"Dad—!" Sky cried, her voice breaking as she rushed in and slammed the heavy front door behind her. "Dad, are you home?"

No answer came, the house was empty and silent and it made Sky cry even harder. The only sounds in the house were Napoleon's meowing as he rushed to greet Sky, and her own ragged, broken sobs.

Ignoring the small, black cat, Sky stumbled inside and let her backpack fall onto the floor. The walls were collapsing on her, the room was spinning. There was a black hole inside her chest. It was a void that sucked out her life, it crushed her ribs, it ate her heart like a hungry beast, leaving nothing behind.

The pain was blinding. She couldn't take it, she wasn't strong enough to carry it alone.

"Da— dad—" she sobbed.

But of course, Dad was out. He was probably having lunch with Lisa, as he should be, having a happy moment after all the crap Sky had poured on him the night before.

It now felt like 1000 years ago. A lifetime had passed in less than 24 hours.

Sky wished she had never told dad. She should've just kept her mouth shut. Everything had changed since yesterday, and now it was all futile, the shame, the guilt, they had all been for nothing.

Thank God she hadn't told Hawk. There was that at least. He only would have spread that to his friends too, they would have laughed about it together—

It doesn't even matter. Everyone already thinks I'm a slut.

Hawk's betrayal felt like a sword through her sternum. How stupid she had been to trust him, to believe he could change. He had destroyed the science project. He had told his friends about fucking her in the closet. He had just stood there as the Cobras laughed, as they called her names—

He had just stood there and watched her die.

I can never go to school again.

Demetri had heard all of it, and Sam too. Sky had seen Sam in the crowd, her eyes wide, her lips a tight line across her face as Sky had rushed out of the cafeteria, tears blurring her vision.

She wasn't going to find out what Sam thought about her now. Or Moon. Or Yasmine. They would never want a friend who was so stupid she let herself be fucked in school like a whore, so stupid she hadn't believed when everyone had told her Hawk would break her heart. She'd been so stupid, stupid, stupid—

Her leg still gave her a hard time and climbing upstairs took a lot longer than she would've wanted. Napoleon followed her, clearly worried, and tried to get her attention, but Sky couldn't even look at the small feline. She had no love to give him, no comfort. All she had was death and destruction, the end of all hope.

When she reached the bathroom, the phone in her pocket started buzzing, but fuck that. She barely noticed it. She wasn't a human being anymore. She was a ghost, a shadow, an empty shell.

All that had been good in her had died in the cafeteria, and there was nothing left but pain.

The red, metallic medicine box was still in the same cabinet as it had been in the summer. Taking a shaky breath, Sky pulled it out and laid it on the counter. It wasn't even locked, but the relief soon turned into a bitter disappointment as she opened the lid and went through the contents, finding nothing but band-aids, antacids, and a half empty bottle of Tylenol.

No, no, no—!

I need it. I have to find it—

But of course, Dad had hidden the good stuff after what had happened. Dad, who was always prepared for everything, Dad, who had never given up on her. Dad, who believed against all hope that love and understanding, and therapy could fix everything.

Sky had almost let herself believe in that too. She had almost believed she could be fixed, that she could be saved, that she could be worthy of love—

Screw Dad. Screw Hawk. Screw their stupid lies.

Sky knew the meds had to be somewhere. She still had them for anxiety, and there were the painkillers she'd gotten after the accident too. Dad only gave that stuff to her one pill at a time and only if she truly needed it, but still, they had to be somewhere.

With growing despair, Sky went through the shelves and the drawers of the bathroom, finding nothing but cotton pads and shaving foam and earplugs, and toothbrushes, and—

Condoms.

Sky stared at the pack for a couple of heartbeats with widening eyes and then quickly tossed it back into the drawer as if it had burnt her fingers.

Jeez, Dad! Gross.

Determinedly Sky pushed the image that contained Dad and Lisa out of her mind and gave up on the bathroom. Instead, she rushed to Dad's bedroom to continue her search. She rummaged through the room, checked the drawers of his nightstand, then the ones where he kept his clothes. She searched under the bed, behind the books on his bookshelf, under the mattress, everywhere—

Nothing.

Napoleon was still circling her feet, so when Sky left Dad's room, she closed the door and shut the kitty in, ignoring his protests as determinedly as she was ignoring the phone that kept buzzing in her pocket.

"Sorry, sweetie—" she said to the cat through the door. "I'm sorry, you know I love you."

She could barely talk. The pain of her broken heart was too much. It took her breath away, it made her sick. The adrenaline that had carried her this far was slowly wearing off, leaving her cold and trembling as she stopped and leaned her back on the door.

What the fuck am I going to do?

She closed her eyes and pressed her hands on her eyes, hard, so that it hurt, trying to force the tears down, but it didn't help. All the things that had happened kept playing on her mind on repeat - waking up on Matt's couch, seeing Kat die, blood on the floor tiles, a row of white pills on the table in front of her, the destroyed science project, Hawk standing in the cafeteria, just fucking standing there when his friends called her a slut, waking up on Matt's couch, seeing Kat die, blood on the floor tiles—

Over. It is over. I have lost everything.

But somewhere out there was Kat, waiting for her. She had promised Kat that she would live, that she would be brave, but fuck that now, she wasn't brave, she was small and broken and so fucking tired and she had no fight left in her. Death wasn't a door like she had once thought. Kat had said it was a river, and Sky would find that river and she would throw herself in the water, she would drown in the black waters of the river Styx and she would crawl her way to the other side, to Kat, so that she would never have to come back again, so that this life, this pain, this pointless suffering would be no more than a bad dream.

All she had to do was to find the way.

Her weak, trembling legs carried her back downstairs, into the kitchen. So fucking what that Dad had hidden the meds. There were other ways to that river. People did this all the time, how the fucking hard could it be—?

The air still smelled like coffee and cardamom, and it made Sky nauseous. She didn't even remember when was the last time she had eaten something, but still, she felt like she could throw up. Her Sponge Bob coffee mug was in the sink, Dad's New York Times lay half-read on the table. Everything looked so fucking normal, so fucking every day, as if this was just another day, another home, another perfectly normal family instead of the end of the fucking world.

Sky walked past the sink, yanked open the drawer where the cooking knives were, and picked the sharpest one. It was a Sushi knife, Dad's pride, the one he always kept super sharp and shiny. It had a wooden handle that felt warm in Sky's cold fingers, it fit perfectly in her palm.

A shiver ran through her body as she saw her own wide-eyed reflection on the blade. She was pale, white as a sheet, her hair was a mess, she looked like a ghost, like she was dead already. Her knees felt weak, and she slid down to sit on the floor, leaning her back on the cold cupboard doors.

Meds were easy. You just swallowed them and soon you felt all soft and warm and tired and death came unnoticed and unfeared like a dream, like an old friend.

This… this was something else.

Sky gripped the knife hard in her right hand with a white knuckle grip and lifted her left arm, only now realizing how incredibly stupid she had been.

The fucking cast.

How was she going to slit her wrist when her left arm was covered with a cast from shoulder to fingers? There was no way she could cut through that thing—

She let out a frustrated sob.

No, that was not going to work. Even without a cast, it would have been a long shot. She knew the arteries in the wrists were small and hardly ever bled enough, it was probably the worst place to cut if she really wanted to do this—

The phone in the pocket of her jeans started buzzing again, but she did her best to ignore it. If it was Hawk, she didn't want to hear it. She never wanted to hear his voice again, it would only bring pain. And if it was someone else—

Tears started falling again, they tasted like salt and shame and they burned in the back of her throat. She could never face her friends again. Not after today. It was over, it was all over and she just had to find the way out—

The way to the River Styx.

She could almost hear the waves, the soft whispering of the water, and the souls who had passed already. Somewhere there was Kat, waiting for her, her hand outstretched, ready to pull Sky up from the black waters.

Sky lifted the knife, holding it with a trembling hand. There were other arteries. In her thighs—

She discarded that idea immediately. Those veins ran too deep. She knew she couldn't cut deep enough, she would only make a mess and the pain would make her pass out before she could do any serious damage—

The phone kept buzzing in her pocket, disturbing her thoughts, drowning the sound of the waters. Sky started crying again, out of frustration, of fear, of loneliness.

Why is this so fucking hard?

The doorbell rang - once, twice. The sound was unnatural, sharp, and loud as if it came from another world, and it made Sky look up from the knife she was still gripping in her fingers.

"Sky! Sky, open the door!"

Someone was calling her name. She didn't recognize who it was, nor did she care. They were banging the door with fists and ringing the doorbell again and again and again, and the sound was driving her crazy, it made it so hard to think, it was almost impossible to hear the river now—

The jugular veins.

It would only take one cut if it was deep enough. One swift cut and she'd bleed out in less than a minute.

Not as painless as the pills, but more effective. There would be no saving her this time. Dad would come home and the kitchen wouldn't smell like coffee and cardamom anymore, it would smell like copper and iron with a tang of something sweet and heavy. He would smell it from the front door, the sticky scent of blood would fill his nostrils, he would rush inside, crying out her name—

He would find her here on the floor, on the cold, tiled floor in a pool of blood.

Sky didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to think about Dad's tears, his sorrow. She couldn't carry them too, there was already enough sorrow in her chest to fill an ocean. She brought the blade to her neck.

Her chest was heaving but she still felt like she was suffocating. The cupboard door behind her back was hard. She would bleed to death on this cold, tiled floor just like it was meant to be, as if these past 18 months had never happened.

She would see Kat again.

The blade scraped the skin, it was so sharp she didn't even feel the cut, she only felt the warm trickle of blood down her neck—

Someone was ringing the doorbell again, the phone was buzzing in her pocket. The pain in her chest felt like the weight of an elephant was crushing her ribs. How could anyone survive the loss of the heart? The thought was absurd. She was dead already, she was a ghost, she was drowning in the River Styx.

Her hand was trembling, she could barely hold on to the blade. She needed to do this now, now! Whoever was at the door, they would call Dad, if they hadn't already, they would burst through the door, and then it would be too late.

Now. Just do it now. One cut, that's all it takes—

She screwed her eyes shut, and took a deep breath to steady her hand.

I have always loved the idea that death is a river. It's described that way in the Greek mythology, of course, but also in the Finnish mythology where it is called the river of Tuoni. One for my favorite stories is the one from Kalevala where Lemminkäinen was killed and thrown to the river after he had tried to kill the sacred swan. His mother went to search for the bodyparts of her son, picked them all up from the black waters and brought Lemminkäinen back to life. But as Sky is American, I figured She wouldn't know this story and would think of the river Styx instead of the river of Tuoni. Same difference, I love that river metaphore so much.