The Real Ram

Chapter 57

 I once thought about killing myself.

I know, should have done it right? 

I first heard about the practice when one day at school it was announced that this one girl committed suicide. When I heard her reasons, I felt like I qualified too. 

She had verbally abusive friends, I had an all around abusive stepfather. She felt alone in the world, I couldn't connect with anyone because I was a freak. She was worried about her future, I had none according to John. 

I even tried once. 

It was a week after Phillip left, and I was home alone. I lined up all the ways that were available to me. John's handgun he kept in his bottom dresser drawer in the back right corner, the sharpest knife in our kitchen, —in case I wanted it to look like an accident— and five different medications that came from our bathroom cabinet. I lined them all up, thinking about the different outcomes, thinking about how easy it would be for others to forget me, how easy it would be just to escape life.

But I never did anything.

I didn't have the guts to, I guess. I felt like I wouldn't be solving anything if I just wasn't here anymore. I felt like I would be taking the easy route. I felt like John would be disappointed I chose to go that way. I felt like I would be disappointed if I went out that way. 

I just felt a lot of things. 

When I decided I couldn't do it, I just became content that I would float through life, never making a difference. If all I was meant to do is be a freak, then I guess I was fulfilling my role. I didn't care about life, back then. I still don't, to be honest. I don't know what's stopping me from driving a knife through my heart, or stealing medication from Fran and going to sleep forever. I don't know what's stopping me, and maybe that's the reason I'm being stopped. The fact that I have no motivation in life gives me no motivation in achieving death.

So I just put everything back where I found them in the house and curled up into my bed waiting for John to come home. Waiting to resume my life as a living punching bag again.

"Zoe?" His voice was weak, raspy, pained. 

"Maud?" I run from the bathroom to my bed and sit on the edge. "Maud, what's going on?"

He coughs again and I grab his hand. His eyes finally settle on me, "Where am I?"

"You're in my room in Omega."

"When did I get here?"

"You don't remember?"

"No," he tries to sit up but I stop him. "You should rest."

"I need to go back."

"Back to where?"

"Shadow. They need me."

"Maud, slow down," I say forcefully making him stop. "Tell me what happened."

He slouches back into the pillow and sighs. "They came."

"Who? Tell me what happened after you left Visiting Day."

"We had to go back because we heard about our people coming in because they helped you guys against the Raven-Frawn ambush."

"Flame wouldn't have come back if it wasn't for you guys."

"If it wasn't for that stupid mission the Shadows had to assistance Omega on, they would still be together."

"They broke up?"

Maud looks to me, hurt that I would even ask that. He looks away, at the wall beside him and says, "I should have known."