Page 3 of The Substitute
I’m too weak to even do this.
He wraps me up in a hug, pulling me into his warm chest. I curl up in his lap like a child, clinging to his offered comfort. My pain soaks into his shirt, but he doesn’t seem to care. He’s wrapped his entire body around mine as if he can keep me together by sheer determination and force of will. This sweet man doesn’t know I’m not worth the effort.
“Shhhhh. I’ve got you.” He repeats these words and rocks me while the cracks in my soul bleed out. How am I not dying of blood loss? Nothing will ever be okay ever again. I’m not even brave enough to end it all.
My eyes itch, and my throat is raw when the trembling finally settles, and his hold relaxes. He settles against the wall, still wrapped around me.
He’s cupped my head to his chest, where I can hear his heart beating and his slow breathing.
“I know how it feels when your brain is lying to you and telling you no one cares.” His voice is quiet and rumbles against my cheek. “I know how it feels to think that life is nothing but pain and suffering. I know how it feels to question what the damn point of life is.” Pain is etched into his tone by the time he’s said the last word, and there’s something about it that calls to me. My stupid fucking heart, ever hopeful. “But I promise there’s beauty in life, too.”
“What was your reason?” I whisper, almost afraid of his answer.
“My reason for what?”
“Your reason to stay.”
“I didn’t have one. But something held me back. Over and fucking over when I tried, there was something telling me I had something to do. Like a damn itch in my brain because I forgot to do something.” His thumb brushes my cheek.
“Did you ever figure out what it was?”
“I think it was you.”
TWO
AMBROSE
The guy hesitates for a moment, and I hold my breath. I don’t want to be the reason he jumps. Maybe I should have left him alone and minded my own business, but I wasn’t lying when I’d said I’ve been up there on this very bridge.
But then he gives me a snort laugh. “That was really cheesy.”
“Did it work?” I grin, glancing over at him like it would be that easy to get him to go back to solid ground.
“Do dad joke level fate quotes make you want to live or off yourself harder?” he quips back sarcastically.
“Harder…that’s better, right?” I laugh, already feeling at home in the dark humor.
His lips twitch, but he doesn’t allow the smile to take. “I guess it depends on what’s hard.”
“Touché. There are plenty of things I don’t want hard.”
We fall into silence, and I don’t know what else to say to him.
What would have gotten me off the ledge a few years ago?
I’m not sure there is a right or standard answer. Wanting to die isn’t rational, so it can’t be fixed with logic or even feelings. It’s a crisis of your own brain lying to you, one I know all too well. I’m not sure it’s something someone ever fully recovers from, either. I haven’t actively wanted to kill myself in a while,but passively, if the sun exploded tomorrow, I wouldn’t be all that mad.
Maybe when I figured out how to get away from my father, that would get better. Or it never would. Maybe we’re all doomed to suffer through the concept of life. But I couldn’t leave this guy to the suffering alone, and I guess that is the part of me that wished I had someone who cared enough to talk me down when I was there.
“You know, even if you don’t know it, there will be people who will miss you.” I cringe after the words are out. Could I be any more cliché? If only I’d taken Psych 101 instead of that humanities course, I might be better at this, but talking someone off the ledge isn’t something we ever fucking talk about. “But even if you don’t, or you feel like you don’t, I care, and you should too.”
The second part makes him look at me. “Why should I care about myself when no one else does?”
“Spite?” I’m grasping at fucking straws here. “It’s a great reason to live. Prove all those motherfuckers wrong.”
He lifts his shoulders. “I’m not sure it’s worth it. They don’t notice me anyway, so they won’t care.”
“Who’s not going to care?”
