I had been so careful, making sure to block every entrance after locking myself inside. No one should have been able to get in. Who in their right mind would even try to enter a burning house?!
As much as I was frustrated by the failure of my plan, a different kind of frustration settled in. Clarence—she had taken me in without hesitation, knowing full well the burden I placed on her life. And the public scrutiny she faced because of me? That weighed on me. Not because I cared about their opinions, but because she never once complained about how my actions shattered her peace or disrupted her world.
"We're gonna be okay," she whispered, her voice soft but firm. "I'm here for you, Winnie. We're going to get through this… together."
After my parents died protecting me in that horrific car accident, I was left to rot in the foster care system. No one wanted a broken child—one too traumatised to be "normal." I spent years bedridden, physically healed but emotionally wrecked, and abandoned.
Clarence searched for me for years before she finally found me. She took me in like I was her own daughter, but that kind of affection made me uncomfortable because I'd grown used to solitude, to fending for myself. It took a whole year before I let my guard down around her, but her undeniable warmth and persistence chipped away at the walls I'd built. Slowly, I began to trust her.
Clarence is still unmarried at thirty. She has the same striking aquamarine eyes as my mother—eyes I've inherited too. She's beautiful, in that effortless way, though the dark circles under her eyes betray the exhaustion she tries so hard to hide whenever she talks to me. She's sacrificed so much to take care of me, and it shows.
She insists that she's not interested in dating, that starting a family of her own isn't in the cards. But I know it's a lie. I've caught her wistfully staring at baby clothes in store windows more than once, her fingers grazing the soft fabrics as she forces herself to walk away.
She deserves better than this. Better than me.
Clarence always told me that I was her family, that she didn't need anyone else but me. Those words, while comforting, left a subtle bitterness behind. There was a moment—a fleeting one—when I thought about stopping everything I was doing. Ending the constant cycle of self-destruction and just... living. Living a normal life with my Aunt Clarence.
I tried. For her, I tried.
I agreed to attend the rehabilitation centre she recommended, not because I believed it would help me, but because I wanted to see her smile. I needed to make her happy, even if every second inside that place felt like torture.
The H.O.P.E., Home for the Precious People Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center, was a glaring reminder of how broken society's view of mental health really is. It was a place where the rational, the ones hanging by a thread of sanity, were deemed insane, while the hollow, pretentious ones were considered "normal." The hypocrisy was suffocating.
It was also the kind of place that made you feel like a defective product—a failure of society. You could hear it in the way the staff spoke to the patients. One nurse, Anaya, told a patient who couldn't follow simple instructions, "You'll never succeed in life. You're worthless." It was as if every word was designed to crush what little hope any of us had left.
I kept my head down during my months there, playing the part of the "normal" person until I was finally discharged and deemed fit to rejoin society. I wasn't trapped in that facility, not physically anyway. The real prison was the darkness inside me.
To the rest of the world, what I was doing—what I kept doing—was wrong. But that suffocating feeling of being trapped in something larger than myself, something I could never escape, has always been there. I think I was born with it. Is it my fault that I'm broken? I don't believe so. But society would beg to differ.
I often told Clarence she should just let me go. Leave me on the streets. Let me waste away and be forgotten. But she would break down every time, sobbing and begging me never to say such things again. So I stopped. Not because I'd changed, but because I couldn't bear to see her cry.
I might be numb to most things, but never to Aunt Clarence. If we were ever trapped together in a burning building, I know I'd choose her safety over my own desire to disappear into the flames.
That's why I make sure she never knows about my attempts—except for that time with the haunted house. That was a complete failure.
Clarence decided that we needed a fresh start after the haunted house incident, so we packed up and moved here. George McKinley. It's probably the most painfully American, white-bread name I've ever heard. I could almost hear the apple pie cooling on the window sills when we arrived.
George McKinley is the very definition of "average." The kind of town that fades into the background, unnoticed unless you're unfortunate enough to live there. The kind of place where life is predictable and mundane. It's not flashy, but it's not rundown either—just plain ol' ordinary.
The streets are clean, the lawns meticulously manicured. There's a small grocery mall where everyone shops, a crowded diner on 7th Street, right near the local bowling alley. Clarence and I have already been to both. I can still smell the greasy fries and hear the endless hum of conversations in that diner. Every table was filled with the usual cast of suburban characters: families, retirees, and cliques of high schoolers all pretending to be important.
The town itself wasn't awful, I'll give it that. It was functional. Livable. But the people? That's another story.
I started at George McKinley High a week ago, and so far, it's exactly what I expected—packed with pretentious wannabes. The kind of kids who wore their insecurities like badges of honour, desperate to belong to some group or another. There's the usual mix: the jocks who think they own the school, the plastic cheerleaders who believe their social status equates to some sort of royalty, and then the artsy kids, who act like they're above it all while secretly dying to be noticed. Every hallway, every classroom, feels like a stage where everyone's playing their part, pretending to be someone they're not.
My first impression? Fake. All of it.
It doesn't help that George McKinley High is practically a shrine to mediocrity. The beige walls, the worn-out lockers, the flickering fluorescent lights—it all screamed "settle." I already knew, from the moment I walked in, that this place wasn't where I'd find any sort of salvation. This town might be a fresh start for Clarence, but for me, it's just another place to drift through until the next disaster. But since she's trying to make this work, I'm trying. For now.
My therapist always asked, Why are you so obsessed with death? As if they think it's some grand mystery. I'm not doing this because my parents died. No, I actually envy them. They had the fortune of going first, slipping out of this existence before I had the chance. Even if they were still alive, I'd still be here, walking down this same path, planning my exit.
What drives me to kill myself?
Nothing.
It's not some tragic backstory or deep emotional turmoil. It's simpler than that. Life, to me, is unbearably dull. There's no spark, no intrigue, nothing but the endless stretch of the unpredictable, and the uncontrollable.
Life is like venturing into a wilderness with no map—chaotic, uncertain, and, frankly, an absolute bitch. It was the opposite of what I wanted, which is being in control.
I want control. I crave it. I'd rather be in a situation where I'm the one calling the shots. Where my fate isn't decided by random chance or some twisted concept of destiny. I want to choose what happens. And the one thing I have complete control over is whether or not I continue to live.
It's my decision. My choice. My death. It has nothing to do with my dead parents, the monotony of this town, or some overwhelming misery that others assume I carry. No, the idea of living simply means nothing to me. It holds no value, no… purpose.
Humanitarian advocates would be appalled. They'd tell me I'm wrong, that I need help, and that life is precious. They'd wrap their arguments in slogans about how "every human life deserves to be saved," and they'd expect me to change my mind for the sake of their campaign.
But here's the thing: I don't need saving.
There's nothing to save. I'm not suffering. I'm not one of those miserable people you see in movies or hear about in after-school specials, the kind of person people feel compelled to save because they're "lost." No, I'm not lost. I know exactly where I am.
I may be trapped in the darkness, but it's my darkness. I'm comfortable here. It doesn't hurt. I don't feel pain the way others think I should. That's the biggest misconception people have about someone who's suicidal—they assume it's all about suffering and misery. But for me? It's not.
I don't care about society's expectations. I don't care about their definitions or their need to make sense of everything. Let them judge, let them preach. It all means nothing to me. They can have their "meaningful" lives. I'm fine with letting it all burn.
But everything changed after I met Justin.