My name is Gila. It means eternal joy, which I don’t have. I like the irony though; I’m a sad, depressed teen, but my name says something completely different. It’s funny. I like music, like a lot. My favorite bands are Beach House and Oh Wonder. My family is normal; I have a brother, sister, mom and gramma, but my dad ditched us when I was born. I live in Florida, Jackson as a matter of fact. I had a normal life, until High School.  That’s when everything went downhill.
The pain was way too overwhelming to not do anything about it.  If I told my family, I’d feel like an exiled immigrant. So, I cut myself.  All the pain drifted away from my body, and so did my blood, it was everywhere. All over my shirt.  All over my white carpet. All over my arm. All over my dresser. All over me.  I looked like Carrie. Someone should have helped me, I should have helped me, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Help me.
But that was last year, I’m better this year, at least I think so. I cut every so often, when my scars fade away like the sun on a winter’s day. It really sucks because I have to wear long sleeves everywhere, even on the hottest of days.  People from school don’t bother me much, mostly because I always have my earbuds in, the volume all the way up, my saying is to just blast your music and shut the world out. The teachers are my enemies, they are monsters with an iron fist, except for my music teacher, Miss María.  She says that she was like me back then, but I don’t know about the self-harming, I never talk about that. Ever.
It was raining that day, making it foggy and dim, it was another way of drowning instead of my tears. I wanted to get help, but I couldn’t, I don’t know why. Still, I really did need help because I didn’t want to have another big relapse. So I called a hotline against my will. When they answered, I got really embarrassed, and I didn’t say anything. Typical Gila. I called again, the sounds that the phone made were like the time counting down from a bomb. Help me.
“Hello, you have called the suicide hotline. My name is Renee. Can I help you with anything?” The woman greeted with a friendly tone. Her voice was almost hypnotising as it felt like I could say anything. She sounded like she had done this sort of thing before many times.
“Hey, um, I’ve been having thoughts of, um, doing bad things to myself,” I mumbled to her.  I felt bare-skinned, out in the open for everyone to see, almost like I was in a glass house.
“Okay, tell me about yourself…. Gila?” She announced in that voice again, writing something down. I felt panicky that she knew my name and all that, but it was probably my caller ID that came up, and I tried not to think about it.
“Uh, I’m very lonely. I, uh, don’t have any friends, except for, um, online. Th-th-they help me sometimes. And I, uh, also, uh, cut myself,” I blurted out to her. I could now hear her typing vigorously into a computer, and I wondered what she was doing.
“Okay sweetie, what we can do is talk it out if you want to. I don’t know anything about you so tell me about yourself.” We talked for what must have been an hour about myself and how I could make friends and how I can stop myself from cutting my arms. I guess it helped me a little, but not enough.  Help me.
When I got home from school the next day, with new cuts, I went straight to my computer to talk to my online friends - James and Emily. I felt guilty. I felt accusable. I put ourselves in a group chat and put the title as SORRY. I typed into the chatbox “I’m so sorry guys, I didn’t stop cutting, I cut today. I feel so horrible that I lied and cheated you. I hope you can forgive me, please.” I pleaded. I saw that James read the message right after I sent it. He didn’t respond for what felt like an eternity.
When he finally responded, he said, “You said that we would tell anything to each other, we even made a pact!! Bye Gila, get better, you’re sick.” I started to hyperventilate, we’d known each other ever since I got my computer 5 years ago. I couldn’t believe that he would act that way. My breaths started to become short and rapid, getting smaller after each exhale. My chest became very tight and my face started to burn like an inferno. This brought back stuff that I not dare bring up to anyone from when everyone left me, and I had to eat lunch in the bathrooms every single day for months.
Then Emily saw our messages, she responded quickly, unlike James. “Omg, I thought you liked us.” That one stabbed me like a knife, and twisted my insides. I slammed my computer shut, almost breaking it. I loved them both, all three of us were inseparable, and for them to say that stuff was just insufferable. I had to do something. I needed to. If I was going to have to go through everything that happened with me before, I don’t know if I would make it through. I grabbed my bloody razor from earlier that day out from my jewelry box and started to cry. I felt like something was taking over my body, moving my hand over to my wrist. The thing inside of me put the razor to my skin and pulled it backwards, fast. My blood spilled out, and so did all my pain along with it. Help me.
The next day at school was really insignificant, except for one person saw my cuts. She looked really concerned when her eyes met mine. If she really cared about it though, she wouldn’t have told her friends. Her name was Madison, it means gift of God. Yeah, okay. Miss María and I talked a little bit, I think she noticed that I was sad. I really wish that we could be better friends, though, because she seems very down to earth. I feel like we have a really great connection, and maybe I could eat lunch with her if I needed to.
After I got off of the bus, and I walked home, my mom was waiting at the door. She looked concerned, which was scary because she never looks concerned, I rarely ever see her to begin with.
“I got a call from the guidance counselor today,” she uttered as she was playing with her hair and fidgeting her fingers, “I’m so sorry, Gila, I never noticed it.”
“Noticed what?” I argued, trying not to acknowledge what she had just said. I could feel my cheeks getting hotter and hotter, and wondered if she noticed. I made my best effort to pick a long sleeved shirt to hide my cuts, but the shirt had very sheer arms, and you could definitely see them, so I tried to hide it by crossing my arms.
“Honey, she told me that someone saw your, uh, scars today,” She pointed out, wiping a tear away from her face. I tried not to think about what was going on, and I think that I started to show emotion, “what’s wrong? I signed you up for a clinic that helps people like you.” She added, looking even more concerned. The way that she said, “People like you,” made me feel like a psychopath.
I felt like an elephant in a room with ants, standing out so much, and probably looking like one, too. “I’m fine,” I falsely assured, walking down the hallway to my room, secretly grabbing a bottle of Percocet. There was so much stuff that I wanted to say, I’m sorry that you have to call me your daughter, I’m sorry that I’m such a screw up. I should just kill myself and take both of us out of our misery. But I didn’t say that, I couldn’t say that, then she would know my plan. Sometimes, I wished that when I told people that I was fine, that they would say, “Tell me the truth.” But no one ever did. No one ever cares. Help me.
When I burst into my room and locked the door, I cried for 10 minutes, with my mom banging on the door every so often. When she finally gave in after about the halfway mark, I started to walk over to my bathroom, and I turned the water on to the tub.
“Don’t do anything to yourself!” She screamed from the kitchen as she was scavenging through the drawers to find a key to my room. Thank god I threw that away a week ago. I got unclothed and saw my scars on my thighs, arms and hips. They reminded me of a depressed time, a dark, vulgar time, but now, I’m going to a happier place.
I got my razor from the makeup palette, noticing the rust starting to form and the dried up blood from days before. I slowly got into the bathtub, letting the hotness of the water engulf me inch by inch. It felt so good, but yet so evil because it was the last sensation I’d ever feel. I popped the cap off of the pill bottle and let it bounce on the floor, the sudden noise scaring me. The pills seemed to hesitate to fall into my hand, like they knew I was going to do something horrible, and I threw them into my mouth as fast as I could, trying to relieve my pain. I grabbed the razor and put it vertical on my arm. They say that if you go down the blood vessels, the doctors won’t be able to stitch it up, so that’s what I did. The pain felt way too good to be real. Euphoric. I could feel myself slipping away as each drop of red blood dripped into the clear water, turning it red as strawberries in the summertime.
The door sounded as if it were being pounded on by 100 people with a sledgehammer. I was sure that the door would withstand my mom’s puny strength, but she found another way to get in: unscrewing the hinges. I could hear the screws being taken out one by one, like a countdown until I’m taken back to reality. The blood was still gushing out by the time the last screw was taken. I could feel my life slipping away fast, but I wanted it to go faster. Who needed a fat, lonely, dumb, ugly person like me? That’s right, no one. I heard the door slam against the floor, and my mom’s footsteps hitting the floor.
My mom barged into the bathroom, the door’s force knocking everything down on my shelves. I took my last breath as I heard her scream my name. And then, I left everything.