“If I’m being honest…I don’t remember,” she said gently. “Probably, honey.”
I pulled my eyes away, not wanting her to see how much it stung.
I wanted that stupid fucking goal.
She was trying to protect my pride—I could hear it in her voice. But I knew she just didn’t want to say it: that I missed. That I collapsed before I even took the shot.
A fleeting thought struck me.
Maybe I should’ve just died right there on the ice.
Save me the embarrassment.
Just as my mom was getting up from the bedside, the nurse returned, carrying the pad thai. The smell hit me immediately, rich and savoury, and as if on cue, my stomach growled.
“Here is the best pad thai in the city,” she said with a small grin, placing the container on my rolling table and manoeuvring it over my lap.
I shifted upright, and she handed me the remote to raise the back of the bed. I took it gratefully, pressing the button as the motor buzzed to lift me into a more comfortable position.
The scent filled the room, and it wasincredible.
Had I ever really noticed that before?
I decided to slow down. To actually savour it. I wasn’t ready to accept my fate, not yet—but I also wasn’t going to take anything for granted anymore.
I stared at the food in front of me for a moment, then picked up the fork.
“Here’s to the first meal…of the last days of my life.”
Lennon
“Is this something you really want to pursue?” Rachel asked me, sounding slightly concerned.
I nodded, knowing the extent of what I was asking of my therapist. She had been the one person who had spent the last couple of years trying to keep me alive, and now, after all that time, I was asking for my life to end. She had to have known that the misery I carried was far too unbearable—far too much for me to keep moving forward in this life.
I’ve wanted to die since I was ten years old, but the desire really didn’t take shape until I turned eighteen. All the horrific life experiences I had carried made it easy to want a way out, but the hard part had been accepting that this was what life was going to be from then on. A life of desolate loneliness that would never truly heal.
Sure, I hadn’t remained in the depths of the violence that I had experienced back then, but now that it was all over, all I had left was the pain I carried. The deep-seated, painful memories that had eaten away at my core each and every day. Some of those torturous thoughts, I hadn’t even been able to put into words for Rachel. She wouldn’t have understood—she couldn’t have heard the way my voice would have wavered as I recounted it. I wouldn’t have allowed it. No, those nightmares had been locked away in a box beneath the floorboards of my mind.
“I know that you’ve tried to keep me going, to help heal whatever bullshit is in my mind. But the truth is, I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired, Rachel.” And that had been all it took—a tear had betrayed me by escaping the corner of my eye. I looked away from Rachel, unable to meet her stare. She had always held space for me to let out my emotions, but I hadn’t been sure if that made things better or worse. It made it feel like I had to fill the void and make it all okay again.
“It was stupid, I know,” I whispered as I tried to stop any more tears from making an appearance.
Rachel asked softly, “What do you mean, Lennon? What part was stupid?”
“I don’t know—all of it, I guess. I’m just…I’m just so broken. There is no fixing me. I know you tried. It’s stupid that I wasted all of your time, only to have the end result be someone else killing me so I wouldn’t have to do it myself.”
“Tell me again why you think you haven’t killed yourself already?”
Rachel always tried to be direct with me, never sugarcoating my thoughts or ideas—she said it like it was. I appreciated that about her. She hadn’t made it seem like my wanting to die was such a taboo subject. She had spoken in facts. She had spoken without judgment.
“I can’t bear the thought of someone finding me and being traumatized over it,” I said shamefully.
“Yes, but why is that?” Rachel asked, coaxing me to express a memory that was forever burned into the darkest parts of me.
My eyes shifted toward the window. The bright blue sky hosted white, fluffy clouds that moved slowly with the breeze. There were other larger buildings off in the distance, but this location had boasted a cozier neighbourhood that didn’t have many high-rise buildings. My mind drifted, and I wonderedwhat it would feel like to freefall—if only there wouldn’t be such a mess…
Squeezing my eyelids shut for a brief moment to regain my thoughts, I whispered, “Because I saw it. I saw what it looked like.”
