Trans in 2018.

Man it's a strange thing to try to come out as transgender in 2018 with this political climate. It's difficult articulating what kind of happens when one tries to come out of this particular closet because I think a lot of people imagine what trans people are like while never actually meeting one or being aware that they've met one in their entire lives. To a lot of people who hear about transgender people, it's just a bunch of made-up bullshit. At its worst, they think trans people are perverts and predators masquerading as the other gender to rape somebody in a bathroom, which despite a rousing marketing campaign a lot of idiot republicans decided to run with, has yet to be met with any documented case of that happening in the US, let alone 10 or however many need to occur to make an argument that otherwise doesn't actually exist. Although there are plenty of cases where trans people have been assaulted for what they are, a Republican doesn't really actually care about predatory behavior considering they voted a bloated molesting husk into office while endorsing candidates that participated in sexual abuse, the more notorious recently being Roy Moore, a child predator and religious zealot so cartoonishly evil and anti-LGBT that he's convinced that me wanting to be a woman or get fucked in the ass angered God and caused 9/11, which I'm not even paraphrasing. Which could you imagine the kind of power I'd wield if that was true? If my ass was the Death Note and dicks were writing utensils, I'd be running the ink out of every pen possible just to see if I could give God carpal tunnel. Roy Moore I'd rationalize is on a personal level one of the most vile and outright evil men voted into office if the Zodiac Killer wasn't already a senator.

The strawman/woman/trans/thing that people invented always kind of scared me because of how flippant they are in really understanding or respecting what trans people. As somebody who knows a lot of trans people, I have never met a single one that insinuated that somebody “assumed their gender”. Like y'all know no rational trans person actually says that shit, right? In fact most trans people are terrified to even speak up and ask to be referred to by proper pronouns because we're terrified of the repercussions of people getting aggravated and mocking us or treating us like shit more. Because God-forbid out of the hundreds or thousands of words people can speak over the course of a day, that they'd have to change just one or two. The notion of a militant hyperdefensive trans person using made-up genders to identify as is either deep in the bowels of Tumblr where not even other LGBT people like them, or are concoctions fabricated by merciless incels and misanthropes somewhere in /r9k/, among the same people who thought it'd be funny to call in bomb threats to Twitch streamers while talking about how entitled they are to women fucking them. Like why would you want to make jokes about a group of people that most people at best are utterly indifferent towards their struggles and at worst vehemently hate them for a plethora of arbitrary reasons? When Ricky Gervais got defensive over making jokes about trans people equating them to monkeys, he wasn't being edgy. A middle-aged entitled white man with a lot of money and an enormous influential voice heard by millions making transphobic jokes doesn't make him fringe or confrontational or edgy, it makes him our president. And boring. The tired boring that's more expected than it is surprising.

I've seen some try to compare it to coming out as gay. Coming out as gay can't be really compared outside of “HELP CONSERVATIVES ARE OPPRESSING ME”. It's not like your actual appearance changes. You can hide being gay from your family (note: you shouldn't and it sucks that you'd have to, but you can). In my family it wasn't even okay to be gay. My dad told me if I had any gay thoughts at all, the fag scarabs would come out at night while I'm in bed and start feasting on my flesh and consuming my penis to rob me of my masculinity and I'll start craving the dick of tougher men out of envy. God forbid if any thoughts of being a woman crept in, it would've meant after the fag scarabs ate my penis they'd start tunneling up into my body creating some unsanctified vagina from carved-out flesh that actually functioned as a portal to Hell so Satan could send his unholy children into the world. None of this is actually true and to clarify my dad never actually said any of this explicitly, although if I could function as a catalyst between reality and the underworld that would be metal as fuck. Instead it's just hormones run rampant and make me dissociative at random intervals and I get emotionally volatile while despising the filthpit vessel that my soul is forsaken to be entombed in, which is far less metal and just kind of fuck.

My dad would sort of pretend to be supportive and say “if people want to be gay it's none of my business” but would go into flippant denial if I even hinted that I was anything that wasn't his manly son who should be giving him grandchildren and not looking at penises. And I liked looking at penises a lot, penises are pretty fucking sweet. My dad wouldn't want to believe that I might be gay or pan or just not wanting to fuck women instead, so what hope would I have that normal people would be accepting of it if my own flesh and blood wasn't? But my dad didn't even grant me the courtesy of thinking I might have PTSD after being raped in High School, so maybe he's just a shitty person. But trans people put up with a lot of shitty people, so most people would be surprised and kind of horrified at how common my circumstances are to a lot of them.

Probably the most unsettling thing I've dealt with in all irony has been the LGBT community itself, or in many cases just the LG community with the “bt” in lower case letters, frequently and crassly lobbed off much like they'd probably think I would want to do to my penis. Regardless of how “progressive” or “pro-social justice” people frame themselves as, it's vaguely amusing that these so-called inclusive groups are still human. They'll still look for a reason to look down on people, who they view as lesser or impure. I have met gay people who feel threatened by trans people, threatened by our desire to transition muddying up what it means to be gay to them. Where if I transitioned, I would not be a trans woman, I would still be a closeted gay man in denial. Because instead of just wanting to fuck who they want, they decide to make their label the central focus of their identity, and we can't be having any of that shit. Them cis-white motherfuckers are trying their best to be understanding and progressive, we can't go changing the game on them after they finally just started getting used to dudes wanting to fuck dudes being gay. If we start talking about pansexuals or asexuals or transgender people, they'll get in a huff and need to lie down before we get a chance to tell them that gender identity has existed as a construct to tell people what society expects of them based on the all-important factor of what's between their legs and hanging off their chests. And I haven't even talked about TERFs yet either.

TERFs are a strange bunch, who are typically withering relics of 70s militant feminism that are the same aging white moms who also probably think women of color have it easier than them because they can play the race card. While varying in age, the older, more unyielding and decrepit feminists generally are the ones to carry the bigotted flag, which I find ironic because they say I can't be a woman because I can't bear children, which my response is generally “give it a decade and I guess you'll stop being one too when menopause hits.” You would think a lot of feminists would be inclusive as Hell when it comes to trans women considering they're people who despise toxic masculinity and society's expectations associated with gender, two things that have just really fucked up that whole “feminism” thing that's been going on for about... ever.

Toxic masculinity is a poison, and just because it doesn't affect me in the same way it affects a woman doesn't mean it doesn't affect me at all. Just because I was born a man doesn't mean people get to handwave whatever problems I had with that good ol' chestnut “Well it could've been worse! At least I had male privilege!” Which is bollocks because I didn't want male privilege. I just wanted to be myself, I just wanted to feel like I could act a certain way or look a certain way that I'd be happy with without people wanting to kill me. And while saying they wanted to kill me is an over-exaggeration, let's talk about what being a man has done for me. I've never been bulky, I've always been skinny and even called dainty by a few people when I was younger, and girls and women certainly let me know that. I cried a lot and wanted to talk about how I felt when people treated me like shit, something I apparently could not do because I'm expected to save face AND MAN UP. For being quiet and delicate and timid but a boy I was bullied growing up to the point that I did not want to be alive anymore, and have attempted to not be alive on a handful of occasions, which much like everything else in life I've failed at doing. Just simple things like liking pinks or wanting to write romances or baking got me branded a faggot in High School. Being judicious and non-aggressive got me branded effeminate. My dad flying into denial every time I bring up the possibility of being gay despite him never seeing me date or talk about women in his presence would make me question how open I was allowed to be about what I really wanted to be in face of a bunch of stupid expectations a dick's placed on me.

I feel like it's a trend when people talk about what it takes to be a real man or a real woman it's generally the really shitty, terrible things about being those genders. Who the fuck would want to be a real man, where you're expected to be some cold unfeeling sociopath who shouldn't show weakness or emotional vulnerability and women are seen as objectives or people who need to be taken care of because you don't respect them enough to be equals or self-sufficient? Why would I want to be a real woman, where I'm just expected to have to deal with being objectified and disadvantaged in society my entire life, and having a bleeding hole that tries to kill me every month while worrying about an 18-year long mistake ruining my life? On a physical or societal level of expectations, if I don't experience these things why does it make me less of a man or woman? Why are these arbitrary barriers of entry I have to go through to define my identity? “You must be this oppressed/fucked by society to join.” Like fuck y'all, I'll take installing a pussy that comes without the menstrual cramps and capabilities to birth a child, it sounds buying a brand new computer without all the garbage firmware and junk installed that nobody likes or wants.

Talking to a lot of folks about transgender people has left me equal parts amused, scared, and baffled. As if they haven't been talking to one the whole time and they think they can get away with some of the naive or ignorant shit they say. It's like them assuming you aren't gay and after looking around to make sure all the SJWs are gone decide to go into a tangent saying “MAN SO HOW ABOUT THOSE FAGS AND MARRIAGE, AM I RIGHT?” I just... find it strange that so many have opinions about people whose lives do not affect you in the slightest, or at best mildly inconvenience you because courtesy is hard. Because you see me and go “Fuck, that person has enormous man-hands. Are they one of them trannies? I can't say 'tranny' anymore, shit. Fuck I gotta call that dude a she? A they? An it? FUCK, WHY ARE WORDS SO HAAAAAAAAAAARD?” And after nearly having a stroke attempting to unlearn your entire vernacular, you express begrudging acceptance of this weird amalgamation of shapes that doesn't fall under the easy readability of human gender you've been accustomed to your entire life and settle on accidentally misgendering them and then in an incredibly sarcastic and passive-aggressive tone say “Oh I'm sorry, I meant she,” which is like rolling your eyes at a trans person in audible form, like you had to imagine them saying “EXCUSE ME, DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER?” to feel slightly validated in your tone.

What I'm saying is, these observations coming out of the closet as some weird non-binary genderfuck is the most I'm willing to make a fuss about this. I don't actually vent this to normal or cis people in person. All this grandstanding has to be done in the privacy of online or people I could very easily cut out of my life because stakes are lower here. I can't be bothered in person. I—much like a lot of trans people—don't have that fight left in me. I don't want to deal with the repercussions of standing up for myself and I shouldn't be expected to when people could just not really be assholes about it. We live in a society where we still jump or even outright kill people for what they are, I can't risk that shit when I see the blood on the walls. I'm too tired of passive-aggressive surrender passed off as tolerance and acceptance, because we all know the moment it feels like we're encroaching on you to accommodate us so your behavior doesn't make us feel like garbage, y'all ain't having any of that shit. Unless you're getting paid to, because in most cases you sure as Hell aren't going to use words like 'faggot' around your boss.

I'd want nothing more than to be normal than to be a victim, I didn't want any of this garbage that comes with having an identity crisis about what I am. People who refuse to understand and choose to perceive trans people having victim complexes either never had a hard day in their entire life, or think that since they “got theirs” and overcame something that they're entitled to be an apathetic sociopath. Which you'd think that living a shitty life would develop empathy for struggling with finding one's self in the world, but I don't know. I'm a raving concoction of unstable hormones trapped in a sack of meat I don't like, what do I know about being mentally stable?

And the day goes on.

The living room was cluttered with boxes from storage, none of which have found their homes sorted throughout the house. It was also cluttered with boxes from the house, none of which have found their new homes to the Good Will. Most of the window was blocked out by the open cabinet and the shades were closed, a few traces of light coming through and casting an orange haze over the couch. The author sat in the only empty spot available on the couch, the rest of it covered by unfolded laundry. The brandy had run dry and sobriety was setting back in as sunlight began to crawl its way out. The last week had not happened. He remembered none of it, he had spent his time off work visiting the years before and getting lost. He had just woken up and walked into the living room to take in the emptiness. He never opened direct deposit at his work because he knew that he'd never have reason nor motivation to leave his house less than he already did, and today was the day he got paid. After five days off work his skin was rough, slicked in oil that occasionally irritated his eyes. His hair clung to itself. He didn't smell terrible given the circumstances, but mostly because he's been dehydrated enough that he couldn't sweat. When he walked into the bathroom, he weighed himself. He dropped 12 pounds since he weighed himself last week. He turned on the shower and turned it up to a boiling purge and sat down in the tub for several minutes.

He probably should've taken his clothes off first.

His body began to regenerate. His hair dried out and frayed, his skin softened while the redness left, at least on his face. His body was covered in all manner of bumps and ingrown hairs and random bleeding holes from degradation, but clothes hid that at least. His toothbrush was stiff and rigid from disuse, and when he put toothpaste on it and put it into his mouth, an intense burning occurred. Every brush sent tremors through his teeth, upset his gums. He was spitting up more blood than foam as he brushed, his gums bright, angry and irritated. As he reassembled himself, he had a few clean articles of clothing left, made easier by wearing the same clothes for several days so he didn't have to do laundry frequently. He breathed in, and then out as he made his way to the door. He begrudgingly re-entered the world of the living as he stepped outside his apartment, vaguely presentable and letting nobody in to see what happened as he was in there. His isolated headphones hid himself from any social interaction while he was out, giving him an accessible exit from talking to anybody. He walked past vaguely familiar faces he couldn't bother to remember or speak to, and made his way to the office at his work, for a brief moment removing himself from his bubble in public.

“Hi.” the author said.
“Hello, Lucas.” his manager said. “How are you doing?”

“Yes.” His obtuse response was seen as playful. He just didn't want to talk. He grabbed his check and then excused himself.

“See you next week.” his manager said.

“Alright.” he responded. Every time he said that he didn't know if he was lying or not. He usually wasn't. There were days where he wish he was. He did his best to make it back home quickly, as nothing made him feel nearly as alone as being out in public. The dark was unrelenting and began to close in again. The time absent from work didn't feel long enough to fight it off; it never usually did. When he returned back home, the world came to a standstill again. Time was still lodged in an earlier day when he entered. He navigated through the empty living room filled with garbage back into his room and the stillness began to deafen him again. He was stuck in the awkward limbo of being hungry but too weak to make food, so he crawled into bed. He didn't know what time it was but the sun was still up. The dark began to settle in and the only thing that was going to wake him up was work. Work was good because he could leave the apartment and time moved outside it, and nothing in the apartment mattered to anybody else but him. So he decided to forget the weekend, too.

Interference.

It's really hard to write anything right now without it coming across as a suicide note. Suicide is a running theme in my life, even if I have no intentions of actually doing it. It's not a feeling of wanting to die, it's a feeling of not wanting to live. Let's casually mention on an internet blog that when I'm downtown, it's near the river. It's a bustling little area of town and there's enough restaurants that the air is delicious to breathe in there. It's a good place to sit on the bridge over the river, contemplating to jump and end my life. I decided against it because the fall probably wouldn't kill me or even knock me unconscious, and at most would seriously injure me internally and then I would probably drown while in disorientating pain. At its worst I considered using my knife to dig the femoral artery out of my leg, but that sounded painful too. I have violent imagery of ending my life semi-frequently when I'm like this, and there's always phantom pain or wincing and grasping areas of perceived harm that dissuade me from considering it. A true sign of a hopeless coward is that they don't want to kill themselves if it's unpleasant or requires effort.

There have been many near-attempts at suicide in my life, but the only time tried to commit it, it was an attempt to overdose on vicodin and alcohol after I turned 16. My family got divorced and my mother was a psychotic alcoholic who blasted music all night and didn't do anything except desert us for the weekend and have random emotional outbursts that kept me in fear constantly, especially if the boogeyman of my father considered breaking back into the house to kidnap us again. My brother had to work 50 hours a week biking several miles to work early in the morning, we had to walk several blocks with our arms tethered with grocery bags from the supermarket, and yet were always hungry. My girlfriend and one of my few friends at the time grew increasingly distrustful of me because I didn't want to tell her that I got held down and teased by two girls while the third raped me behind a classroom. She grew more annoyed when I started talking to another girl after school who I felt more comfortable confiding in at the time because her personality was a bit more amicable and earnest and didn't judge me for looking like a goblin with face-deforming acne, much unlike virtually everybody else did at the time. Where touching my face firmly at a wrong angle would have blood and puss dripping down it at any given moment.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that the only friend I was confiding in with my problems committed suicide with me noticing a week later, and then my girlfriend got upset at me because she found out I was talking to said person instead of her, unaware of the fact that she took her own life. I snapped and got upset. She told me I was selfish and never asked her about her problems that often. I told her she did the same and that I desperately just wanted somebody to confide in and that she either needs to be that person or that we can't continue on like this. She couldn't because her own life was garbage, so I walked her to her house and we both said “see you tomorrow” and then nothing happened. I was failing out of school, people either bullied me and hated or me or wasn't even aware that I existed and needed help. Everybody important to me was too busy to care, too strained to help, or they were gone entirely. I was 95 pounds at 5'8” and was lucky to eat twice a day. A few days after mostly everyone forgot my birthday and my relationship ended, I tried to commit suicide by shoving handfuls of vicodin into my mouth like I was eating chalk and washed it down with cans of warm beer my mother left out. I threw it up a few minutes later after getting it down, and lied on the bathroom floor shivering for a few hours. When I got up, I was entirely numb, and most of those things that happened were shoved somewhere because I couldn't bear to confront it or acknowledge that it existed for most of the rest of my life.

Some of the only ways to motivate myself to stay alive nowadays aren't particularly positive emotions. One is hatred. I had a conversation with Mono the other day and she bluntly told me “You know the only reason you're still alive is because you hate your father so much.” And for a long time I've done my best to repress or convert the hatred and bitterness I've held onto my entire life. Anger is an ugly personality trait. It disgusts me. It makes me afraid to be around people. My father has never not been angry or bitter, and how he reflected this on his children has made me more and more resentful as time went on. I went from understanding my father's frustration with his life and inability to help things, to resenting him for it. It's like I'm going backwards for what's healthy personal growth. I have never been able to voice my own frustrations and self-loathing inadequacies in my personal life, now I feel that anger and toxicity has sunken in, corrupted the foundation. While I've been frustrated with my own weak piece-of-shit self, I was greatly frustrated with how people have always overlooked it, or how I had to put on a strong face and pretend that things were okay. I became angry at the fact that I couldn't help myself, that I was even denied the privilege to ask for it. That my father's boorish and frightening personality made him incapable of understanding the problems he was creating or made him unable to fix them, which led to his frustration bleeding out onto his children.

He has made me feel inadequate, like I never was trying hard enough even though I tried so much it hurt sometimes. He made me feel weak because I couldn't manage my mental and emotional problems like a healthy individual who goes through abusive relationships, drives away his children, and is thoroughly unsatisfied with his life. He has called me a loser who should kill himself on more than one occasion, usually provoked by something as utterly trivial as not mowing the lawn. I won't forget it either. Because in my fucked-up headcanon I win either way. I want to live to prove him wrong and I can live to see him die, or I can kill myself with a part of me knowing that I'll ruin the twilight years of his life. And that is a capacity for spite and hatred that he has instilled in me. That's what I won't forgive him for. A lot of things in my life are my own fault, but the anger is a product of what he's done. He turned a happy child who wanted to try his hardest to please people he cares about into somebody who's willing to commit suicide just to spite him. And it scares me that I have the capacity to hate somebody that much.

There was something else I was living for, and I don't even know why. It's water under the bridge now though. I think one of the things I'm never allowed in life is closure, especially on my failed relationships with people. It blows up and they leave, I drive them off, or they die. I will never get catharsis or closure on them. It can never be amicable, they just want to get out or they're taken from me. Everybody is gone in one way or the other eventually. Sometimes there's someone who you don't even know why you're so obsessive over wanting their empathy when it's been made abundantly clear that they either don't have it, or they're unwilling to part with it. I suppose that's a part of it, it's a one-sided friendship or unrequited love where you value somebody tremendously to the point that it hurts, but you'll never have those same feelings mutually reciprocated even though you desperately want them. Where you care about somebody even though you're fully aware that there's probably nothing on the other side for you.

Maybe there is. Maybe they're just as fucked-up and scared and cautious as you are and no amount of prying will work. Or maybe they look at me and see how severe my abandonment issues are that I need constant empathy and reassurance, and how volatile I get and how quickly to lash out I can be because my mind runs itself into the ground contemplating why they don't care about me, even though deep down I know they're probably just scared. Maybe they just leave because I guilt them and make them feel like shit constantly and they start thinking that they're the problem and they're not good enough to help me, even though I just want something as simple as hearing them say that they care. Maybe they just don't have the time or energy for all of it and they have to take care of themselves. I can't begrudge them for it because I understand it, but it's still allowed to hurt like Hell. Or maybe it's just observers guilt rather than actual personal concern. Maybe they don't actually care because all they've wanted was a superficial relationship and they've been looking for a way out, and they always thought I was some psychotic fucking loser to begin with and they were putting up too much of front to ever tell me. Because if somebody's known me for so long without ever really acting concerned, and they're so quick to just up and get out without saying anything with all intentions of not coming back, they probably never cared to begin with. I can't say, because I won't ever know, because I can't get closure. So thoughts like this will pull my head apart until I want to kill myself because microaggressions when I'm horribly depressed will drive me there and people are aware of that so they want to get out as quickly as they can.

And it really fucking hurts. I'm allowed to be. It hurts like Hell to feel to feel this way about people you care so much about, that you've known for such a long time and were some of the only company you had during a dark period in your life. To utterly resent somebody you love and cherish and worry about as a person, whether they want to be that person to others or not. Who you once cared about so much that you'd be willing to remove that person from your life just so they wouldn't have to put up with your bullshit anymore, even if it meant being unhappy yourself. Where you harbor these feelings of anger and abandonment even though in the back of your head you can't blame at all for it. Most of my close interpersonal relationships inevitably end like this. I've driven away so many people in my life because they couldn't keep up, because I get burned out on pleading with them and begging them to stay, to constantly remind me that I'm not fucking garbage, and then I start insisting that they leave because I become convinced that I'm not worth it. I'm not good enough. I guess it becomes reverse psychology, because it would nice if they told me I was wrong and stuck around and that they aren't going to give up on me. But most of them leave. Most of them give up.

And it's not even like I know what I want anymore, either. Most of my ability to feel it has gone cold save a few delicate exceptions. An obsession over a few chosen people's empathy you'll never get makes you oblivious to others who could possibly help. There's a sense of frustration that there's something wrong with me because maybe a normal person would be more receptive, and a slight sense of anger towards others that they were too late to help. There are people who want to help but are on the opposite side of the spectrum of the people who aren't receptive enough. It's hard to appreciate the thought if they don't have the tact, they don't have the constitution or the prudence to make their effort feel like it's worth anything to you. Who are tone-deaf or too headstrong for their own good to realize that they're attempting to rationalize with irrational people, or they take drastic and blunt actions to get timid, distrustful, or easily hurt people to open up, not really aware that they might be a part of the problem. People like that remind me of my father; people with by-all-means honest intentions but are too far up themselves to notice that their obnoxious asshole personalities impede their abilities to empathize with others. Their frustration is understandable, but they should possess the awareness that they're ill-suited to help people with delicate constitutions. It's bizarre that some people I desperately crave their empathy because it means something important to me, and some people who are actually empathetic I can feel abhorred or turned off at their assertive tone-deaf attempts to connect. Beggars can still be choosers, I guess.

At this point I've felt like that the only reason I socialize is because it's expected of me. Because I have to. Because it's the right thing to do. Because they're superficial distractions from my problems. There are a minuscule amount of people who mean enough to me that I want to go out of my way to talk to. That I desire and appreciate their empathy from. Maybe they understand the significance of it, maybe they don't. Or they merely don't care. Mostly everyone else is just that; a superficial distraction. They hold little to no value to me otherwise. It's easy to drop or forget about them entirely if I don't desire using them to occupy time anymore. I wish they meant more to me than that, but I wish a lot of things meant more to me too. I've reached a point where I don't feel bad just dropping people out of my life, to sort of just stop “being around”. I think about it a lot.

My thoughts have a tendency to run themselves into the ground, overthinking situations and analyzing every personal interaction with people for every nuance, every trend, every weakness people could use to possibly hurt me or to run away and abandon me. I get lost in time obsessing over every single conversation I have with people who are important to me, in a perpetual state of anxiety when I'm depressed because all the conclusions I draw are the worst ones. I have entire strings of possible deviations in discussions I could have with people saved in doc files for conversations that I never even had a chance to have and are years old. Every conversation I have is watching a network of conversation topics blossoming in any given direction, and I'm the neurotic Batman prepared for virtually every possible outcome, except I don't have the added benefit of being rich or my parents being dead.

And when enough awful things are happening in my life at once, the entire system crashes and I can't take it slow anymore, I have to repress and outrun and forget everything. If I don't go catatonic and detach myself, it will drive me to very drastic solutions for my problems. There's so much noise occurring in my head when this happens that it's deafening. Just voices reminding me that there's nothing for me in life, that I'm alone with them for good because the real people left. Arguments with people I play out in my head that I haven't even had with them and I get upset for reasons I'm literally making up. There are sounds of nauseating, distorted guitar feedback and the nonsensical static chatter of indistinguishable voices. It's a mental tinnitus, and I can't stop it. I want it to stop, I know that some of these conversations I will never have, that I will never get closure on, but my head refuses to stop. It keeps going, it's still going. I'm still developing conversation strings for relationships with people that have long since gone cold and it's emotionally exhausting to play out every outcome possible because you start longing for the fictional happy ending that you're never going to get and hating yourself for it, or you're driving yourself to suicide over the self-inflicted malice that you believe people have for you.

I need people to disprove them. I don't care what people say anymore, I don't want them to give a shit about my feelings. You can say “I care and I'm worried” or you can say “you're fucking garbage, stop bothering me with this”, as long as they say something, anything so it can stop. The contemplating can cease, and the noise can be pacified for a brief instance. Because the longer the noise goes on, the more it starts to deafen me and have trouble hearing anybody at all through it. This is what's going to kill me. It's not a matter of “will it,”, it's a matter of “when”. That is the gamble people take making friends with those possessing mental deficiencies. It's managing a terminal illness. Every single day it's a fight to hold it off, I could commit suicide this year or when I'm 65, but it is what's going to overtake me eventually. Eventually I will stop caring about the noise and the attempts at empathy and it won't be able to be pacified anymore, and I will do anything to finally get the quiet that I desperately want.

I just want to stop thinking so much.

People.

“Hah, so that's what this is about. You want to finally die, don't you? And letting the most important people leave is going to make it easier, isn't it?”

“Everybody leaves eventually. Tired of waiting.”

“It's easy to tell yourself that when somebody important leaves.”

“...I don't blame them. It's a lot to ask of someone to help a person with mental illness. It's exhausting, it's stressful. I... just can't convince myself to tell people that I'm worth it anymore.”

“But you wish you were.”

“Yes.”

“This is very similar to the last time, huh? It's all gone to Hell, everything's getting worse, she kills herself, you get dumped. All of this happening at once was enough to make you try the first time.”

“...I'm aware.”

“I wonder what she would think of you now, doing this.”

“Stop it.”

“You couldn't even say anything before, you were just content leaving. You want to die just like her.”

“Stop talking.”

“One of your close friends is dead. You saw her depressed. You saw her attempt to open up to you. You KNEW she wanted help. But you said nothing. You didn't want to upset her. You changed the subject. You overlooked what she was saying. She committed suicide, and then what? What were you going to tell her now that she was gone? That it was because she was unapproachable? Because you didn't know what to say to her? Because it was awkward? You can tell yourself that there was nothing you could've done, because you wanted to be a coward. You fucking failed and she killed herself.”

“I said stop talking.”

“And that's the ultimatum you want people to take. Try harder, or disassociate altogether. You would rather have them leave so there's less guilt for you, so it'll sting them less when you finally work up the effort to kill yourself. Because otherwise, with how things are going, you know that they're going to end up failing, just like you did.”

“Just stop, please.”

“All that person was to you was somebody to project your own guilt and failure onto, and now that they've given up on you, it just validates what you let happen to her.”

“They didn't give up, I told them to leave. What happened to Alice wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault.”

“Why are you still fooling yourself over that? They gave up on you. Just like everybody else does and eventually will. Everybody you care about leaves because dealing with you is too stressful, and the ones who don't are taken away because they're more fucked-up than you.”

“I don't want to have this conversation anymore.”

“Let's be real here; you aren't worth it. You aren't worth the effort of putting up with. You don't offer anything good enough to be worth sticking around for.”

“Sometimes it's just... not meant to be. There doesn't have to be anything wrong with me or the other person.”

“But there's still something wrong with you, and you know it.”

“...I don't know what's going to happen now.”

“And it won't matter. If you don't kill yourself, the depression is going to erase you regardless. It's going to rob you of your passion, your interests, your sense of purpose. Your friends won't have that person around anymore even if the body is still warm. It's just going to be an empty automaton devoid of any personality or sense of self.”

“That's... probably true.”

“You can feel yourself slipping. And when you do, whether you're alive or dead, you'll still be nobody. Nothing is going to be there anymore.”

“I. I just want help.”

“Thaaaaat's not gonna happen. What, you're going to take off work to go to the hospital? You can barely make rent. You won't be able to after spending time there, and you don't have health insurance either. When you come out, nothing will change except a cloud of debt hanging over your head and missed hours to make up time.”

“...I know.”

“And the longer this goes on, the more you become crippled by anxiety. It's not like you can stay out in public and work anything longer than 20 hours a week, let alone with people. Eventually you'll be working less and making less while it tears you apart inside even more.”

“I know.”

“And even if all those are taken care of, what's going to happen next? You can't afford to go back to school either. You can't advance your life while this owns you. Any appreciable skills you once possessed have atrophied. There's nothing you can do to improve things if this starts getting fixed regardless.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“That's why you're so attached to people. Because at least they're free. But you can't even feel validated by them anymore. Their empathy doesn't do a thing for you. There was the one, but that's dead and gone so now what? You're going to find somebody else who can make you feel validated? Who wants that job? That's how we ended up here in the first place. What do you have to offer now?”

“...nothing.”

“What the Hell are you?”

“Nobody important.”

“Your dedication to people finally died with your failure. One of the few remaining admirable things about you is finally gone, the only thing left is all of the garbage nobody wants to put up with. You're fucking empty. You really are nothing, nobody of significance.”

“Please. Just stop now, I get it.”

“No wonder you want to die. There's no way out for you anymore, is there?”

“I want there to be, but there probably isn't.”

“That's why we're having this conversation. This is best you can do before you lose your head again and then this conversation won't matter anymore. So there's some residue left in the bleak little corner of the world that we're inhabiting, so you can pretend to yourself and say you tried.”

“But not enough people will see this probably.”

“Certainly not the ones that should.”
“So what now?”
“You're going to sleep. And when you wake up, nothing will change, and you'll continue grinding away your pointless, unimportant life until something finally gives.”

“...and a few sentimental platitudes might be said, but nothing will change.”

“This has all happened before. Nothing has changed. The only change will be if you're dead at the end of it.”

“...I don't have the answer to that.”

“I don't either. We might find out soon. But what's the answer you actually want?”

“...I don't know anymore.”

“Neither do I. So go to bed. I'm tired of this too.”

Alice.

“So.” Remilia's tone was subdued. “You seem ready to talk about this now, huh?”

“...to this day, I still can't remember a thing.”

The author was in his room, sitting in his computer chair and fixated on his monitor while Remilia sat on his bed, leaning against the wall. Her eyes weren't fixed on anything, they lurked about the room contemplatively.

“This is something even I haven't really wanted to ask about.” she said, her glances avoiding the author. “I don't know much about it. Or when it started or how it happened.”

“I still don't, even now.” he muttered in a resigned tone. Denial was his shield, his protection to avoid having to peer through the gas-lit haze that dwelled over his head every November and December. He managed to avoid bringing this weight directly back into his life for well over a decade, but Remilia's subtle and meddlesome prodding was unearthing it.

“Okay, to be fair, it wasn't just me.” she interjected into the narration. “I think you had a few things go wrong to lead up to this.”

“Mmm.”

“Like worker girl setting you off.”

“I forgot she even did that.”

“I remember it because it made you paranoid and crazy again.” a bit of mischief made its way back into her voice. “A good set-up to what was sure to come after~.”

“I wouldn't use 'good' in that context.”

“And what happened with her.” she emphasized. The author didn't like the emphasis.

“...it always comes back to her, doesn't it.”

“Eventually, yes~.” The banter ceased and a silence settled back into the conversation. There was a steadiness to the anxiety that permeated throughout the room. The air couldn't be stirred without using words he didn't want to utter in a particular cadence. The author knew the moment he did, he couldn't pretend it didn't happen anymore.

“I lost an important friend a very long time ago.”

The tension eased a bit. And then it intensified for a moment before dispersing altogether. There was an unpleasant catharsis that came out of his chest as he spoke. The anxiety was gone, but it was replaced by grief. Remilia always knew, at least on a vague level. She loosely knew that the author held onto something he couldn't forgive himself for, that he couldn't let go. But the dark places in the author's head that even she couldn't get to kept it buried.

“You still think about it, don't you?” she asked timidly. “About her?”

“Always.” he answered. “I think about her more than almost everyone else from back then.” Remilia was careful about how to approach the author. Any missteps could drag the memory back into the dark, possibly further than it had been before.

“Even if there's nothing to really remember?”

“Always.” he sighed. The author couldn't remember much at all from that time in his life. It was a patchwork of incoherent thoughts and random emotions tangentially related to particular situations. The concreteness of it all was undefined. Any events he almost recalled he could only do so because of loose associations with how it made him feel at that given time. Nothing was certain; everything didn't quite feel fictitious but wasn't entirely settled in reality either. Whenever he expressed his thoughts and wrote, it always vaguely felt like a scenario constructed around his sporadic and unpredictable feelings in order to anchor them, to give them a justification. Subconsciously he knew they were still real, and committing it to writing forced him to own it. But he didn't want to own this. Even as he sat in that room with Remilia, he still wanted to flee. He knew Remilia wouldn't let him, though. She was already eased in, she wasn't going to let this opportunity leave.

“...I'm right here, Pa. I know what you're saying.” She slumped over onto her side and looked up to see the back of the author's chair. He rocked back and forth in it a bit. It needed WD-40. The creaking was in sync with every other tic on his analog clock.

“What was her name?” Remilia asked. The author hesitated. It was the only thing of her's that he kept, that he remembered.

“...Alice.”

“That's a good name.”

“She was a good girl.”

“Yeah?”

“I talked with her about a lot of things.” he said. “A lot of things I couldn't talk about with my girlfriend at the time.”

“Like what?”

“Well, my deteriorating relationship with her, for one. And the thing that happened to me that I didn't want to tell my girlfriend about, either.”

“Why'd you find it easy to talk to her about that?” she asked.

“Don't know, really. I felt comfortable around her.” The author leaned back in his chair. “Girls that age treated me like shit a lot. I didn't trust most of them. Especially after the rape business.” Remilia rolled onto her stomach with a cautious yet curious look on her face.

“What made her different?”

“Can't really remember. She had no reason to be nice to me. She was just mutual friends with people who lived in my apartment complex. I bumped into her on my way home and she ran her mouth and managed to get me to actually talk a bit. Initially I was uncomfortable as Hell but I felt like she was lonely. She would sit on the curb with me and she'd just talk about things and I would listen.”

“I can't imagine you doing that with anybody at that age, to be frank.” Remilia said. She was a bit perplexed.

“She also brought me pizza one day while we sat there.”

“Okay now I'm no longer confused~.”

“She was just a nice, chipper girl. She had that disposition that my girlfriend had where she could notice what my mood really was, but she was a bit more headstrong and curious to ask about it. Eventually I just told her that one of the reasons I stayed outside with her was because I didn't want to go into the house with my mother, and then things just sort of went from there.”

“I figured you would be deterred by people from that.”

“I know, right?” the author agreed. “But, I guess, my girlfriend was always that detached person who never said much. I knew she cared, but she never really went out of her way to express it. And after what was happening, I guess I eventually just wanted to talk to somebody who acted like they cared. And she had ideas about it too, she always seemed depressed herself. There was just some comfort there that I wasn't used to having. It was nice to have somebody who was invested and tried their best to empathize.” There was a bit of silence after he said that. The author knew what Remilia was going to ask. Remilia didn't want to ask the question. It was a question that she dreaded the answer to, because she knew how everything fell into place afterwards.

“...what happened to her?”

“She committed suicide.”

“...oh.”

“Yeah.”

The tension came back into the room. The author's voice strained itself answering the question, the matter-of-fact tone undermined the stress. Remilia didn't know how to continue the conversation. The girl who normally had such a good read on the author was at a loss for what to say.

“I mentioned she was also clearly depressed.” the author stated.

“Right.”

“She never really outright talked about it. You could tell, though. In her mannerisms during her conversations, making vague allusions and references, almost as if to provoke a question of concern. I never asked, though. I couldn't.”

“Why's that, Pa?”

“Was being a stupid teenager wrapped up in my own problems. There was that thought of being selfish, or that thought of not knowing how to approach her without fucking it up. I didn't know how to talk to people back then.”

“You still don't, Pa. That's why we're here.”

“Fair.” He let out a deep breath. “And it's not like. It's not like I even found out or saw her do it or anything. I just didn't see her around for a week or so and I saw my neighbors she used to hang out with and I asked her where she's been. And they had to awkwardly tell me and that was it. She was just gone. That part was done. It was left there after all it happened. Didn't talk to her friends anymore after they told me and I gave a few condolences to them.” The author stopped rocking in his chair. Words became difficult. “I was numb from everything. Everything in my life was imploding at that time, it all just blended together into a cacophony of nonsense I've tried my best to stop thinking about.” But the author didn't. He never stopped thinking about Alice. That was the name he associated with her because it was the only thing even vaguely familiar to him. He couldn't remember anything but the name he clung desperately to, still unsure if it was actually hers at all while he was drowned by the mire of thoughts during the winter. It was a name that pulled down everything, tied to baggage of immeasurable weight that couldn't be discarded or forgotten. Before he noticed, Remilia was leaning against the chair behind him.

“You always said that you associate feelings more with what happened rather than the situation.” she said.

“I did.”

“What feeling is associated with this?”

“Guilt.”

“And why's that?” The question made the author let out another sigh. His breath trembled this time.

“I feel guilt that I don't remember anything about this person. Even now, I can't honestly believe for sure that it happened, if that was even her name.”

“But it's her name to you, that's what matters.” she reassured.

“And I feel guilt because I saw something wrong and I wanted to help. But I didn't for whatever reason.”

“You were young and going through a lot, you can't expect that from yourself.” she argued.

“And I feel that guilt again every time I see one of my friends or anybody going through a crisis, and am too paralyzed with fear to say anything or ask because I'm taken back there whenever it happens.” There was a somber bitterness to his voice. No tears, just exhaustion. “There is always that guilt that I wanted to do more, but I didn't. Or I couldn't, because my capacity to help others is admittedly low. Everything you say is correct, Remilia. And logically, I know all of that, but—”

“But the feeling won't leave regardless.” she resigned. “I know, Pa.” The author knew everything she was going to say during the conversation, he rehearsed it in his head, with the darkness enough that—despite talking about it—it still had a firm grip on his conscience. It was resilient, and normal words wouldn't loosen the guilt either.

“Lucas.” Her voice made the author's shoulders curl.

“I told you not to use that name. It makes this shit real.”

“You know what I'm going to say.” She wrapped her dainty arms around the author from behind and rested her chin on his head. “You gotta let this go.”

“Don't know if I can. Feel like I'd lose something important if I did.”

“You'll never know if your intervention would've changed anything regardless. That's the thing about depression, and that's the risk anybody takes when helping a depressed person. That it still might not mean anything. You know this, your friends know this.”

“I know I do.”

“But—”

“But I didn't even try.” he choked out. Remilia felt faint drops onto her arms while she was embracing the author.

“What would you say to her if you had the chance?” she asked. “If she was here?”

“...that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being a bad friend. I'm sorry for never talking to you about your problems when I knew you always had them. I'm sorry that I always came across as indifferent to them when I was just scared to inquire. I'm sorry for how oblivious I was to how much you cared about me. I'm sorry for trying so long to pretend none of this ever happened. I'm sorry that I can't remember how any of this ever happened. I'm sorry for wondering where you might be if you had somebody help you. I'm sorry that I haven't forgiven myself for it. I'm sorry that I probably won't. You were a good friend and a good person nobody could reach in time. I love you, alright? I'm sorry.” Remilia let him breathe for a bit. She tightened her arms around him.

“Do you really think you can never forgive yourself?” she asked.

“Can't say. I probably won't.” There was a cease in the conversation while the author attempted to stifle himself. There was still a lot to unpack for Remilia. Her associations with the author, her relationship with him being so closely tied to this girl she'll never meet, that she probably won't hear any more stories about. But at least, now it happened, and the girl she would never meet had existed at some point, and it gave Remilia a bit of reassurance. She let out a bit of a smile.

“Nah,” her endearing voice reverberated on the back of his head. “I think you will eventually. Not now.”

“God no, not now.”

“But I would think she would want you to, if she was any good of a friend.” The author scoffed at her remark.

“She was a great friend,” His tone was adamant. “Much better than you.”

“Oof. Brutal~.” Remilia let out a coy smile. “So... did you sleep with her~?”

“NO. JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU.”

“What, WHAT? I was curious~! Was she cute~?”

“Oh for the love of God, we were having a moment and you fucked it all up.” He broke her embrace and stood out of his chair, muttering expletives to himself. Remilia grabbed his hand and turned him towards her.

“It's going to get better now, right~?” She had a cheeky smile on her face. “It's out there, and there's nothing to say about it further for now. You won't get better now, and you won't get better quickly, but you probably will. Right?”

“I'm still probably going to feel like shit about it.”

“I don't expect you to forgive yourself soon, Pa. Lord no, not you of all people. But eventually.”

“Eventually.”

Turkey and rice soup.

“So here's a fascinating thing about death I hadn't really thought about~!”

“Okay.”

“I don't think most people can really think about it.”

“...well that was quick conversation. I'm going to go back to making dinner.”

“Wait wait, there's more to this!” Remilia attempted to keep his attention. “People in reality can't really imagine death.”

“How so?”

“I mean, as people by nature are pretty selfish, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“We are sentient of our own existence. We can't stop thinking about us, alive and being here in the moment. We can't separate ourselves from it. So death is just us ceasing to exist.”

“Unless you believe in some sort of afterlife.” the author said.

“That's a load of hooey.” she sneered. “I grew up in a Christian community, I was FED this garbage.” She refocused on the discussion. “What do we imagine death as? Black? Nothingness? The pearly gates? All of this stuff is flawed, it's still something to imagine. We as humans... can't really imagine what it's like not to exist because by design we're always conscious of existing. We can't really cease all thought and VROOM, that's what death is like. We can't really think about what happens when death occurs because it just stops for us, and that is a level of nothing that we can't comprehend.”

“...this sounds like a discussion you'd see on Reddit.” The author sounded exasperated as he spoke.

“And this brings us to where we're at today!”

“Which is?”

“Why is the thought of not existing so enticing to you when you can't even imagine it?”

“Because existing hasn't worked out.”

“I mean it's had its perks, right? You've met some good people, played some good games, had some good food~.”

“Got laid.”

“Let's not talk about that, Pa.” Remilia reconstituted herself. “But the fact of the matter remains... you've been thinking about this a lot lately, haven't you.”

“The thought of suicide is always hovering around, let's be honest. I don't think it's going to go away.” he said.
“...so this is where we're at, huh.” She sounded tired.

“Don't give me that. You've been around long enough to know that it's never really left.”

“...I know, Pa.” The author was in the kitchen preparing dinner while Remilia laid on the couch, her feet kicking up in the air while she stared at him upside-down.

“Pa there's a bullet hole in the couch.” She was looking at the corner of the middle cushion.

“I'm aware.”

“You can't own guns for another year.”

“I'm aware.”

“Why is there a bullet hole in the couch?”

“It was there when we bought it.”

“You aren't lying, are you?”

“I'm not. It was there when we bought it.”

“Hmm.” She didn't know what to say. The monster was in the room again, its grip on the author tightening and she couldn't get it to let go.

“...you okay today?” she asked.

“No.”

“...okay.” Rhythmic knocks against the cutting board filled the room. “There's nothing anybody can do right now, I guess.”

“Pretty much.” She sighed at the response. She stared at the ceiling a bit while silence enveloped the room. Brief glances of sunlight made their way through the clouds in the sky and the closed blinds in the living room.

“...it's nobody's fault.” she said.

“I know.” he responded.

“You told them it was their fault.”

“I know.”

“You want to burn bridges, don't you?”

“Probably.” His brevity wasn't giving her an opening. Remilia sighed and turned onto her stomach and continued to watch the author's back in the kitchen.

“The less people around, the less people to guilt you into not doing it, huh?” The author said nothing. “I mean I get it, it's not like they were doing you any good right now. That's why we're talking.”

“...everybody has their own problems.” he responded.

“It's a good excuse not to ask for help.”

“Mmm.”

“But as we said though, it's not like you get anything from the help nowadays anyway.” She slung her scrawny limbs over the couch's armrest and let them dangle. “I know how it is. It's what I went through too, Pa. When the depression gets bad enough and you want to--”

“Commit suicide.” He said it so she didn't have to.

“Yeah, that.” She was a bit shaken. “I know one of the things I did was guilt myself into being alive regardless of how unhappy I was, because I couldn't bear the thought of disappointing everybody who cared about me. Who loved me. I didn't want to hurt them that bad.” The sound of a knife grinding on a cutting board was the only noise in the apartment. Neither said anything for a bit until Remilia broke the silence again. “But that sort of backfired eventually. All it did was eventually desensitize myself to the thought of it. I sorta stopped caring about hurting them altogether, ya know?”

“Can't say that I do.”

“You're lying again~.” Her patronizing tone struck a nerve with the author, as if she had the nerve to be patronizing in the first place. He didn't have the energy to snap at her though, and she noticed he didn't, either.

“I'm right, you know.” she continued. “And so are you. We went over this earlier, while the other things happened.”

“I'm aware.”

“If you were, I wouldn't be here reminding you, now would I?” Her tone was becoming increasingly assertive as she continued talking. “You don't know what you want anymore out of these people, do you?”

“Correct.”

“Talking about your problems isn't helping anymore. Either people don't say anything and you feel that horrible vindication that you were right in believing nobody cared. Or they extend their hand and you realize that you can't bring yourself to grab it anymore. You wanted them to do something while it still mattered, right?” Remilia stopped talking for a bit while the author turned on the water in the sink. He was filling up a pot.

“What are you making?” she asked.

“Turkey and rice soup.” he said.

“I don't like turkey that much though.”

“You can't eat anything.”

“Pfft.” The author finished filling up the pot. He set it on the stove top to begin simmering. He pulled the leftover turkey from the other night out of the fridge and set it on the counter. Remilia stared at his back while he was in the kitchen.

“There's a lot of things going on. We have your friends, who seem like good people bu—”

“Except the one.” he interjected.

“Right, except the one. She seems to bother you a bit.” She let out a sigh. “But people are trying to help, and now, well... it's too late huh?”

“...” The author had nothing to say.

“Even I know in the back of your head that you don't want the answer to that question to be a 'yes'. But you know it is, at least it is right now.” She flipped back over onto her back and sighed. “While I'll at least say a very real part of you doesn't want to be alive anymore, it's probably being made worse by the fact that you don't know what can help anymore either.” The author stopped working and stood there in the kitchen.

“...I'm just feeling tired. And empty.”

“And nothing can fill that. People saying they love you and that they care about you, your own feelings of self-guilt about taking their concerns for granted, your anger to blame somebody for any of it. Nothing's filling that emptiness to justify whatever it is you're doing or feeling now.”

“...yeah.”

“And regardless of that... there's nonetheless probably some real resentment that nobody takes it as seriously as they should until you're ready to give up.”

“......yeah.”

“I mean,” Remilia sat up straight as she continued to speak. “Nobody wants to be told not to jump when they're already at the edge of the building. Like, we could've avoided going into the building and up to the rooftop in the first place. They could've been told that it's a bad idea before they got that far.”

“Means a longer walk down the building to convince myself that jumping really wasn't a good idea.”

“Right~o.” She looked around the room a bit before she continued. “Those feelings of resentment are still there amidst the other thoughts, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“And those thoughts of resentment are why this is easier to convince yourself to give up.”

“Probably.”

“And it's not like those people reaching out to you will help, huh?”

“Will probably make it worse.” he remarked. Remilia's eyes had a bit of a dullness to them. She was tired, too.

“So what's the plan then?” she asked.

“I don't know.”

“Could avoid everybody until you hopefully feel better.”

“Whenever that will be.”

“Do you still care about your friends and what will happen to them if you're gone?”

“Not really.”

“Do you think you eventually will again?”
“Don't know anymore.”

“Well, I mean, you're gonna have to talk to them eventually, Pa. You can't talk to me forever about this.”

“'Forever' is a relative term.” She grimaced a bit and stood up. She walked over to him and turned him to look at the door and the window.

“Listen Pa, out there, there are millions of people. Millions of people who eat and poop and have things they shouldn't have, like responsibilities or opinions.”

“Like Trump voters.”

“Exactly.” she nodded triumphantly. “Eventually you're going to have to stop talking to me and talk to all the gay weirdo minority creeps that are your friends and—”

“Except the one.”

“Yeah except that one—and at least give them peace of mind.”

“Peace of mind from what?” The author was baffled.

“That they know what they've gotten themselves into and that they're idiots for putting their hopes in crazy people like us.”

“You're starting to sound as cynical as I am.” the author remarked.

“Look, I'm just sayin'.” she patted him on the back while she spoke. “They got to understand that you've hit a point where something's broke. What you want from people isn't working anymore and you don't know what you want. What these friends think they can offer isn't what you need and it wouldn't be enough regardless. But it's nobody's fault.”

“Okay but important question.”

“Shoot.”

“Does this mean I can't kill myself then?” he asked.

“I can't stop you, but I don't think you will yet.”

“Can I still guilt-trip people to feel better about myself in a hateful and cynical way?”

“Pa you're going to do that regardless of what I tell you.”

“True.” They stood there a bit in silence.

“Feeling better at least?” she asked.

“A bit.”

“Good, good~.” She paused a bit while she mulled over her words more. “I'm fishing the turkey out of that soup if I'm eating it.”

“You can't eat it.” he muttered. She groaned.

“Oh why you gotta be like this? This is child abuse.”

“You don't need food.” She slumped and walked towards the author's bedroom.

“Well fine. I'm gonna go to sleep. This is exhausting, you know?”

“Alright, good night.” the author said as he stood over the stove.

“You should go to bed soon too. You know your not-getting-enough-sleep is probably not helping this either.”

“I don't want to hear that from you with your sleeping habits.”
“Touché. Good night~!” As she went into the room to sleep, the author stood in the kitchen. His left hand was on the cutting board while he held the knife with his right. He stood there for ten minutes in silence, hesitating. Every day he still hesitated, but it's gotten a few seconds longer each day he has.

Remilia Bonheur.

“So uh, this is kind of a bit odd. I've never done this before.”

“Yes yes, it's a bit different than what you're used to.” she said.

“Are we really doing this?”

“Take it slow, it's not like anything can really go wrong.” The author was fidgeting as he sat on the bench. It was an early March weekday, a rare occurrence of the sun managing to fight its way through the Oregon clouds in a fruitless attempt to bring some heat. The chipper young girl next to him wasn't much for the cold weather despite her Nebraskan heritage, but nobody noticed due to her convincing impression of a Valley girl. Her vibrant blonde hair was messily pulled back into a ponytail, with tufts and bangs hanging forward to cover her gaunt, pale face being illuminated by small cheeks dabbed with blotches of color.

“...Remilia?”

“Yes, oh dear father of mine~?” Her voice had a bit of dramatization to it. The author couldn't look at her. He sighed a bit as he wondered what to say.

“I. I don't really know what to say. I don't really know what to say.”

“Take your time.” she had a patient tone to her voice.

“I'm... really sorry.” was all he said. “I'm just... sorry for this.” She smirked a bit and looked at her dainty legs swinging back and forth underneath the bench.

“I know you are. You are for a lot of things, Pa.” The author's face grimaced.

“Don't call me 'Pa'.” he muttered.

“Hmm? Why not?”

“It's what I call my old man.”

“Well, you're more of a father to me than my actual one. I'm here because of you, aren't I?”

“...This is going to get really weird, isn't it?”

“Yep, probably~!” The author turned to look at Remilia. She had a wide, dumb smile on her face. It was pure and honest, the construct didn't matter. She was born without a belligerent bone in her body.

“I guess,” the author mulled over his words. “I guess, I don't like letting this happen to you. I don't think it's your responsibility anymore.” She turned away and looked down.

“I had a feeling it would be about this.” There was a bit of resolution in her voice. “The thought of putting someone through the same awful things you grew up with. It hurts a lot when you get attached enough, doesn't it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it does. I just... why am I doing this to you?” There was a moment of silence. The ambient noise of cars, a few stray birds, and some rustling branches were all that were filling the air. The girl broke the silence.

“I'm okay with it, you know?”

“Why?”

“Well... you made me that way, didn't you?”

“You shouldn't be okay with this.” The author was getting frustrated. “Nobody would be okay with this.”

“I'm a nobody, so I'm okay with it.” she responded. “Listen, Pa, I know what you're doing here. You're thinking about giving up again, aren't you?” The author sighed. He was read like a book. Not a book he'd write, because he had yet to finish any.

“Well, yeah. I guess I have been.” There was another pause. The girl's face scrunched and she looked at the author.

“No, I don't mean on me. Or on this. I mean GIVING UP.”
“Eh, fuck.” The author's tone would've been familiar to a shoplifter who just got caught. Remilia's face turned and it looked like she muttered under her breath.

“This again, huh?” she let out a deep breath as her voice became subdued. “It's this monster again.”

“Oh for the love of God, don't act so exasperated. You have no fucking idea what this is like.”

“You know that's a lie~.” And the author did. He knew that he was full of shit when he said that.

“Okay so you do.”

“THAT'S HOW YOU RAISED ME. SURPRISE.” She had a smug cartoonish grin on her face when the author looked over.

“Shit.”

“Oh why are you so bent out of shape over that? How could I not know? You make it so darn obvious, not even just to me, but to EVERYBODY.” she proclaimed to the park, standing up and spreading her arms. People in the park started looking over at the two.

“Like that guy.” she pointed. “And that woman over there. That dog sure as heck knows. All those people know how much of a debbie-downer you are!”

“Oh for the love of God sit down, you're making a scene you stupid child.”

“RUDE.” And with a 'hmph' she situated herself back on the bench. He placed his hand over his eyes irritated.

“Good God I forgot that you're a tactless bint.”

“Hey now. No need for that kind of talk.”

“Why do you always do this?” he asked. “Did you ever consider I don't talk to you about this because of how you treat it?”

“You mean like a big joke?”

“Yes.”

“That's your own fault and you know that too~.” As dimwitted and tactless as the girl was, she knew exactly what the author was thinking. She grew up with him, and often knew him better than himself.

“And stop calling me 'dimwitted', it's not nice.” she interjected into the narration.

“You are dimwitted.” he replied.

“And why are you writing about this? We talk a lot, so why choose to do it now?”

“It's... to maybe give me something to mull over later with. Something concrete.” Remilia smiled.

“So you're at least getting better about talking about it, right? That's a good first step.”

“It is, I guess.” At least he thought it was. He believed it with his heart that it was. The soul was absent though, and Remilia knew that, too.

“Of course I do, how wouldn't I?” she interjected again. The author sneered.

“You think you're cute.”

“I know I'm cute~.” she smugly admitted.

“Yeah well, I'm not sure what's happening either. I don't know how to feel about this.” Remilia was a bit confused by the author.

“Like you don't know what to do, or...?”

“No, I don't know how to feel.” he paused to figure out how to articulate his thoughts. “I can't react the way I want to, or the way I know I should. All this shit happens and all these people talk to me and there's just—”

“Nothing.” she said. The author sighed.

“...yeah. Not a damn thing.” His eyes glazed over a bit as they looked around. “I know I should care about this. About these people. But it just doesn't mean really anything to me, anymore. Nothing is there.” Remilia had a bit of a grimace as her head followed some children walking by.

“Well.” She paused. Her motormouth contrasted her contemplative thoughts. She understood the importance of each word she spoke and chose them carefully. “People go numb after seeing enough, going through enough.” Words rolled out more slowly than before. “You detach and stop feeling everything, you can't really pick and choose what. That's why it's scary when it happens.”

“Yeah.”

“And you know I don't like it when you get like this.” she said. “The monster's coming again, isn't it?”

“...yeah.”

“I know what the monster does to people.” her voice rang with a slight dullness and exhaustion. “I know what it was doing to me. And I know what it's doing to you.”

“Just be blunt with it. I want to kill myself again.” The author's bluntness was a weapon. He was tired of coming up with workarounds.

“Yeah, that thing.” she meekly replied.

“Look, the best I could hope for is to die while leaving as little of an impact on other people as possible. The less they care, the easier it is for me not to be guilt-tripped into putting up with this any longer for their sake. They'll be in shock day one, grieve through day three, be bitter at the end of the week, and come the following month I won't even be brought up. That is what I want to mean to people.” Remilia was unamused by the author's nihilistic rantings.

“Is it really.” Exasperation was oozing from her lips.

“Meh.”

“You're just tired.”

“You think?”

“I mean, I don't blame you.” She stretched and leaned back against the bench. “You have no self-worth. If you're no good to people, then what good are you, right? It's that logic.”

“...yeah, a bit.”

“It hurts a lot just being alive. BEING ALIVE FEELS TERRIBLE.”

“Well, for us.” he nodded.

“So we want to live through other people and avoid ourselves as muuuuuuuuuuuch as possible. If other people are happy because of us, then we're happy! Yaaaaay, everybody's happy!”

“Right.”

“Buuuuuuuuuut...” Her mood soured a bit. “We can try as much as we want, but we might be around people who won't ever be happy. You've been around some bad people most of your life, Pa. They're no good and you know it.”

“...right.”

“If we can't make other people smile, other people happy, then we're just stuck with our miserable selves. We're stuck with that hurt that comes from just being alive. We try our best to get past it, but it's still always gonna be there. And when it goes on long enough—”

“You become numb.”

“You start having conversations with yourself.” she added.

“I couldn't begin to imagine.”

“Without the company of friends you get stuck inside your own head and pull yourself apart. Like, I know I'm a good one. I met the other people in your head, they're jerks.”

“They're fucking pricks.”

“Right, so.” she readjusted her top straps underneath her coat. “You don't know what to do with people anymore, huh?”

“That's a way to put it, yes.”

“And you're tired of trying to figure something else out that might work this time.”

“Pretty much.” he bluntly stated. Remilia let out a sigh.

“But... this time it was bad.” she looked down. “Otherwise we wouldn't be here talking.”

“This time it got bad.” he said.

“This time it might be donezo for good, is what you're feeling.”

“I don't know what I feel at this point, honestly.” The indifference in his voice hid his anxiety poorly.

“Usually you just regress for a bit and then it's back to normal later.” Her bubbly disposition was becoming gradually subdued as the conversation continued. “Just like we always talk it out.”

“This time it seems like something finally broke. I don't know how to come back from this. Or if I want to.”

“If you can't connect with people anymore, you're isolated, and you're stuck with us.” she shrugged. “And you know they'll eventually find a way to shut me up for a bit.”

“Yeah.”

“Then you'll be stuck in here with just them, and that's—”

“When I'll probably call it quits.” She didn't really say anything in response. She just looked at the people in the park.

“We'll find a way to fix this, we always do.” she nodded reassuringly. “I'll get you out of here.”

“...hopefully.”

"You still mean something to somebody. I wouldn't be here telling you this if you still didn't believe it yourself, right?"

“...I suppose that's how that works.”

“You know that they can't keep me quiet for good. I'm too stubborn for that.”

“Far, far too stubborn.”

* * *

“Hey, I have a question.” he looked over at Remilia.

“Hmm~?”

“Do you think everybody can be forgiven? Deserves to be forgiven?” Her expression widened a bit at the question.

“...that's awfully progressive of you to ask, ain't it?”

“Yeah.” The author seemed a bit surprised at himself as well. “I suppose I've done a bit of growing up over the years.”

“Just a decade ago you'd be just like the rest of your family, unable to let a grudge go. I'm proud of you!”

“Grudges are too heavy to carry around for so long.” There was a bit of a tired resolution to his voice. “This shit gets exhausting after a while.”

“That's good, that's good~.”

“So answer the question.” Remilia rested her tilted head on her hand looking at the author, then turned forward.

“...I think I know what this is about.”

“Just answer it.”

“I think,” she rolled her words around in her mouth a bit. “I think, an important part of becoming a better person is learning that you aren't always going to be forgiven, and that you shouldn't always deserve it.” The author's vacant stare remained locked forward.

“I figured you of all people would be qualified to answer this.”

“Sometimes it's too much to ask of the person who was hurt to forgive somebody. It's not fair to them to expect that, even if you think you fixed the problem or that things are cool between you now.”

“Sometimes you got to take the L and move on.” he responded.

“And it's not always because the person you hurt is holding a grudge, but you know, you gotta just ask sometimes if it's... well...”

“If it's worth the effort.” Monotone punctuated the brevity of the sentence.

“Yeah.” she nodded in somewhat solemn approval. “It doesn't make you a mean-spirited or a spiteful guy if you think it isn't, too.”

“Just have to... move on.” he quietly said.

“Sometimes people just suck and they won't change~.” There was a fermenting bitterness underneath her chipper attitude. “I don't think everybody can be forgiven just because the lousy person became a decent one, ya know? Sometimes the people hurt or burned can't... what are the words...?”

“Develop the capacity or desire to forgive the people that hurt them.”

“Yeah, that.” She let a bit of silence settle before speaking again. “Sometimes even if you want to forgive somebody, you just, can't. Just because you became a decent person doesn't make things hunky dory. That doesn't undo what ya did, it wasn't something that happened fast enough.”

“That's probably where reality sets in a bit, I guess.”

“I think,” she paused. “I think if you can't get that person to forgive you, then you gotta forgive yourself. You know, for your sake. And, yeah, move on. I guess. I dunno.”

“I don't, either.”

“So it IS about this.” She sighed and turned to look at him, grabbing his shoulders to make him look at her. His dead eyes had a shutter of life in them as they avoided contact with hers. Her chipper disposition was set aside.

“Listen, you know I'm repeating myself when I say this, but you gotta let this go. You gotta stop beating yourself up over this.”

“...over what?”

“Pa.”

“...” The author remained silent.

“Lucas.”

“Oh fucking Hell call me anything else but that.”

“PROMISE ME.”

“You know my promises are no good.”

“PROMISE. ME.” She remained stubborn and resolute.

“I... can't.”

“Lucas. You gotta let them go, let her go.”

“I know.”

“But you can't.” she said.

“But I can't.” he said.

“Pa.”

“But I got to.”

“But you gotta.”

“I...” his once-monotone and lifeless voice started trembling into bitter unfortunate life. “I... I've got to let this go.” A strung-out sigh shook his throat. “Fuck. Fucking shit.” She shifted her hands from his shoulders to his face. Her soft palms rode his jawline while her thumbs roamed across his cheeks. Her own mask was managing to slip off, too.

“You know I can't watch you keep doing this to yourself. I know how much this is killing you.”

“Some baggage is too heavy to just leave somewhere.” he shakily replied.

“Sometimes closure is too much to expect. You know that.”

“I'm never going to know how any of it would've panned out, will I?”

“It's gone. They're gone. She's gone.” she said. He had a coughing fit, attempting to stifle himself. Her damp thumbs skirted across the surface of his face.

“You can tell yourself that eventually, right?” she asked. “It doesn't have to be now.”

“Eventually.”

* * *

“...so for a while there, you lost yourself, didn't you?” Remilia asked as they walked. The author groaned. “You started this conversation in March.”

“...that I did.”

“I told you they couldn't shut me up forever.”

“You really are incredibly stubborn.” he chuckled.

“...You almost did it though.”

“I did.”

“But you didn't. That's good at least.”

“Still can't bet on it if I will or not.”

“Well, good thing you're lazy~.” there was a slight hint of mockery in her solemn tone. “When you're tired you can't even put in the effort to give up.”

“Yet.”

“And I'll be there waiting like always~.”

“Because you're a meddler.” The the park was empty at this point as they strolled through it side by side.

"Hey, Pa." she looked over as she spoke.

"I told you to stop calling me that. And what?"

“...do you think I would've been a good daughter?” He was taken aback by the question. It made him uncomfortable.

“...yeah, I think you would've been a good girl. A good girl with awful, awful parents.”

“Well, you turned out—“

“Terrible.”

“Okayish.” she replied.

“Still a stretch.”

“Not your dad.”

“Okay I'll take it.” There was a bit more of silence between them.

"Hey, Pa." she said.

"I literally just told you to stop calling me that."

“You're Pa to me, that's all.”

“What is it?”

“Thank you for creating me.” she said as she smiled.

“You're welcome.”

"I love you."

"I know."

"And it means something?"

"Yeah." He stared at his scuffed-up boots as they walked.