Reflection
by padfoot
...
"I think I'm having a mental breakdown.
"I'm not positive, because I don't really know what one is. But I'm crying all the time, except when other people are around, and then I'm absolutely, one hundred percent, totally and completely a-okay with everything. Even though everything – school marks, relationships, skills – is getting worse. I can't work out if that's the cause or the effect, but things are definitely spiralling now, and I don't know how to stop them. Every time I try to step back and think about how to stop it, I just start crying again. And that's not helpful.
"I have this idea that if I just keep fighting this thing out, it'll go away. All I have to do is keep going and hope that by the time this thing is gone, I have some small remnants of my life left. Maybe a couple of bad friends will be too distant to realise that I've been disappearing. Maybe some teachers will overlook the slump - blame it on something else, look the other way until I finally get around to pulling everything together again. Maybe enough of my life will be left in the wake of this thing that I'll be able to get here again.
"But maybe not.
"Maybe I can't get better. Maybe it'll keep on spiralling forever, until I end up alone and sick and dying.
"I know I won't kill myself, because it's not me that's spiralling. It's just everything around me. And logically I know that that can't be happening, that at some stage it stops being the world going wrong and starts being me breaking down, but I'm terrified of what will happen when I reach that stage. Of what will happen when I realise that it's my fault. When I realise that it's within my power to end it, for better or for worse.
"God, I'm scared."
He exhaled as he finished. A heavy sob of an exhale, smothered by the fist he pressed to his mouth. Then he looked up into the tear-stained face, the glassy, bloodshot eyes of his audience.
And in the mirror, his reflection stared back.