The List

Another ten painstaking minutes of lecture went by. The girl wasn't quite sure what she was still doing there, sitting in class trying to hold it together. Truthfully, she loved the material that was being taught; statistics was a rather fascinating topic, while the teacher was nothing short side of a saint. Nevertheless, she found herself nodding off, struggling to maintain focus if not failing to altogether.

A darkness suffocated her thoughts as positivity became nonexistent. Sitting through the monotonous sounds of a classroom, her mind engaged in all but academics. Instead, her conscious entered a state of warfare – a fight to distinguish truth from a painful barrage of lies that seemed too real. Before she was fully aware of her circumstances, a voice caught the young girl off guard – its words backing her spirit into a corner, crushing her feeble confidence.

“You're worthless. Unwanted.”

No... She thought in horror.

“A burden,” it replied, tone laced with a twisted glee.

No! That's a lie.

“Troublesome. A freak.”

Stop! It's not true.

“Why don't you stop. Stop denying it. You're alone.”

With her strongly held together outward composure, no one could see depths of her struggle, the pitch-black consuming her at the rate of a raging fire. No one could hear her screams, which, had they been audible, would have sounded like a broken record of a shattered soul. And with her mind so engulfed in a separate void – a black realm – no one could have talked her down. In a way, the voice was right. She was isolated. In part, due to her own actions. However, the ignorance of others – their mentality that everything would be easy and work out fine – offered no sense of belonging, no comfort. No safety. No escape.

For the remainder of the class, she sat overcome by a trance of inexplicable, irrational anxiety. The voice – its words – had wounded her spirit once more, allowing the ill force to bind her in the shackles of fear – bonds of the heaviest nature. To those around her, she appeared attentive, a conclusion drawn by the hand that was frantically scribbling down notes. But had anyone read what she was actually writing, they would learned of the ugly truth. They would have come to know that the strong, independent young woman before them was in fact quite weak – her feet only inches from the darkest precipice life could offer.

A collection of words came to her mind. Hypothermia. Ibuprofen. X-acto knife. Vehicular impact. Running away. Starvation. Toxic. Free fall. Hanging around. At face value, many of these words or phrases would be meaningless to most. But to the girl, to those who knew of the cliff she danced upon, these words possessed an alarming power. Nevertheless, these thoughts transformed to writing, a black vomit of ink on paper.

Certainly people may think me strange for writing such a list, but they'll never piece it together, she reasoned as her hand worked in conjunction with the pen to spew forth the boiling anguish. Her mind was too long gone to worry that people may discover the truth, and in absolute honesty, she was so exhausted in a sense of hopelessness, that she didn't care. She'd given into the darkness – to the cravings of a mutual, mass suffering.

They can try to stop me. I'd love to see them try. I'd love to see their faces as I end it all.

At last, the bell rang, partially snapping the girl out of her nightmarish pondering. As usual, she quietly exited the classroom along with other students, skillfully slipping into the flood of people that crowded the hallways. Following routine, she traveled silently to the cafeteria to join her friends for lunch, but before hitting the cafe stairs, she consciously shifted modes, hastily pasting on the facade that wished could have been true. It was at times like this where she questioned most why she continued her pathetic existence. What was the point in living a lie? And if anything, was she living at all?