

Sarah

Preface

There’s Beauty in the Breakdown

Author’s note: Do not base this story solely on its’ first chapter. The first part is extremely whiny and biased, and throughout the rest of the story, it quickly stops because of the unusual circumstances. So please don’t skip over this just because you think the first part is stupid. I know it sounds stupid, but that’s because I’m using my 16-year-old-girl narrative because that’s me in a nutshell, and it’s how I would probably react to everything.

Now that you know…if you do want to hear what happens next, please don’t judge it based on the first chapter. Thank you!

Also, I don’t condone suicide in any shape or form.

Things happen when you’re a teenager. By ‘things’ I could mean a lot of things. I mean, there could be your mum and dad finally figuring out that you really are on that drug binge your best friends’ mother told them about. On the other hand, of course I could be talking about that deep dark secret that you never told your parents about. You know the one. About that dirty party you went to? And maybe got high? You don’t know for sure because well, things got a little fuzzy after that first vodka. How you ended up in jail with no pants is a mystery even to you. But good thing you had a trusty brother or sister to get you out of there without your parents even knowing! Because then that would have just sucked!

There are, of course, worse ‘things’ that happen as teenagers. For instance, your first year of high school? You will, I can guarantee it, know of at least one girl who has gotten pregnant. Yeah, sucks for them, you’d say, but you couldn’t possibly imagine how hard the parents would take it. Man, they’d probably have already thrown her off the roof!

And you will also know someone or know somebody who knew somebody who committed suicide. And everybody at school cries, blah, blah, blah…so sad.

Yeah, well if you had known me, maybe I would have wished you weren’t crying. I mean, there I was, all dead and everybody that I had never known was crying over me!

As much as people up in heaven like me say that they don’t remember exactly why they did it, I remember. Yep, clear as rain I remember why.

My sixteenth summer had been pretty damn depressing. All I had done was tan and shop. Sounds good, right? Well, yeah, it was! But that was the problem. I had tanned alone and I had shopped alone. There was the occasional call from a friend or two and we would go spend all our money at the mall, but still.

No romances for me. Nope, nothing to keep my teenage fire burning. I mean, I felt wronged! I was sixteen! I deserved a guy that I wanted. I deserved a guy who would ask me out! Was that so hard to ask? Okay, yeah, the suburban town I came from wasn’t exactly filled with winners, but I would have thought that at least one of them was smart enough to do his job. They always made the girls flirt with them and no way would they get close or even ask them out unless the girls flirted and acted like…um, how to put this in nicer terms…skanks. Well, skanks with polos and ripped up jeans.

And I mean, it’s not like I didn’t try to play up with this! I did! I had the polos and the ripped up jeans! I had the short skirts and the frilly tops. Hell, I even wore a jersey once for a football game! I really tried. But it seemed like the more I tried, the harder they worked against me.

If I liked something in a store and bought it, bam! It’d be on the clearance rack the next day. I tried to make light of this-‘oh ha hah! They must not like me!’-but soon it became obviously clear that they really, indeed, did not like me. This happened in every store I went to!

It gets a bit discouraging, if you ask any teenager. I mean, when you realize they are taking things off the shelves because you bought them, it’s just slightly depressing.

Back to my point though. So my summer had been depressing, and the beginning of my Junior year wasn’t all that great either. I didn’t get the classes I wanted/needed and even though my dad yelled at the principal, I still didn’t get the classes I wanted. However, I did land a boyfriend. That had been extremely hard to do! And of all things, my friend had had to set us up! And believe me, his total lust for me wasn’t all that mutual.

All he wanted to do was cuddle and kiss and giggle-all in the hallway, might I mention-and I didn’t think it was cute at all! I thought it was disgusting! I wanted the gorgeous movie teenage romance! You know, the ones where they cared for each other and loved each other but they didn’t flaunt it.

But anyways, he broke up with me sometime in October and that was a downer but I mean, it wasn’t like I was smitten about him or anything. I just liked having a boyfriend.

So there I was, with absolutely no boyfriend or anybody to cuddle with-not like I did that much anyway-in what was pretty much the most socially challenging year of a teenagers’ life. And how much was I falling apart because now I had nothing to hang onto in the life that had taken me forever to build up on (e.g., ‘oh, me and Trey, we just went to the park last night, it was so cute how he picked me a flower...not’ and ‘Oh, I was just over at Trey’s, mum. His mum made me stay for supper. It was so cute!’)? Um, a lot.

Actually, I was pretty much a mess. My stunning wardrobe that I had spent all summer perfecting seemed worthless now. My tan, that I absolutely, dearly and adoringly loved, started to fade. And of all stupid things to happen, my blonde hair just got shinier. I thought this pretty ironic, hypothetically speaking, considering your hair is supposed to lose its’ lust if you’re depressed.

Okay, so don’t start thinking I was a loser though or anything, because I wasn’t! I mean, clearly I had friends! Everyone has at least one friend, whether it be their pet or a human being. But they do. I happened to have 4 very close friends. Outside of that group you know, it wasn’t like I was gonna waste my time calling them over the summer.

Because god, why would I wanna do that?

Tch, don’t start thinking I was stuck up either! I know, I know, I sound like a snob, but it was never the case! Hell, if I spoke more than what, 20 words in a day at school, maybe people would have thought of me as snobby. But I really wasn’t. I felt that if I dared to speak that much, somebody would have a reason not to like me, and eventually it got so bad that I was extremely paranoid about people.

If they looked at me, it meant they were giving me a dirty glare. If they started being really nice and talked to me one day, it meant that obviously they were only doing it to get homework or something.

I didn’t want to act like a prat or anything, and I especially did not want people to think of me like that. So therefore I did absolutely nothing to make them not like me. Yes of course I was quite shy and silent, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t enjoying listening to others in my class. I just never had anything to add into the conversation that was appropriate. And yeah, I knew that my mates didn’t care all that much for anybody but themselves, and yeah, it was stupid to be so self-conscious, but I couldn’t help it.

My point though, is that I could have been happier. I could have been a lot better off. Not living where my mummy and daddy had chosen to live probably would not have had any affect on my life now, but I like to think that if I had lived somewhere exotic and tranquil, my life would have been so much more interesting. Maybe I would have been an Indonesian Princess or something.

But I’m sure it would not have mattered. At some point I would have broken down. Even if I had been broken up with a banana boy or a merman, I would have broken down. Something or someone would have screwed me over.

But thank god I didn’t know that before I killed myself, or I would have just continued on with my night.

So, I know what you’re thinking. It’s something along the lines of ‘she’s pretty damn stupid to have killed herself. She had her whole life ahead of her. Why would she do that?’. Am I correct?

Well, to tell you the truth, none of that had come to mind while I was busy injecting poison into my bloodstream. Nope, none of that occurred. No see, what did occur to me was how sorry I felt for myself and I could not possibly enjoy my life after falling down so far.

And just to make you more disgusted with me, I’ll explain exactly, detail for detail, how I killed myself! I’m so sure that you really would like to dig so deep into my history!

But on the other hand, I’ll keep you guessing until you’re willing to let me explain. That may take a while. But you’ve got to understand my warning to you.

I’m not here to tell you suicide was right or wrong, good or bad. I’m just telling you what happened to me. I mean, no harm can come from learning a different perspective, am I right?