The Tree's Girl

Chapter Fifty

"Do you- want to die, Joseph?"

Though I expected it, I still don't know what to answer her. I'm still in the middle of figuring out myself.

"Maria, I still don't have an answer to that."

"What's the closest answer do you have?"

Maria is exceptionally prying today. To think that she'd accept just a close answer only to stop her anxiety and nervousness. I hugged her tight.

I'm sorry to say that my closest answer isn't something that could make her feel better.

"Maria, it's a yes. I want to die."

I heard a gasp from her and she suddenly tensed. Soon enough, she started trembling. I then felt her tears soaking my uniform. She cried, no- she bawled! She was bawling in my arms.

The sound of it was heart breaking. I regret telling her the unsure truth. I knew, somehow, that she wouldn't be able to take such an answer, but still I said it!

I hugged her even tighter, even tucking my head on her hair as I caressed her back just to try and make her stop. Anything but to hear and see her cry. "Maria, please. Stop. Stop crying."

She just couldn't. She continued to weep like a child.

It was contagious. I could feel myself also slipping into the deep dark abyss of depresion that Maria fell to in a second. I could feel it creeping up on me. I could feel it pulling me in.

"Maria. Please stop crying. I-I take it back. I-I don't want to die." I couldn't help but lie.

"Joseph. No. Y-you can't take it back." Her voice was hitching. She stopped every now and then because of her sobs.

"Please Maria. Stop crying."

"I can't."

"What can I do to make you stop?"

"Nothing."

She decided to stay and sleep at her house. She asked me to leave. No. Asking is a kinder word to describe what actually happened. She practically wanted to kick me out.

I walked alone in the empty street. The sun was already asleep but the stars and moon were wide awake and shining in the quiet night. I looked up.

Maybe if I didn't look where I was going, some vehicle might hit me and I'd finally die. Or maybe I'd fall in a manhole and drown in the dirty sewers.

A trash like me doesn't deserve to live at all.

I basically broke the heart of the only person who cared for me. My brother has long given up. I'm sure my school life wouldn't improve at all. Soon enough we'll be exposed. I'm pretty sure Ken and Anna wouldn't keep it hidden.

I don't know what to do anymore. Everything is just so complicated and I know it can't be solved anymore.

To think that I'd be going home to a house with a brother who's surely just going to make me more suicidal and with no comfort of Maria too. That house is a dark place now.

But I can't go back to Maria's as well. She's mad at me. She probably hates me!

Where do I go now?

"I never thought I'd end up here."

I'm sure students aren't allowed on school grounds when it's dark, but the guard was asleep and he left the gate open for anyone to enter. Even if he didn't, I'd find a way to get in either way.

"You're the reason why everything's a mess, you know?" I sat down the on its roots and leaned on it just feeling the soothing wind against my skin.