So, I just wrote this. And I didn't expect it to make me cry. But I basically just wrote my own suicide. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not doing it. I'm okay. But years ago, I wasn't okay, and I very nearly did it.
Context! Right! Sorry!
The story I'm working on, one of the characters commits suicide. It's unfortunately necessary for the story. But I've been putting off writing it for a few days now. Partially because the character in question surprised me and made me care about her, and partially because I knew it would be hard.
And I was right.
Not that the writing itself was hard, but knowing the mindset of someone in that situation... More to the point, reliving that feeling was hard. I've been in that position. I have the scar to prove it.
It's not exactly something groundbreaking, but I had to stop writing. And I cried. I genuinely didn't expect to cry.
It's in the spoiler if you're curious. Still very rough, and the scene is incomplete. But it's the part that I'm talking about.
Marion stood up and turned to look at the kid one last time. She remained stone faced, not betraying her intentions as she took in every detail. She didn’t blame the poor child, in fact, she sympathized with him. It couldn’t have been easy to hear Mike say the things he had said. And she knew that he hated having to lie to her for so long. She placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, then turned and walked out towards the river. She remembered the other woman the kid had seen walk into the water. Would it be as peaceful a death as it seemed to her at the time? No, she had no guarantee that she would even succeed. What if she lived? What if people like Mike were the ones to find her? She didn’t want to die like that.
“Not like that?” Marion laughed to herself. “No, I suppose not. My whole life I’ve left too much to chance. I put too much faith in other people. I won’t make that mistake again.” She looked around now. She couldn’t go back to camp, or she would lose her nerve. She should have at least brought a knife with her. She smiled sadly, thinking about what her life had become. “Without him… what am I?” Her eyes settled upon a rock about the size of her fist. It had been shaped by countless years of motion, forces exerting their will upon it, breaking it, smoothing it, endlessly from the time it had existed as part of the mountain until this moment. It had been something majestic, a part of something complete, something larger than itself. Now it was this fractured piece of its former glory. Now it had been broken, and led to this exact moment. “Yes, I think you’ll do.” Marion smiled as she drew the edge across the skin of her hand. The rock was sharper than she had expected. It cut cleanly through her hand, and she knew what she would do next.
Marion stared at the blood that flowed out from the wound on her hand. She marveled at it as she watched it drip to the floor. “I’m not a survivor.” She muttered to herself. “But he is.” She looked back in the direction of their camp. She wanted to ask him to join her. She knew that the kid held on to a tremendous sadness, even if he didn’t realize it himself. She knew that he had never felt whole, that he had never felt like he was a part of something. But she also knew that unlike her, he was a survivor. And he would survive this too. “I’m so sorry, baby.” she whispered as she dragged the makeshift blade down her wrist. She fought hard to suppress the scream that wanted to make itself known. She fought the pain as the rock tore through the skin on her wrist. She had cut deep. She knew that she didn’t have much time left to finish the job before her own resolve failed her and the kid found her. She quickly took the rock with the other hand, barely able to make fist around it as the blood poured from the wound on her wrist. The second cut was clumsier because of this. She tried to cut clean through, but she couldn’t. So she channeled her anger at Mike, at the cannibals, even at the kid, into herself, and slashed at her exposed wrist as many times as her strength would permit. Eventually, she couldn’t hold her weapon any longer, and dropped the stone back onto the floor, where it would be subjected to the whims of the world around it once again. “I'm sorry…”
