The right person has a hard time

{Trigger warnings for anyone reading my short story, this story contains mentions of: Suicide, self-harm, death, guns, and drug use. Thank you for being so understanding.}

Waking up with the most glamorous hair, where everyone loves you, is a great part of the world, at least that’s what I thought the world was like, but it’s not. I’m only starting college, and I already want to die, although I’ve felt this way for many years now. The overarching pain of my family deserting me and being kicked out of the house. At least I have tuition to live in the dorms on the college campus. College Hawkspin is the biggest college in the county, one of the best that I was able to afford. This place is interesting to say the least. I have two roommates, and we all go out every weekend to party or go clubbing. For being 22 years old, we are still childish in every way. My roommates are Cecela and Alosa; they are pretty rowdy, but they're two people who make me want to keep living. Then there’s Mattao, my childhood friend, whom I've secretly loved since I was in middle school. He’s awfully protective and so caring; he’s really a great guy. My friends love it when he actually agrees to go out; it’s a lot of fun. He lives in a small apartment uptown, a few miles from school. We go over there and stay on weekends after partying and grabbing a bite to eat. I’ve been suicidal since I was in the 8th grade. It was really hard for me when my grandpa died; he was really the only one keeping our family together after his passing, it all kinda fell apart. I even tried to end my life multiple times, once by overdose, once by slitting my wrists, and once by trying to drown. I was saved almost every time by my best friends. I felt like the burden I laid upon them would never tarnish.

We were all going out for a celebration for our classes' passed exams, and it was all the legal adults. With only a few 21-year-olds. We just had to wait and pray they didn’t black out or throw up. There was once a trip we went on, and I threw up all over this poor old man the first time I ever got fully drunk. I felt bad the rest of the time we were there, and he was our chaperone, so it only caused more trouble. He did make a joke out of it and told me that at least it wasn’t on his nice shoes, then he found one piece on his shoes and laughed it off. The celebration was huge, and we were all staying in one nice big hotel for the weekend. We ended up in the same room, Celcela, Alosa, Mattao, and I. It was a beautiful night, so we all started drinking off early. We all agreed Cecela would get the most drunk, and she did. When we finally finished getting completely wasted, we returned to the room. This was one of the nights I was feeling overly depressed. I went to shower and could only think about how good it would feel to take my final breath. When I got out and left the bathroom, my eyes were stained with dark red circles and the reflection of my tainted heart all over them. I lay down trying to sleep since everyone was already in bed. I was lying next to Mattao and realized he wasn’t sleeping but he was wide awake, staring at his dim cell phone, watching some sort of music video. Turning over, I began to be nosy and stuck my nose right between his phone; the video said stuff about life and death. That must have been a coincidence. I began to let my head fall to his chest as he wrapped an arm around me, rubbing my back as his way of saying it would be okay. I ended up falling asleep being cradled in his strong arms.

When the weekend was over, we all returned home and got plenty of well-deserved rest. The best weekend, and my depression still ruined it entirely. I enjoyed it, but couldn’t help but think I had ruined everyone else's time. I had to remind myself that I was just overthinking it and it would be fine. Nothing was ever truly fine; everything had a dark side. The windows had begun to be stained with the cold frost of winter, and the winds blew rapidly throughout the thick tree branches with fallen leaves. Maybe my time was approaching ever so near. A month later, I went to the doctors due to unbearable pain in my lower abdomen. The doctor had taken many tests to see what was damaging my body. Turned out my liver was almost fully damaged. Just bad genes, I assumed, since I drank way less than all my friends. With my liver failing and my life declining, I simply had no means left to survive.

Many months later, I sat alone in the dorm one weekend and wrote suicide notes. I couldn’t hang on any longer. I needed to die with some sense of hope of them all knowing it wasn’t them. I then ran down to Mattao's house, praying he was home and awake. Banging on the door, crying, I heard loud footsteps walking towards the locked door. He saw me with a shocked expression, aligning his lips.

“Mattao, I… I can’t go on like this. Where is your gun?” I said with tears streaming down my face. His shock when I spoke sent spears through my cold, miserable body. I felt awful for showing up late, but I was already dying, and I needed to escape this wretched hell that I so-called life.

“Let’s think about this and sit down, maybe drink some water. I think you’re just in your head.” Mattao’s face was icy, like he’d heard a baby crying for help from an empty room. I couldn’t bear to stand here and stare as my words were piercing through his skin like saw blades with ridged edges.

“Mattao, I need you to shoot me, please, it’s all I ask. I need an escape; no one will know it was you. Hand me the gun i’ll do it myself. I spoke, shaking from the fear that he wouldn’t just let me go, my selfishness tainting every wall in the small living area. He grabbed me, shaking as well, but didn’t try to stop anything anymore. He knew I was too far gone. It took him two minutes to take the gun, point it at my abdomen, and shoot, the loud bang echo causing both of my ears to ring and bleed from pain and shock. He shoots again with tears trickling down his face as the blood expels from my body of waste. I feel the final breath I will ever take closing in, and all I can say is enough to numb my own pain.

“ I’ve always loved you.” The last words I ever said as blood trickled from my beaten-up head to the bottom of my back and down until the floor is soaked with crimson color, one he will always remember me by. His tear-stained eyes were beating with the tune of his rapid heartbeat. He knelt and grabbed me, indefinitely soaking his clothes, with scarlet blood, my blood that last of it. He cried, grabbed the gun, and shot himself straight up his head, dropping the gun, he said.

“ I love you too, so much I’d die for you.”