His Woman (18+)

Chapter LII

THE DREAM

No one is worth dying for, sweetheart.

***

WARNING: Mention and description of attempted suicide.

CHAPTER LII

*****

SOUND WAVES COULDN'T pass through water, I briefly remembered from my last physics class. I found it hard to believe, because there I was, completely submerged by the water of the pool and I could still hear everything going on around me.

I heard the pounding music in the background and the sound of chatter and laughter from my peers. Or maybe I felt it. Maybe I was soaking in the last moments of life before it slipped away from me completely.

I was hyper-alert of my entire surroundings, but even that seemed to fade along with my will to live. I stayed beneath the water's surface for longer than a dozen seconds and not long after, I felt my lungs begin to beg for the oxygen I was depriving them of. I remained indifferent. I let myself sink to the bottom as if I didn't need to come up for air.

After all, I didn't need to. I needed to die.

In that moment, I had made up my mind. That after that night, I, Araceli Constantine Cruz, would be no more.

A part of me felt guilty. Out of all the nights I decided to take my own life did it really have to be this one? In this specific place? Teenagers had come to the party to have fun, but the only thing they would be experiencing was severe trauma once they had to witness someone fish my dead body out of the poor homeowner's pool.

I opened my eyes to take a look at my surroundings one last time as I slowly felt myself get lost in my unconsciousness.

I expected it to be quick and painless, granted I didn't think too much about it before I finally made the decision. Hell, I didn't even write a suicide note. The one thing that I had been sure of though was the fact that my passing would be stress free.

I was rudely awaken from that delusion at the sight of a brown-hair, brown-eyed boy swimming towards me with determination. I wanted to tell him no and to go away, to let him know that it was deliberate and I didn't want him to rescue me, but sound waves didn't travel through water.

Due to my oxygen deprived brain and my quick fade into unconsciousness, time seemed to blur into one. Before I could shake my head, he was already right beside me.

His arms wrapped around my waist and I felt a sharp spark travel up my spine at the contact, but didn't have time to dwell on it. In what felt like just mere seconds and the longest of years, he swam back up to the surface, making me suck in a deep breath of my dearly missed fresh air subconsciously.

I placed my hand on his shoulders, almost in a weak attempt to push him away, but I reached towards the sky as if the higher I got, the more oxygen I would receive.

My chest rose and fell violently and my lungs burned in my ribcage. For a second, as I felt the life slip back into me with every inhale, I felt happy and relieved that he had come to my rescue and I didn't succeed in dying.

But after more thinking, I realised that I was disappointed. Because there was nobody else to celebrate my survival with. There was nobody else to care.

A crowd of fellow aged party-goers, both drunk and sober alike, had gathered around the pool by the time that I had become oriented to properly take in my surroundings, and I found myself shrinking into the boys chest in fear. I didn't want people to know that this was a failed suicide attempt. I didn't want them to think of me as pathetic - so stupid, I couldn't even off myself right.