She looked down at the cold ground a couple-hundred of feet from where she stood, cold concrete underneath her own bare, pale feet. Inhaling the frigid air that surrounded her. Exhaling warmth from the depths of her lungs. She raised her head staring straight above her at the grey sky which shadow had encased the whole town. Her smartphone vibrated in her back pocket. She lifted its illuminated screen to her eye level, slowly processing the words on the screen, a notification from one of her social media apps. Tears flooded her crimson flushed cheeks and she dropped the phone, letting it shatter as she brought her hands up to her face, sobbing. Her shattered phone, buzzed more and more. Put-downs, animosity and venom spat at her through meaningless electricity.

‘Die,’ the phone illuminates
‘No one cares about you,’ Sobs catch in her throat
‘You might as well die,’ her gaze falls to the edge
‘Omg you’re so fat!’ she rises to her feet
‘Wow! I feel bad for you lol,’ She silently creeps toward the sheer drop off.
‘You look like trash!’ Help her.
‘Do something useful for once..,’ Inhale, Exhale, Inhale….
‘Do yourself and everyone else a favor,’ and she flies.

********
“I’ve made it,” I breathed and closed my eyes as I unwind on the couch in my dad’s petite living room, a sheet of typed paper, creased in the middle, held carefully in my trembling hands. ‘Dear Ms. Jesse Winstrup’ it read at the top- ‘We are very pleased to inform you that we have….’ The neatly printed letters on the cardstock paper went on. My acceptance letter to Purdue. With the horrors of high school behind me, every cell in my body tingles with the excitement and promise of a hopeful future.

                          ********
Stepping onto that campus, living there in the dorms was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. The excitement of a new life, new people, a new future, a college degree was all real and the possibilities were right there in front of me. Purdue University was where I found myself. My dreams of being a doctor were brought to light, sculpted into a passion I carried in my very soul. I would care for people, especially children. My love for caring for kids came from the lack of my own childhood which was stripped of my innocent five year old self when my mom died and my father sulked in depression. But then I was reborn, I was filled will joy and excitement, a new outlook on life. A new goal in my life. I was going to be a pediatrician.

********
It was there on the campus where I found some of my best friends. Friends I would treasure and cherish for the rest of my life. It was also where I found the love of my life and best friend, Josh. Eight years of hard work in the college and residency added up to a Medical degree and a job at the Children’s Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts. Working as a pediatrician all the time, fulfilling a dream which I had once doubted. A life of caring, a career that rewarded me every day when frowns disappeared and pain was replaced by happiness.  Here was sadness and disappointment, of course, but I was nothing compared to the joys of living. My life was filled with light…and love.

********
My life continually brightened with the birth of my three children. I had a family of my own. I had people who depended on me, who respected me, people who loved me. My children grew to become beautiful, intelligent, compassionate adults and came to have children of their own while finding, pursuing and accomplishing their own passions and dreams.
********
And in the end I was on my death bed, content with my life. Filled with joy and satisfaction from the love that radiated out of the people that surrounded me. The pain of high school seemed so far away and the rough edges of my childhood smoothed out to something I don’t mind looking back at, now. All the hardships maybe helped me get here, look who I’ve become. I’m proud and happy with my life and the lives I’ve impacted and in that moment nothing seemed to matter except for the love and life I filled… Except it never happened.

*********
My name is Jesse and I committed suicide on November 3rd at the young age of 16. I fell to my death as the pain, the depression, the sheer abuse and anguish of my young teenage life became too much to hold, too much to bear. The loneliness, the emotions so easily betrayed. And it pushed me to the edge like rough hands would shove me down in the hallways yet in the end it was I who had given up. I gave up the glimmer of hope that could’ve grown into something big, I gave up the years spent picking myself back up since I was five, I gave up the years I could’ve had, the life I could’ve lived. But worst, I gave myself up and succumbed to a black hole of doubt and anger; black and blue swirling and sucking the life out of me until the end. In that final moment of flight I caught a glimpse to the life that could’ve been as it disappeared into the vast emptiness of death, as I disappeared into the vast emptiness. A life ended abruptly as the empty atmosphere seemed to reel around me and gravity tugged me earthly. My children never are and never were and their own children have ceased to exist- my husband is married to another woman and has no knowledge of my existence. The lives I could’ve touched, improved and maybe even saved are now incomplete.  I was going to be a doctor, a friend, a wife and a mother. The life that I could’ve lead was slaughtered at the moment of impact after I took flight from the 20th floor of the office building where my father worked late every night.