On the Edge

A/N: This is my entry for Iggy's contest. My song was "Never Too Late" by Three Days Grace.

Hadn’t she always wanted to die in a place like this?

The emerging spring landscape would normally be breathtaking, but somehow the colors appeared less vibrant than last time. Then again, almost everything did these days. Those pink capsules might have saved her life, but was it worth living when everything seemed so dull?

She crept closer to the edge, watching the waterfall feed into the lake where her body would end up. It was a long way down, but she was ready for that rush. Anything was better than the numbness.

Six months ago, it had all seemed so much brighter, the lake below a glimmering temptation. She’d been sleepless for five days, no matter what she tried. She went to class, but the words just seemed to drift right past her. She found herself writing constantly, just random song lyrics or snippets from some book she’d read. To anyone else, it looked like nonsense, but to her, they were little pieces of the world she had to find meaning in. That Saturday morning, she’d left a note for her roommate saying only Gone to the fall. She drove to the park about an hour from campus and took the first trail she saw in to the lake. She’d been there a few times before and seen the water rush down into the lake. She wanted to fall like that water into something greater than herself.

She’d be okay, more than okay. She’d come out alive and jump from taller cliffs. But first, this leap. One, two, three…

“Anna! What the hell are you doing?” Molly screamed.

Anna couldn’t quite remember how she responded, just that her tongue couldn’t move as fast as her mind was forming thoughts. Her roommate made her go down the trail and called 911. At first, she couldn’t understand why they would take her away from something so beautiful to that wretched place with doctors and needles and florescent lights assaulting her eyes. They threw pills at her to make her sleep and scribbled barely legible notes on charts. Finally, she asked them what all the poking and prodding and questioning had told them.

Bipolar disorder. Before, she’d thought it was just an excuse for celebrities to do drugs and act like jackasses. But now she knew how real it was. After ten days in the hospital, finishing the semester was out of question, so she withdrew. She moved back to her parents' house, where her mom watched her every morning and night to make sure she took her pills. They tasted so bitter, but going back to the hospital sounded worse. After a month, she managed to get her old job as a grocery store cashier back. It sucked, but at least it gave her something to do with her time.

When she wasn’t working, she’d try to read, but the pills had left her unable to focus for more than a few pages. She tried writing about how she felt, like her therapist had suggested, but she could never get out more than a few words. She flipped through the notebooks she’d filled back in high school with a twisted envy. The terrible stories and poems she’d written seemed like relics now from an ancient time when she’d had a drive to do something other than exist.

She’d never been suicidal, at least not in the stereotypical sense. She’d never thought about harming herself, and most days she got by okay. But some nights, she’d toss and turn and believe that everything would be better if she could just…disappear. She’d think about different ways to do it, and even what she’d say in that last note, but she’d manage to talk herself out of trying anything.

However, there was no better choice now. With the medicine, she was a shell, too dull even to count change at a register correctly. She could stop taking it, but then what? It would only get worse as she got older. She’d be high as a kite one week, unable to get out of bed the next. Never mind how everyone else would handle it. Her mom didn’t seem to understand what this was at all. She was out of the hospital; therefore she should be all fixed up. The sluggishness, the lack of desire to even look at food, the loss of focus…she seemed to believe it was something you could just snap out of. Her mother was already grieving; she’d lost the perfect daughter she’d expected to have. And her friends should just remember her as she was before that week…

“Anna?” Even before she turned her head, she knew that voice. It was Jeff, a fellow history major she’d had several classes with.

“Hey Jeff. Small world, huh?” She tried to sound casual, like he hadn’t interrupted the inevitable.

“Yeah, a few of us decided to come out for the weekend. Get a break from classes and shit. What about you? Camping with the folks or something?”

“No, I just…needed some space. I’m not staying very long.” She wasn’t sure how much he knew about her unexpected departure.

The last time she’d seen him was at that party a week before her last adventure. Normally she was dragged to them and she’d sit in the corner nursing whatever was in her Solo cup. That night, she’d done some shots, joked around with everyone, pulled her top low enough to expose her bra and swiveled her hips like Shakira. She’d made out with several guys…had Jeff been one of them? She didn’t really remember.

“I see.” He sounded skeptical, like he knew what she was up to. “So are you coming back next semester? We all miss you.”

“Yeah right”. After a stunt like that, who would want her around?

“At least our GPAs do.” Jeff laughed. “Seriously, though, who else is gonna know everything like you do? Or laugh at my dumb jokes in class? Even that bitch Griswold is asking where you are.” Dr. Griswold was a notoriously tough professor. She’d once given Anna a D on a test for missing the word “attempted” once in discussing Hitler’s invasion of Britain.

Anna just stared at him in response. He couldn’t be telling the truth…could he? Why would anyone miss her? She wasn’t really more significant than the paint on the walls. She jumps, they paint over her memory with someone prettier, funnier, whatever. Their world turns whether she’s here or not.

“Well, if you’re hungry, Greg’s cooking up some burgers and hot dogs. Plus we have beer. If you want to come down, I’m sure Molly and everyone would love to see you.”

“I…I can’t. I’m not ready yet.” Would she ever be ready to see them? They’d probably just make fun of her. No one wants a crazy girl around. For six months, they’d lived while she’d stagnated. She couldn’t make up for that.

“Bullshit. You’re the one who comes in ten minutes late for a midterm and kills the curve. You’re ready for anything.”

“That was before…”

“Anna, listen to me. Molly didn’t tell us much, but I know you’re going through some stuff right now. I’m not even going to pretend I understand, and I’m not going to make you talk about it if you don’t want to. But you’re strong, and you can turn it around. And I’m here for you if you need me. We all are.”

“You can’t fix me.”

“You’re not broken. And besides, I wasn’t trying to fix you, just offer you some grub. You want some?”

Well, unless Tucker Max was right, there probably wasn’t beer where she was going. Or hot dogs. Or second chances.

Anna looked down at that perfect landscape once again. It didn’t look so gray now. Maybe it wasn’t too late to repair her life. The words would never come out right, and it might take a while to achieve some semblance of normalcy, but at least alive, she could try.

“Sure, why not? I was getting pretty hungry.”

Jeff offered his hand and Anna climbed down from the edge for the last time.