Page 147 of Until the Ribbon Breaks

Lost.

Malfunctioned.

Lying back, I zone out as I stare at the ceiling and then out to the clouds, out to heaven. I think about the peaceful souls, granted wishes, happily ever afters, the little houses with their little flower gardens.

My heart bleeds its last tear, and I’m done.

I can’t do this anymore.

Here are your pills, show up to therapy, and don’t forget about self-care.That’s what everyone tells me.

But where’s the cure? Where’s the fix?

Where’s the end?

I’ve spent years searching for the reason.

There is none.

I’m on a dead-end path, and I’m tired.

I’m so tired.

Listlessly, I pull myself out of bed, across the room, and down the stairs.

In the kitchen, I pour a glass of water and drink it all. Setting the empty glass on the counter, I turn and look out into the living room. Photos sit in frames, memories and smiles hide the dark truth.

They are all lies—exhausting lies.

My attention falls away, and I stare blankly at the island ... and then the stovetop ... and then the knife block.

Indifference is the scariest feeling I know. To have the ground crumble beneath me, to have the sky fall and the waters come in and feel nothing.

I pull one of the smaller knives from its slot and hold it in my hand. It isn’t a knife I see, though, it’s a key, a key to the lock that’s held me hostage for far too long.

It’s the key to my freedom.

I go back to my room, slip beneath the covers, and tuck myself into my warm bed. Resting my head on the pillow Sebastian slept on last night, I inhale his scent, wanting to connect the way all humans should, but I can’t. I’m too detached.

I’m an inhumane atrocity this world has endured for far too long.

Why are you so sad?

If I could pull back these ribs of mine, they’d see the raw red wounds of vicious pain that hold no explanation as to why.

I grip the knife and touch the blade to my scar, the scar that leads to my deliverance from this ever-constant suffering. I trace the line gently as I nestle my head into the pillow.

This world has wrecked me so badly that, when I’m gone, there will be little pieces of me scattered everywhere. In the trees I climbed as a child. In the grass I ran barefoot on. In the sand I built castles with. In the Sound Sebastian and I jumped into just last week that will now carry me out to sea.

So take me, world.

Break me, shatter me, and toss my pieces into the sky.

Clutching the handle in my unsteady hand, my heart takes its last beats, my lungs their last breaths, my defective mind its last thoughts, and with conviction, I cut.

I cut deeper than ever before.

I cut until ...

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