"So, maybe it's not my place to be thinking about my life… But it definitely isn't your place to think for me!"

These words race through my mind… When will my torture end? On the other hand, is the better question, "When will my happiness begin

Laying down, looking at the ceiling, I can see the shadows cast from the streetlights outside. How did things get to be this way? However, I already know the answer. When the world is given to you, what do you have to actually show for yourself? Maybe if I hadn't received everything I ever wanted. Maybe, if I had been a violent child, things would have been different. On the other hand, what if I had actually grown up to be the person they think I am?

I could never bring myself to tell them the things I have done. But, then again, the things I've done pale when compared to things others have done. In my short, young life, I've come to two important discoveries; I'm never as strong as I think I am and I'm only here so I can die later.

I shove my covers off thinking, "Maybe if I wasn't such a weakling, she wouldn't have left… maybe if I wasn't such a loser, I wouldn't be thinking these stupid thoughts… maybe if I was better, I could show it and people would like me… maybe if I wasn't me, I could learn to like me."

I slowly rise from my bed and trudge out of my room toward the bathroom. Usually the heated tiles leading to my first morning stop would bring my moods up, but not today. Today, I feel like I'll just go through the motions of living. However, one glance in the mirror sends tremors down my spine. Could I really throw away such a work of art? My body, sculpted from the mush of elementary, middle school, puberty, and bad eating. My body, a body many people would only dream of. After six years of hard work and dedication, I finally developed the body I wanted. At six-feet tall and 180 pounds, maybe now I'll get attention from girls at school. Maybe…

After the shower, I head back into my room for the final preparations. Today is definitely going to be different.

After a good breakfast and a long drive, I get out of my car and walk into school. It's a quaint little school with a graduating class of only 72 students, me being one of those this year.

The day drags on with teachers teaching useless subjects and giving meaningless lectures. What use is anything to a man that doesn't care? The final bell finally rings and I quickly leave the school and make the boring drive home.

Home, sweet home. Or so they say. I've never been this disconnected from the real world in a long time… Three years ago to be exact. That's when I realized something was wrong with me. I noticed people looking and talking to me strangely and they started asking me odd questions. Questions that didn't have anything to do with whatever the conversation was about. But the questions weren't even the worst of it. The only person that didn't treat me as if I was strange, besides family, left me. Oh, well, enough about my simple problems; I've been standing in this doorway for quite sometime.

I make my way back to my room but I walk slowly enough I can take in my surroundings. There's my first home run! That's my ribbon collection from track! Oh, and that's my trophy collection from winning cross-country races! There's my team plaque for winning the state championship in football three years in a row! That's my swimming trophy! Hey, they even kept the photo of when I won the chess championship! Oh and how could I forget my basketball trophies? All of these wonderful things… mean nothing to me.

I was given every opportunity to better myself. Whatever I wanted to do, my parents would pay someone to help me perfect it if they themselves couldn't help me first. They always loved me. They always loved how I was the special child.

My older brother had been the problem child but now he's grown and married. My older sister couldn't carry her own weight in the world if she tried. She constantly has to get support for whatever she does. Then there's my little brother. I still don't know how he does it, but he continues to not be punished for anything he does wrong.

Then there's me, of course. But I already talked about how perfect I must be… Well, I guess being good at sports and being valedictorian (granted it's a small school) don't make excellent indicators.

The problem is that I don't want these things. I don't want anything. I want to die.

The hard part is dying.

Every method I've tried always ends the same; I never follow through.

And every time I tell myself, "This is it! This is what you were born to do!" But then I stop myself and continue living my pathetic existence. It could be that a superior being has better plans for me or it could be that they're trying new ideas of dying through my existence. Either way, I continue to feel like a sick, twisted being with a death wish.

I finally make it back to my room and throw myself on the bed. I lay there thinking about what other options I have.

I need to get a gun.

I quickly make my way into my father's study. It's a minimalistic study with only a desk and the gun safe. The key is always in the center drawer of the desk, so I take it and open the safe. Inside, I find our family's shotguns and my father's gifted 44 Magnum. I look around for ammo but it's nowhere to be found.

Maybe, my father is smarter than I take him to be.

After more searching around, I find a latch on the bottom floor of the safe. Inside the compartment, I find the ammo.

After loading the gun, I'm startled by the slamming of the front door.

"Great, my brother's home from school."

I quickly close the safe and replace the key. With the gun hidden under my shirt, I carefully make my way back to my room.

Without interruption from my brother and within the quite walls of my room, I look once more upon my treasure. Fear and guilt course through my body as my mind tries to psyche my body from harming itself. Overcoming this reaction isn't something I've achieved just yet. However, that's why the gun should be the easiest. I don't know why I never tried it earlier. Oh, that's right, he didn't have the gun until last month, when grandfather died. So many deaths, so little time.

I position myself in a sitting pose on my bed with the gun in hand. I quickly bring the gun up into my mouth and put the trigger.

(Maybe it would have been easier to write about how scared I was or how terrible it felt to pull that trigger. The problem with that is that I felt nothing. I truly didn't care about what would happen after I died or what would happen to my family. I didn't care. That is… until I woke up in the hospital three weeks later.)