They were staring at me. The hot subway air brought me the rank smells of my own body, and I could not blame the passerby for averting their eyes. Some quickly turned and walked away from me. Others couldn't stop staring. I was like a horrible accident--you can't look, but can't look away. Some, the ambitious, caring mothers, covered their children's eyes with their hands. I smirked, knowing that in ten years, those children would be just like me, and there was nothing their mothers could do about it.

I reached the stairs going down to the R train and a bullet of pain sped from my ankle upwards. I must've twisted it when I fell.

Leaning against a column on the platform, I stared silently at the tracks. The area around me slowly cleared as the people became aware of my state and quietly moved away. Soon it was just me and the blood running down my face. It wasn't warm, as people are wont to say. I couldn't feel it, but I knew it was there, because I heard it as it dripped onto the collar of my jacket, onto the cuff of my shirt, onto the tiled floor. My face was bruised and bleeding and I couldn't feel a thing.

Life was confusing sometimes. But nothing had sent me spiraling down so far before tonight. There just wasn't a point anymore.

I shifted my weight on the column, the pain bringing back imprints of the wounds. The fight. The screaming.

I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. Help was going to come too late tonight.

The train rolled in, the screeching brakes making me wince and cringe. I stepped on unsteadily, the cold air freezing me in place. The car wasn't empty, but it wasn't crowded, and my face was enough to make people move out of my way.

I leaned against the doors opposite to the ones I had entered. With a lurch we moved forward, and again I brooded over the last few hours.

Something my dad used to say when I came home looking beat up came to mind, and I chuckled to myself. "If you look like this, I'd like to see the other guy." Well, it may be funny, but it didn't make any sense tonight.

The woman standing closest to me moved a bit, jerkily, nervously, and I stopped laughing to myself. What would they think?

It was always about what the world thought, wasn't it? Never what one person felt, never what really mattered. But I'd show them.

It was my stop. The doors wouldn't open for a minute after we slowed to a halt, and I had a momentary vision of them coming after me, storming through the train, grabbing me, forcing me to live.

But the doors opened, and I walked off the train instead. I walked the platform silently, my hands in my jacket pockets. Crowded pockets, because after all, my intentions were in there with me, incased in plastic.

A young man passed me. He was the only one to make eye contact with me since I'd left the scene, and I silently thanked him. He had a clean-cut look about him, but somehow in the brief two seconds we shared a glance, I got the feeling he knew me.

Climbing up the stairs out of the subway station, I felt dizzy, but pressed on. Blood loss and nausea were not going to get in my way tonight. Nothing was.

The wind whipped my hair as I trudged up the block to my apartment building. The cold keys cut into my dry hands. I was shaking as I tried to open the building door, and I felt weak.

Courage, boy, courage. Don't let it dwindle.

The elevators and hallways were deserted. It wasn't uncommon for the time or neighborhood, but I could not help missing the familiar faces of my neighbors.

Oh well.

No one was home. How convenient. They were probably just out, maybe for a little bit, maybe stopping at the corner store for milk. I didn't have a lot of time.

I peacefully strolled to the fridge, my bloody clothes dripping on the white linoleum floor. I didn’t feel like hurrying now that the end was in sight. Grabbing two beers, I slammed the refrigerator door shut. . They could get arrested for this, for what I was planning. So it wasn't my problem. Did I care? Didn't think so.

I headed to my bathroom, off the corner of my room. Decorated mostly in black, it suited my mood now, as it did most nights. The cold tiled floor was broken here and there due to my misuse of it. The overflowing garbage can was tilted, about to fall and spill the horrible evidence of my life all over the floor. There was a slight odor accompanying the wrappers and syringes in the can, but I didn’t notice because it wafted along with my own scent.

Clambering into the bathtub, I snapped open the first beer and took a long swig. Holding the bottle up to the dim light streaming through the dirty window, I chased the bubbles with my eyes and giggled. I had become so emaciated over the last month that the alcohol didn’t take long to douse my body in a lovely stupor. Another long swig went down my throat and my eyes started watering. I didn’t get like this often, but when I did, I loved it.

The buzz in my empty stomach told me that I was ready. I slid an unsteady hand into my stained coat pocket and drew out my mother’s bottle of Xanax. The tranqs she took everyday didn’t stop the panic attacks, and finally I snitched the bottle so I wouldn’t have to watch her complain about the ineffectiveness of her medication.

Now it was going to help me. Twelve pills slid out of the bottle, speckled and lovely. There were more inside, but I doubted I was going to need them. The beer would help with that.

One by one, I swallowed my lovely pills with a swallow of Corona. The only thing I regretted leaving behind was the taste of that beer.

Snuggled in the porcelain bathtub that was now smeared bronze and crimson, I closed my eyes and finished off the last of the two beers. Ahhh. Now that’s what made life worth living.

Only it just wasn’t enough for me.

Closing my eyes, I thought about why I did what I’d just done. Was it just the fight and the fact that I no longer wanted to live through my daily horrors?

Not really.

I guess it was all because of Char.

God. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t think about it. About me and Char. About how fucking confusing it was all the time, to be in this situation.

But I had to do it, didn’t I. Yep, that’s your typical Ransom, getting his ass in trouble all the time, even if it was all in his head.

Oh, God I’m feeling woozy. Yeah, Corona will do that to you, dumbass.

But with the Xanax it was taking effect really quickly. At this rate my parents would come back and I’d already be dead. And I didn’t even leave a note. I forgot.

How could I forget the suicide note? Smooth move, Ransom.

Well, at least I locked the door.

It was close now, there was no mistaking that haziness. No way to confuse the slowing of my heart, the clogging of my breathing.

And there was no way to deny that I was dying. At my own hand.

Because of Char.

Technically it was my own fault. Char had nothing to do with it. But word got out and we fell apart, bullying and beating aiding this.

I’m sorry, Char, so sorry. The haziness was rushing now, it was crowding my eyes and stuffing my nose. My pulse was almost nonexistent when I tried to find it in both my wrist and neck. Thank you, thank you--I’d never believed in the powers that be, but this had got to be a gift. Last time I tried I’d failed miserably and woken up having nurses pump my stomach.

But it was going to be soon now. Then it’d be over.

Dimly I heard the key turned in the apartment door. My parents were home.

But that didn’t matter.

It was all over

was all over

all over

over