I’m so happy! I got a new camera for school projects. My friend, Ang, and I were recording a really funny video for my English class. I wanted to watch it before I turned it in. I pressed play and watched myself, however what I saw is not what I remembered. I wasn’t even in the video; neither was Ang. The video looked old, like it was taken in an older camera and put in this one. I was horrified by what I saw. At first I didn’t know who it was or why it was in my camera. Then I noticed the familiar face. It was my aunt, June. Everyone always told me she died of cancer; now I know why I was never able to meet her. I took the video to my mom and confronted her about lying to me. I played the video without saying a word. It was a dark room, then I saw a hint of light making the picture legible. There we saw my teenage aunt standing on a chair with a rope around her neck. “Turn it off.” my mom said weakly. It was her suicide video. I was crying and crying. My mom was just staring at the screen watching her baby sister's body hanging there; swinging back and forth.
I heard someone knocking on the door in the video. No one answered, but the knocking didn’t stop. The person started screaming for Julia to open the door; it sounded like they were crying. Almost like they knew what she had done. The door was on the floor; knocked over by whoever was knocking on it 10 seconds earlier. The video goes silent and all I heard were sobs, long hard sobs.The person kept saying “I’m sorry” and “I love you”. They were apologizing like they did that horrible thing to her. The sobs got louder. The person stood up and walked over to June hugging her lifeless body. She turned to the camera and I saw my mom. My mom was only 17 when she found her little sister hanging, dead from the ceiling. I looked at my mom in shock. She was in tears; neither of us said a word.
The silence went on for what seemed like forever. My mom looked up at me standing beside her. “It was just her and I home that day.” she started. “I had to wait hours for someone to come home and tell me what to do. I didn’t know I could call the cops because I didn’t think there was a crime. I just knew I wanted my baby sister back.” There was a long pause. “She was only 15. How could people make her life such hell that she had to kill herself at such a young age?”. She was crying so much I could barely understand her. I hugged her not knowing what to say or do. She stopped crying a little and continued, “She always seemed so depressed. She would never tell me or anyone else why. When she was 14 she started self harming; we all thought she stopped. I always had my doubts about it. The night that video was taken I regretted not saying anything to anyone about it. I could’ve done something to prevent that. You could’ve met your aunt, but I didn’t say anything so you didn’t get to. I’m so sorry for everything, lying to you about how she died, not doing something to stop her, and for being too late to save her.”, she started crying again. I hugged her even tighter than before and said “Mom, it’s not your fault. You couldn’t have stopped her. If she wanted to do that then she would’ve found away. You don’t need to apologize for anything. I love you so much mom.” She hugged me tighter than ever. It was silent again.