The following is a possible project I might work on after Blithe (my current story), if it's excepted well. I'm rather excited about this. It came to me randomly, as most of my ideas do. Please enjoy!

p.s sorry the 'tab' is all messed up. I'm not sure why that is. I pressed a weird button on my word document and cant figure out how to fix it XD

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The statistics will tell you that 85% of teens who attempt suicide regret it after the fact. I was one of the 15% who didn’t. I knew perfectly well what I was doing. The news will tell you I was depressed after my boyfriend had dumped me earlier that week. Not true – I dumped him and he was a jerk. Other channels will say that it was due to a rare mental illness. That was a lie as well. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t confused. I was just done.

I obviously didn’t do a very good job of offing myself, for here I sit, writing down these words. Much to my annoyance. Personally, I would much rather be on the beach. We had a storm last night and all sorts of things have been washed up onshore. You have to get there before the tourists do or you miss all the good stuff and are only left with soggy boots and pieces of driftwood too large to move. I owe it to Mr. B, though. I owe it to him to tell you the story. My story. Our story.

The day I tried to kill myself was pretty neutral. It was not stormy, nor sunny, and the blue sky was being hidden under a thick, colorless, blanket. It was windy. Of all the things I remember of that day, that detail is clearest. I remember because the wind was making mother’s wind-chime sing, a sound I had loved since childhood. When I was little I would crawl in her lap and she would tell me to listen to the story the wind-chime was telling. Speaking of my Mother, she was not home. Neither was Father, as it were. Neither is home that much, though I’m not complaining. I’m not one of those “heroines” in stories or movies who have had a pathetic childhood and moan about it all through the narritive. If it comes up, it comes up, and you should probably know why I had the chance to die.

I’d thought long and hard about how I was going to kill myself. It’s sort of terrifying how many ways there are out there. Let’s skip the corny montage and I’ll get right to the chase. I simply choked down a bunch of pills my Father had left over from his knee injury. Popped ‘em like Tic Tacs.

And let me tell ya, there are better ways to go.

After puking my guts out for a good fifteen minutes, our maid found me and freaked. She saw the empty bottle of pills then put two and two together. Apparently (I had blacked out by now. The nurse filled me in later), after she called 911 she called my mother who called my father who called my grandmother who called my aunts who text my seven uncles and ex-uncles who called most of our cousins who all rushed down to the hospital to moan and groan about what a tragedy this was. You’ll find rich people often like to do this.

After gaining consciousness, I immediately wished I had not. Mother threw herself over me, wailing like the soap opera addict she is. Father patted her on the back dramatically, gripping my hand and giving me a fatherly nod. I almost puked. My aunts and uncles all tut-tutted and my cousins all shook their heads. When my mother finally released me, she dabbed her eyes carefully, no doubt making sure that her make up had not smeared. The Family gathered around, looking at me almost joyfully, like children who had just stumbled upon the hidden cache of Christmas presents. I could already hear the sob stories They would cook up for their competition. Those who are wealthy are always in competition, even within The Family. Soon, after that little bout of drama, They did their duty and said all the things that were expected of them.

“How are you feeling, dear?”

“Oh, you look so pale!”

“Thank God you were found,”

“We’re going to get you some help, love,”

“Are you hungry?”

“Cold?”

“Do you have to piss?”

And of course, the real humdinger, “Why?”

“Yes, why?”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Why?”

I did my duty and answered every question except for the last one. It was then that I lied and said I was tired. The Family was all too glad to leave, some with cell phones already in hand, thumbs flying as They text the latest gossip throughout their social network. I lay back with a sigh, glad to finally be free from Them. Wishing that I could be back in my room, I tried to ignore the odd smell that only hospitals seem to have.

Then he arrived.

At first I thought perhaps he had stumbled into the wrong room, for he looked quite frazzled. His three piece suit was unbuttoned and flyaway, his tie looking as though it had been done in a hurry. His hair was brown, a simple sort of brown, nothing too special. None of him was very special, as it were. He was the type of guy that producers would cast as ‘Generic Father’ or ‘Police Officer 1”. The lines on his face depicted that he must have been at least 35, probably older. In his hands he held a daffodil, wrapped in green cellophane and drooping as though it were the one in the hospital bed.

His eyes were nice though. When you looked into them, you couldn’t help but feel that you were looking at a particularly difficult jigsaw puzzle. They seemed to laugh at the world, laugh at the seriousness of it all. This man was the kind that made you believe that even after death his eyes would sparkle.

Even with all this, I got a nervous chill when he smiled at me and sat down, as if this was exactly where be belonged. I ran a hand through my plain brown hair self-consciously, for his eyes had not left me since he had entered. He was not looking at me in a perverted way, however, more like he was evaluating, testing my appearance to see if it divulged any secrets of what lay underneath.

“I think you have the wrong room, sir,” I finally said, after several long moments of us merely staring at each other. I was surprised by how gravely my voice was, but the man didn’t seem shaken. On the contrary, his face broke into a wide grin, as if his smile had caught on to the joke his eyes were telling.

“Marbella Serefina DeCleur,” He recited, twisting a gold ring on his finger.

“Ella,” I corrected automatically.

“Not Bella?” he asked casually, conversationally.

“Not since Twilight,” I snorted, only to be reminded that this was a complete stranger by my inner conscious. I recovered a second later to ask the more obvious question, “How do you know my name?” The man furrowed his brows, confused, though the smile never left his face.

“Ella, it’s all over the news,” he explained, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, “It’s been three days.”

My family failed to mention that little bit of information, it would seem.

“So, what, you’re a reporter?” I asked, skeptism lacing my voice, wondering if I should buzz for a nurse. The strange man shrugged modestly.

“Of a sorts. I prefer the term adventurer. My name is Mr. B,” that grin was back again. It was so infectious I almost felt like grinning myself, “And I’ve got one very important question for you. You must answer it truthfully and willfully, for once you do, there’s no going back.”

I was slightly frightened by this man and his enthusiasm, but I reluctantly agreed. He stood and walked over to my bed, holding his hands up as if in surrender when I shied away. Not even today am I sure why, but I wasn’t afraid of Mr. B. Though, through my time with him I found that he had that effect on people. He leaned in, his face coming to stop only an inch from mine. So close, I could smell the peppermint on his breath.

“Would you like to join me for an adventure?” he asked, his voice hushed, yet somehow holding enough excitement he could have been shouting. I blinked, wondering if he was kidding. He had to be. Strangers don’t just go around picking up poor demented little kids for “adventures”, unless they were demented themselves. And this guy didn’t seem the ‘rapist’ type.

Any other day I would have refused. Any other day, I would have called him crazy, called the nurse, and gone on my merry way. On this day, however (it might have been that ‘effect’ Mr. B has on people,) I got the eerie feeling that if I declined, I would be missing out on something big. So with a thrill of adrenaline I could not explain, answered Mr. B truthfully and willfully.

“Yes, sir, I would.”

Ten years later I would look back on that day and realize he was right. Once I had answered, there would be no going back.