The Fourth Boy

My mind succumbs to the urge to let go.

I held the knife firmly over my wrist. I closed my eyes, shuddered, and took a deep breath. Too many thoughts clouded my head at that moment, and I wasn’t sure which ones I should suppress; the ones convincing me to do it or the ones stopping me from doing it.

Thoughts kept coming to me, one after the other. I shut my eyes, doing my best to keep myself from screaming because of all the loud thoughts in my head. But they kept coming, like waves hitting the shore during high tide. I could not run, there was nothing I could do. The voices were loud, with a sad break-up song playing in loud voice in my head and more voices overlapping. I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t think.

And in the hopes of stopping them, I slid the knife against my wrist, applying pressure. But apparently, it wasn’t enough. I barely made a scratch. I had fear of pain, so any way of dying that might cause me the slightest amount of pain had been far out of my reach. I thought I had overcome my fear. I was wrong.

An angry sob left my mouth, and I growled, frustrated that the tears wouldn’t come. I wanted to cry, I wanted to cry so badly, I wanted to take out all the pain, stress, frustration, and everything. But I couldn’t. The tears just wouldn’t come.

I ran the knife again over my wrist, and yet again, nothing seemed to happen. And just like that, my mild algophobia took control and the next moment, I was slamming the knife against the kitchen counter. I had been this close to the answer I had been searching for over a year, and now, my opportunity was gone again. Screw stupid phobias.

I took a few ragged breaths, trying to calm myself, trying to send away the thoughts.

Do it, a voice whispered in my head. The answer’s right here, right in front of you.

Don’t! What if it’s painful? Asked another voice.

It won’t be. The afterlife’s not supposed to be painful. You’ll go to heaven!

Suicide is a sin. You won’t go to heaven!

You’re a child. God will forgive you. God doesn’t curse the curious ones! And you won’t even cause pain to the ones around you! It’s not like you’ll be missed!

That’s the thing. You’ll be forgotten! I know you don’t want to be forgotten!

And that was the closing statement from my rationale, have yet a lot to live and a not-so-very-curious side. I sighed. Life was too much trouble. But soon enough, the voices started clearing, and only the song remained in my head. I put away the knife and went back to my room. Maybe some other day I’ll be successful.

Now, before you ask me, “Why Chris, why were you trying to kill yourself?” I’ll give you the answer.

Firstly, let me clear something up; I am not in depression and I love my life. However, I am an artist, a painter, to be specific. I have seen hundreds of people paint hundreds of versions of death, and none seemed to satisfy me. I wanted something accurate, but more than that, I wanted to truth.

What happened after death?

Would a light just go out in my head and my consciousness will die down? Would I not exist anymore? Where will this consciousness go? What will happen to these thoughts? What will I feel?

Maybe there’s an afterlife. But is there? What if there’s no peace, even in death? What’s the point of death?

Does God really exist? What if it’s all a lie? What if I’ll die, and I’ll still be able to think, feel, smell, see, and hear, but won’t be able to do anything as worms would enter my mouth, as rats would gnaw my skin, as fleas would cover my skin, and microorganisms would start growing on me until I would be nothing but a skeleton. Or would they continue, even then? Would my corpse, nothing but a bag of bones, be one day dug out and used for something? Would I be crushed into a thousand pieces, forced to feel the pain every minute of it? Or would I even feel then? Or would I just exist, without being able to think, and feel, but only exist?

Life was complicated. But death was more complicated. I spent more time thinking about death than I spent thinking about life, with only two things to distract me and keep me going; art and love. But before I start blabbering about my love life let me tell you some things about myself.

Where should I start, though?

I am Christiana Hayes. I love art and I love ‘love’. Well, more like the concept of love, but the thing is, I have never been in love. I mean, back then I used to think I was in love. But I am mature now, I know it was never love, just a silly heart-breaking crush.

Do you know someone who just wanted to be in love so badly that they did whatever they could just to fall in love?

Well, that’s me, the girl who is obsessed with falling in love. But the thing is, I don’t have a choice. Every time I pick up the paintbrush and look at the canvas, I only feel like painting death. And the fact that I have no idea what death is, makes me want to die so I could just know. Unless I am distracted in my head and thinking of a certain someone. Then, I could paint something beautiful, something that will come straight from the happiness overloading my heart, and not from my solace and sorrow.

So, I busied myself with unimportant things such as guys. Anything to distract me from being completely suicidal even though I loved living. It made me wonder if I truly did love my life.

But for the past two years, everyone’s loved my life, and a lot of people have even wanted it. Every day, every hour, I have heard how great my life is from everyone but me. I only agree, I never say it. Like a child agreeing with their parents about something moral and ethical. I don’t believe it deep down, I convince myself of it.

Everyone’s happy for me, by that time I should be happy for myself. Right?

Gratitude, Chris, it’s called gratitude towards God. Right?

Smile, Chris, just give a fake convincing smile. Right?

Right.

That’s what I do.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. I don’t want you to get bored with my sad life story. I might be ungrateful but I am in self-denial. I know a lot of you would kill to get someone other than your parents to ask you how you are and how your day was. So here it is, how are you? How was your day?

Well, I hope it was fine. And I hope you’re fine too cause if you’re reading a romantic tragedy then either you love tragedies like me or you are going through something. I hope it is the former.

So, let’s just finish the purpose of this book. You want tragedy? Oh, I’ll give you a tragedy.

As a child, I was often called ‘exceptional’ due to many reasons. Call it my straight A+ results or my shocking athletic abilities or my interest in fine arts. By the time I was eight, I had a table filled with my trophies and medals in my house.

But that was it.

I craved adventure, so, when I started finding it very easy, I stopped doing it. So, I became the average kid, the one who fits in everywhere and didn’t attract any attention. I became the definition of normal.

So, do you guys want to know about the first guy I fell in love with? Well, incoming, the story of how I fell for the most popular guy who also happened to be three years older than me.

Hey, I never said I was anything close to sane!

It was my first day of middle school. Thing is, my town has some weird system, where middle school starts from fifth grade. Something about the low budget in the elementary school.

It was the first day of fifth grade, the grade when I first fell in love. And it was the exact definition of cliché.

There was an excited chatter among us newcomers as we entered the school for the first time. Everything was huge for us. The lockers stood tall, pained red and yellow with tiny locks covering them. The hallways were wide, covered by students enormous for us. They looked like giants, the way they walked, and the way their loud voices covered our squeals made us feel like infants.

Guys were running around, and we dodged them, trying to not die a minute into the school. Some older girls looked at us kindly, while some looked at us scarily, and we weren’t that innocent that we wouldn’t know who to stay away from.

With our timetables in our hands, at once, all of us started walking around looking for our classes and it came to our knowledge that the school was enormous. I was a tiny, skinny girl with chubby cheeks, and big grey eyes.

My locker was in a remote corner. I put my books inside, gripping my bag tightly. I had always thought elementary school was wild. Now coming to middle school, my definition of ‘wild’ was evolving.

Shielding myself, I made my way to my first class. I sat on the first bench, eager for the class to start but nervous at the same time.

I looked around and watched as everyone walked in. A few minutes later, the teacher walked in, and the second bell rang soon afterward. I was excited and happy.

The first few periods passed peacefully. During lunch, I sat with my new friend.

“Hey freshman!” an older guy mocked, pulling my hair. I narrowed my eyes at him. I was very protective of my hair. I stood up, ready for a fight. Have I mentioned how stupid I was as a kid?

“What do you want?”

“Leave her alone, Merse.” A strong voice came from behind him. The guy, whose name now I knew, turned around, scowling at the figure behind him. I peeked to find a much older guy standing there, with his eyebrows raised, waiting for Merse to leave.

Merse’s eyes widened, and he ran away faster than humanly possible. The older guy smiled kindly at me before crouching a little and offering his hand. “Hi, I am Jacob!”

“I am Christiana,” I replied, taking his hand. His hand was way bigger than mine and completely enclosed my hand. I gave him a smile, a smile that very well reached my ears.

“Why don’t you join us?” he asked, and I nodded enthusiastically, and I and my friend joined him. He was sitting with his friends. They all looked his age. I was certain they were all eight-graders.

The year passed beautifully. I would wait every day for lunch so I could hang out with him. He absolutely loved playing guitar, so sometimes he would show me how to play it. No bully even dared to look at me, and I was certain it was because of him.

He was like my guardian angel.

I was so certain he was the one.

By the time half the year had gone by, I had already developed a major crush on him. I would picture him one day asking me out.

It never happened, but I never lost hope either.

I always believed in ‘never say never’.

I guess I was too fast to believe I’d never lose hope.

It was the last day of school. He was moving to high school. We had fun that day with his friends. All his friends liked me. They found me cute. And I was.

Right before leaving, he came to me, and spoke with a smile, “It was nice knowing you, Chris. You fulfilled my dream of having a little sister.” And he left with that.

And my heart broke for the first time on that day.