably be laughed at throughout the entire day. No one thinks that a green Mohawk is "cool" once you hit college; it's really just a sign of a burnout, and even though I wasn't as eager to be accepted as before, you still don't want to be that one burnout guy in college.
And so, I let my hair go back to its original color: brown. And I took myself to the barbershop that summer, had him give me a normal haircut. I've gotta admit, I felt like a nice person when he gave me that haircut. I almost felt… normal, like this was a fresh new start. I kind of felt like I could leave all the fucked up things and fucked up people of my past behind. Oh boy, was I wrong.
College was, and has been, just as shitty as any other period in my life. There's literally almost no difference, and I'm honestly starting to wonder if there ever will be. College is full of fake people, it's full of assholes, it's full of rich snobs, – and college is full of people from the real world. It's not some idealized cookie cutter thing, college is just another place with assholes.
But this time, it wasn't assholes that were bothering me. It was the money, the expectations, the pressure…
In college, expectations are way higher than ever before. Everyone that I know has wanted me to pass, and just like the fuck up that I've always been, I failed them. That's right. I'm not going to graduate.
When I was in grade school, I worked obviously, but I never really worked. I kind of just wrote down some words for an assignment, and whatever grade I got on it was just kind of it.
College is way different. Grades are posted in the hallway, and people are rooting for me to do well. I've never really dealt with this before. I mean, no one's ever rooted for me to fail, but no one's ever wanted me to succeed so much either…
And, of course, with this being me, the one fucking time that people want me to succeed, I just have to screw it all up! But no one's ever going to understand how it all went down.
Freshman year sucked! Everyone wanted me to succeed… my dad did, random people did, my professors did, even my own classmates kept telling me that they bet I could make straight A's. That type of shit is stressful, especially when you're already having a life crisis. And so I turned to the one thing I could: heroin.
I know that that's a stereotypical answer, and you were probably expecting that. But heroin just gives me such a rush, man… it makes me feel almost like, for just a little while, everything in life is okay. It's way better than weed.
And I think that anyone who's human knows that something that makes you happy is really easy to get addicted to. Almost like being addicted to… coffee or something, only it's a little more hardcore.
But heroin and schoolwork don't mix. The heroin kind of replaced any toleration that I had for schoolwork, because it was just so damn amazing! I went from doing heroin once a week, to doing it every day of every week.
And when you're hooked on heroin, I can definitely say that you don't want to do homework of all things. Hell, I stopped showing up for some of my classes at all.
When my dad realized that I was starting to get addicted after I came to visit him for Thanksgiving, he tried everything he could to get me to stop. Even started paying this damn therapist that I have now. But he just doesn't fucking get it, man, no one does, – heroin is like my cure to everything bad. Heroin is like an escape from everything bad. Heroin is like the best thing in my life, it's the one and only thing that can really make me happy.
But I guess even the best thing in your life can fuck you over sometimes, because using heroin has proved to be both Heaven and Hell at the same time. Heaven because of how I felt when I took it… and Hell because now I'm a failure. A fucking college dropout, and technically not even that, because I flunked out completely.
Oh, and you wanna know what puts the cherry on top of the cupcake? I've been strictly off heroin for the past three goddamned months! Three months! I want to pull this fucking trigger right now…
And that's how I got where I am now. In this dumb ass dorm room, ready to blow my brains out. Call me fucked up, call me anything you want, but I can't wait to die. I don't know if there's a Heaven or Hell, I don't know if I'll just be a rotting corpse in the ground… but no matter how this ends up, I think that if everyone really does have a destiny in this world, my destiny must have been to commit suicide at twenty.
This is the last time that I'm ever gonna write this, but I just hate being such a screw up. I hate the fact that everyone's always saying "You can change the course of your life, you can change it," when they're wrong! I just failed college, I can't change the course of my life! This whole thing was one big fucking waste! My life was one big waste!
And so, I ask once again… was there ever a point? Why the hell am I here today, writing in this diary, reading to blow my brains out? Why I am still alive at twenty-two? Why do some innocent kids die of cancer when they're six, when the people who want to die never seem to have a natural death?
I don't really blame anyone for this. I blame myself, for letting all this catch up to me, for letting myself be such a baby about it. I blame myself, because I'm not strong enough to go on in this world.
I don't think that I was ever strong enough.
RUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATSRUGRATS
This story is certainly much darker than my usual material, but I tried my best, as this was written at 2:42 in the morning, since I found after trying to sleep that I was unable to get to bed for whatever reason tonight, so just got back up and decided to finish my material.
Hope you guys aren't too scarred from this, and I also apologize about the ambigious ending! It is to be presumed after the "I don't think that I was ever strong enough" line that Z… well, Z unfortunately ended his life after that line.