Page 120 of The Valiant Knight
“Suicide is the cowardly way out,” he stated. “She jumped and ruined a child’s life. That might be why she’s not at peace. Guilt.”
That had Graham’s attention.
“Pardon?” he asked.
He explained.
“Taking your own life ends your pain, but prolongs everyone else’s. Life is full of pain. The game is to overcome and beat it back. We all have moments where we’re struggling. It’s better to reach out and let someone help you than succumb. The people you leave behind will never forgive you if you take the easy way out.”
He laughed.
“Coming from a doctor, who has a wife and kids, that’s easily spoken. Not everyone has a shiny, perfect life, Doctor Magnus.”
Tony faced him.
Oh, well, he had no clue then.
“That’s your perception,” he admitted. “Before I found my wife, I was a mess. I wanted to die all of the time.”
They all listened.
“When I was four, my mother disappeared. For almost all of my life, I believed she abandoned me. I was found by the police locked in an apartment with no food or water.”
They were all very quiet.
“Then, I went to foster home after foster home. Some were good, most were not. Not everyone gets a loving family, Graham. That’s a fact of life.”
He said nothing, but he was thinking about his own childhood. It was good.
Until it wasn’t.
When he came out, that love was conditional.
Tony kept talking.
“I worked so many jobs to pay for school. I busted my ass, cried myself to sleep, and finally graduated. I applied to the FBI, and by some freaking miracle, I was hired. I met Elizabeth and Chris, and they became my family. They are the only reason I made it. Without them, I wouldn’t be here with my‘shiny, perfect life’.”
Graham saw the pain in his eyes, and he recognized it.
It lived in him too.
When someone was damaged, they could find that in other people.
“For years, I slept with people, trying to find myself. I ended up in bed with a dead woman, and nearly lost my job. Ilived by the mercy of my friends, lost and unloved. So, I get it more than you think I do.”
Apparently, he did.
“I’m sorry, Doctor.”
Tony was honest.
“There wasn’t one day when I didn’t wake up and think about checking out. I was tired. I was worn down, and one day, I really wanted to die.”
Graham was curious.
“How did you get through it. I’m struggling,” he admitted, and it was the first time he’d said it out loud.
Tony moved closer.
