Chapter Text
Attempt number three. How did it come down to that? Everyone always said, “Third time's the charm,” but after the events of that evening had played out, I was doubtful as ever.
The first time, I simply jumped in front of a car. It was a white Taurus driven by some grouchy old man. I remember waking up with lights flashing all around me. My shirt was wet and, at the time, I didn't realize that it was soaked in my own blood. The old man was hovering over me along with paramedics and police officers, trying to keep the old man under control. “He jumped out in front of my car!” He shouted as three men tried with all of their might to hold him back. “If he ain't dead, I'll kill him!” I ended up winning the case when the man decided to get violet and punch a cop in the face. I remember him nearly pulling me off the stretcher as I was being loaded into the back of an ambulance, and to this day, I wish he would have been successful. The doctors told me for weeks that I was very lucky to be alive and that if I'd been thrown one more foot by the car, I wouldn't be breathing. I left the hospital in a neck brace and a pair of crutches. I hadn't even suffered any brain damage, which didn't make a lick of sense. Most of the blood that was on my shirt had came from the cut on my forehead which masked a fractured skull. I ruined my favorite shirt. I wish that man would have smashed my face in.
The second time was a little different. I didn't go for anything that could be controlled by an outside variable. I needed the paramedics to stay at bay. I needed something that wouldn't be immediately called in, in case it failed like the first time. I decided on hanging myself. I set up the rope and strung it from an exposed beam across a doorway in my home that I never had the energy to fix. Again, I woke up surrounded by paramedics. Apparently the beam above my doorway had broken and knocked me unconscious. My neighbors in the apartment below mine heard a thud and were concerned. They rushed upstairs and found my door unlocked and barged in. I was sprawled on the floor with the rope still around my neck. They called an ambulance and they came right away. After that, I was evicted from my apartment for causing structural damage and being a disturbance to those around me. The building manager tried to sue me for the damage I'd caused and I ended up getting out of it, so long as I left immediately and was placed in therapy for “mental instability.”
That really irked me. I wasn't mentally unstable, I was seriously depressed and didn't want to live anymore. Maybe my depression caused something in my brain to become chemically unbalanced. I didn't want to do much research on it because I simply didn't care. All I cared about was dying. I couldn't get on with that since the therapy was court mandated. The counselor was nice and easy to talk to, but aren't all counselors supposed to be? They ended up writing me a prescription for some high-end anti-depressants just as my mandatory forty days were up. I apologized to them that I wouldn't be coming back on my own free will. They understood completely and asked if any of the therapy helped me. Again, I apologized, and left as quickly as I could.
I caught a bus to the nearest pharmacy, though I had no intention of taking the pills. Taking the little yellow bottle home with me I thought of what I could possibly use them for. I almost tossed them into the garbage until I caught sight of the label. “Free, Gavin D. Anti-depressant. Take twice daily with a meal.” For some reason, seeing my name on that bottle made everything seem so real. I was depressed. I didn't know why and I didn't want to know why and that was that. I stuck the bottle in my medicine cabinet and let it be for a good month until I reopened that mirror door in my bathroom of my new apartment.
I reached in for something different, something sharper. As I grabbed hold of the box cutter I'd been stashing for a special occasion, the pill bottle came falling out, clanging into the sink. I looked down with instrument in hand and saw my name staring back up at me.
Free, Gavin D.
I couldn't control the laughter that poured from my throat. The loud, high pitched sound was echoing through the empty room and escaped into the hallway. It seemed like my fit was filling the entire flat. It kept overflowing from my mouth and spilling into the air around me and I didn't stop until I felt something more solid than a laugh spill down my arm and into the sink onto the pill bottle. I moved that quickly and assessed the situation with my arm. It started to sting. I had carved a line directly into my flesh with the blade and it was exactly what I had entered the bathroom to do. I thought it over a bit and smiled menacingly, deciding on how I would end it.
“Well, Mr. Gavin David Free,” I spoke to myself. “What have we got here? Another mingey attempt to end your life? Better be successful! Wouldn't want the people to find you this time. This would be an embarrassing thing to recover from.” The blade dug in deeper as I made a second line perpendicular to the first and another parallel to that one. I bit my lip at the pain. “Shhhhh,” I continued on, as if I were outside of my own body, watching someone else do it to me. “Mr. Free, free of life. That's the way you want to go?” I shook my own head in acknowledgment and continued slicing and laughing until blood was beginning to fill the sink. My head was starting to spin and I felt sick to my stomach, but I held up my right forearm with a satisfied feeling filling my chest.
Before me was the word “FREE” dripping blood. I fell to the floor, legs unable to hold my wobbling body any longer. “Be free, you little twat,” were the last words that left my mouth before everything faded to black.
I woke up some hours later on the floor of my tiled bathroom, half of my face crusted with dried blood. I was laying in a puddle of it. The sun shown in through the small window above my shower and reflected off the mirror, making it hard to focus on the room before me. I had made a mess. I sat up, still very light headed and ran a hand through my greasy hair. I let out a heavy sigh and reached into my pocket for the pack of cigarettes I'd bought the night before. I always thought smoking was nasty, but I didn't give a rat's ass anymore. I'd failed for a third time and I had the giant cuts to prove it.
I lit up a cigarette with a match from my back pocket. The building was a non smoking facility but, again, I didn't really care. I stood up and took a drag. I cleaned off the floor, the sink, the mirror, and myself of all the blood I'd lost. I had to have been out for at least twelve hours and I added an extra two when I looked at the time on my phone. It was mid day and I was starving.
Looking at my reflection one last time in the mirror, I decided that I was clean enough to walk to the store and buy some bandages and maybe a sandwich on the way back. Before I turned out the light and put out my cigarette in a tray I had perched on the top of the toilet, I caught glimpse of the yellow pill bottle on the edge of the sink's soap dish. “Free, D. Gavin,” I muttered to myself, popping the cap off for the first time and swallowed a pill whole. “Free my arse.”
With that I shut off the light and shrugged a jacket over my shoulders. I headed for the door and made my way out into another day.