Page 5 of Kill Me

I switch the direction of the blade and press down. A hiss escapes me. I move the blade, and a red indent greets me. I’m unsatisfied, so I press again, this time pulling the knife across the skin with just enough pressure to cause injury.

I know I’m falling into the trap of them saying I can’t be trusted. But I don’t know how much longer I can continue living like this.

Blood starts to ooze from the cut. The kitchen is silent, and I could swear I can hear the sounds of the drops pooling, seeping across my wrists, being pulled down to the floor by gravity. It’s not fast enough, so I dig the knife deeper, the blood staining the handle. The combustible pressure in my body eases, the liquid running thick and fast. I slide down the kitchen cupboards to the floor, the blood soaking my trousers, and breathe. I breathe like I’ve never been able to breathe before. Like all of the weight I’ve been carrying on my shoulders for the entirety of my life has just disappeared. I have no idea how much time passes, just that the blood keeps coming, and black spots litter my view. Before I know it, the darkness beckons me, and who am I to deprive it of what it so desperately wants?

Chapter Four

Quinn - Present Day

My mum and dad were childhood sweethearts. They loved each other beyond measure—or so I thought. But like with every couple, in my opinion, there’s always one that’s stronger, who will do anything for the other, and one that’s weaker and sucks the life out of you until there’s only a skinsuit left. I think it’s obvious which one is which in my parents’ relationship.

You’re a skinsuit. A waste of oxygen.

UGLY BITCH!

Unfortunately, for my brother and me—more me, to be honest—that meant that my dad’s attention was monopolised by her. The older I’ve got, the more the realisation has sunk in that the younger version of me was right, and I wasn’t considered a part of this family, despite desperately doing everything in my power to be. Luckily, I had Millie and her mum and dad. They taught me how to love and be loved, including me in family celebrations and acknowledging my birthdays in the years that my family couldn’t be fucked.

Millie hates you.

The whole world hates you.

You’d be doing everyone a favour if you offed yourself!

I always thought I loved my parents. I’ve always made excuses or allowances. But as time has passed, I wish I’d had better ones. I watch my friends with theirs, and it’s hard not to be envious of the love that is poured into them. Not that I wish they’d had a bad childhood or an abusive household—most wouldn’t even consider mine abusive. It’s just that I wish I could have felt a snippet of the unconditional love that they received. Or that they could have felt what it was like to be the child your mother wished she’d aborted. To wish that on others probably makes me no better than my mother, but how else is someone supposed to resonate with my story?

My mother did teach me one thing, though. She taught me how to capture someone's attention. She taught me that my feminine wiles were the key to a secret kingdom full of power.

Be serious, no one wants your feminine wiles.

What she didn’t warn me of, though, was that one day I would be living my own nightmare and that no one would believe me. That they would be too used to my flighty ideas and never-ending attention-seeking. Friends—the few that I had—are too scared to tell me about their health issues for fear of my monopolising the attention and using their ailments to find more affection—a symptom sponge is what they call me when they think I’m not listening. I don’t even know if I can call them friends anymore.

As life for them progressed, and my health continued to deteriorate, they distanced themselves. They got jobs and fell in love, and some have even had babies, while I stayed stuck. I always thought it was my fault. That I had done it to myself. But I’m realising that they only know the side of my story that my mother has allowed them to see, and it doesn't place me in the best of lights. If anything, it’s made me the villain in their story as well as my own.

But in reality, how can anybody be expected to get better and come out the other side of a mental health crisis if no one is willing to stick it out in the long run? It’s like a drug addiction for me. Every diagnosis, every prescription, every appointment is like another level of acceptance. Another degree of love. People say alcoholism and drug addiction are illnesses, so why is my situation any different?

But now, something is very wrong. Something has happened to me, and I can’t remember exactly what it is, nor can I explain it. It’s just a feeling I have in the pit of my stomach, and it haunts me. The monsters like to taunt me with the black hole in my memories. One thing is clear, though; I’m all alone.

So I have no choice but to do what every hypochondriac would do. I tell a lie to get an appointment, in the hopes that I can manipulate someone into helping me get better. Do I get a thrill from the manipulation? Yes. In all honesty, watching my mother preen under the attention she receives when she’s at an appointment has done nothing to deter me. But because I’ve done so much damage with the medical professionals, manipulating the system is the only way to get better, and if I can’t get better, if I can’t remember, I’ll die.

And that’s not me attention-seeking. That’s me telling you that I cannot live with the disgust I feel in my stomach with no explanation or the grief that annihilates my brain on a daily basis. The black hole in my brain that has swallowed these memories may think it’s protecting me, but in actual fact, it’s doing nothing but putting me in more and more danger. I flirt with death often, begging the reaper to consume my soul and return me to Hell, but he has yet to listen. Another being, in another world entirely, and even they still don’t want me.

I’m scared for my life. Scared of the lengths I will go to to get better. Scared to learn that it is, in fact, all in my head. Because, then what?

Then, I’ll have no choice but to die.

Chapter Five

Quinn - Present Day

Fractured Echoes – Decayed Souls

I woke up seven years ago in a hospital bed, alone, my body shattered into pieces, pain pulsating around it like I was tied down and turned into bullseye practice. My left side was pinned together with bars they called external fixations, drilled into my bones and attached with a piece of metal on the other ends to encourage them to heal. Nine were in my arm, and ten were in my leg. My humerus had been snapped in half—not very fucking funny, I can tell you—and my tibia and fibula were obliterated. A total of twelve breaks. My memory was gone. The previous year had been wiped from existence, and no matter what I do, it feels like the memories slip even further away every time I try to remember them.

I was locked in a room on a psych ward with everyone convinced I’d tried to take my life one more time. Can I remember it? No. But one thing I know for certain: I didn’t do that. Something in my gut is telling me they’re wrong.

Your scars are ugly. No one will want you.

According to the nurses, my mother and brother had only called to make sure I was alive. How nice of them. My dad had visited a few times, slept by my bed in the early days, but from the day I woke up, he vanished into thin air, a figment of my imagination. There was the odd text from him here and there, but other than that, the only visitors I had had were Millie and her parents. Although she only came once, things have been weird since my accident. According to her parents, it’s because she struggles to see me in pain, which I suppose makes sense.