Are you okay?

01:18AM

Once I had been everything I was scared of: trusting, carefree and happy. Perhaps I viewed it with rose-tinted glasses, or my naïve childhood mind romanticised the ordinary, but back then everything felt like pure bliss. I'd been young and stupid, with hopes as high as the limit and an unbroken heart worn on my sleeve, thinking that everything could only get better.

But of course, it didn't get better: it got worse. Everything I'd thought was stable crashed, leaving me hanging on the edge until today I lost what was left of my miniscule strength and began to fall, spiralling to the conclusion that death was the only option.

"How are you meant to heal from the past if you avoid it though?" Romeo questioned rhetorically, and I hated that he had a point. "You're still bleeding from an old wound, but it can't heal without giving it the proper treatment it needs."

"Who said it was an old wound? The past could have been yesterday... or even this morning." I corrected, watching as his expression turned thoughtful, "Or maybe it is an old wound, but it constantly gets reopened."

Every time I managed to stop the bleeding and attempted to start the lengthy healing process, a knife would get dug back into the wound, twisting deep inside and leaving me with even more damage than I'd had to begin with.

"Can we stop with the metaphors and just be blunt here?" he complained, exasperation evident in his voice, "Because I can't decode your messages and it's driving me crazy trying to figure out what we're really talking about."

"You started this," I pointed out with a slight smirk, "And your reasoning is flawed. You also can't heal in the same environment you became sick in, so what am I meant to do if I can't leave the environment I'm in? How do I escape my mind?"

"You don't," he answered breezily after a brief pause, "You have to heal your environment, and then the wound. You need to fix your mindset first, and then the problems it plagues you with."

"And how exactly do you suggest I do that?" I asked, annoyance seeping into my voice as I took on a slightly sarcastic tone. I wasn't annoyed at him specifically, but more so the fact that everything he was saying was true, despite it being a very bitter pill to swallow.

"Allow yourself to be happy," he replied regardless, "Accept that not everyone is going to leave, and not everything is going to go wrong. And even if things do go wrong, and the happiness turns out to be temporary, the memory of it will still be there, reminding you during the bad times that better days are possible."

Pausing, I took a second to process his words, unable to silence the nagging voice of doubt in my mind. "Death seems like such an easier option though..." I muttered, raising my voice so he would be able to register my words, "Instead of going through all the hassle of untying the rope from my hands and saving myself, I could just make this all easier for everyone and... die."

My gaze lingered back over to the train tracks, the prior thoughts I'd been having since I stepped foot onto this platform resurfacing. I think Romeo had noticed earlier that I couldn't go two seconds without looking over at the railway, but somehow hearing his voice and gazing into those endless dark brown eyes of his made me fleetingly forget for a second that I'd ever thought about wanting to end my life. But just for a second.

"I don't think your death would make life easier for anyone; it would do the opposite." Romeo amended my words, "Countless people care about you, want, and need you to stay alive."

"I know, it's just..." I had friends who cared for me, and I'd been lucky enough to find a selfless best friend in Theo who would do anything to see me happy again, but none of that changed the way I felt inside. "Being depressed makes me feel like no one cares even though I know they do."