BIG trigger warning: this whole POV is Tariq contemplating suicide.
Tariq Bluegrass, District Nine male
My mother didn't think life was worth living. I knew just what that felt like but it still hurt a lot. My mother didn't think life was worth living even with all the good things in it. Her husband. Her children. Her son. Me. My mother didn't think I was reason enough to stay in the world. I knew it wasn't as simple as that. When people reached the point of flirting with suicide it meant they were in such turmoil that logic didn't work on them anymore. I couldn't make myself feel anger toward someone in such pain they destroy their own body to stop it. People say suicide isn't selfish. I think they're lying to make themselves feel compassionate. Suicide is selfish. It just doesn't mean we can condemn people for it. It's selfish to pull your hand away from a burning fire. You're only thinking of yourself and that's what "selfish" means. But that doesn't mean people can look down on you. It's just as selfish to say they should stay in the world for you. But I couldn't find the capacity to condemn myself either. I didn't think there was anything worth condemning in a boy wishing his mother hadn't left him.
Flirting. That's what it is. All my life I'd feared being alone. It was the worst thing possible. Anything in the world was better than being alone. Even not being at all. When you're dangling over that pit you grasp at anything that can keep you out. The thought of something that can keep you safe from that forever is like the most seductive lover you can imagine. It was the answer to all my problems. It was a miracle cure that would never, ever leave me. It wouldn't abandon me like my friends or my family. It would mean no more abandonment ever again. It was a siren song. No man could resist the sirens forever.
I heard somewhere about people jumping out of burning buildings. There's just no other option. The fire is at your back and nothing could hurt worse than that. Jumping out means death just as certainly as staying but it's the only option. Anything to get away from the fire. Anything, even jumping out into empty air. People always say something like 'at least for a few seconds they were flying'. People try so hard to make something hopeful out of the most hopeless thing any human can experience.
This wasn't the first time I'd felt like this. It was just before I'd always had something to pull me back. Elijah had found me like this before. He'd coaxed me, saying I had something I needed to get done first or that he would miss me. There was no Elijah here. There was nothing but the fire. I was going to die either way and if I did this it would be done with and I wouldn't have to be afraid anymore.
It was funny how familiar this all seemed. It was a call of the void I'd heard so many times. It was like coming home. I'd been running away for a long time but I was finally coming home. No more trying to find a reason that simply didn't exist. I sat there some long minutes looking at the knife resting on my skin. I thought about who might win. Lanolin or Soleil were the only ones left with me. I'd be happy for either of them. It seemed like they thought life was worth living.
I couldn't tell you why I didn't do it. I couldn't tell you because I didn't know myself. It wasn't because I had something left to do before I went. It wasn't because I finally found the happiness that had been void in my life. I don't know why I didn't do it. For some reason I took the knife away from my arm and as soon as I did I didn't want to anymore. I put it away and I didn't take it out for a few days. On the day I finally took it out I used it against someone else.
That finishes off Back to Normal! Now I get to move on to Jurassic Park