Too Late

I watched the blood gush out, it didn’t stop coming, I was startled and couldn’t breathe, it was too deep and I couldn’t think straight, so I closed my eyes and remembered. Happy and painful memories.

I was happy once, a long time ago. I was happy with me my mom and dad and my baby brother. Sadly that happiness was not to last.

I loved my mother more than anything in the world, I could sit for hours and watch her, washing dishes, brushing her hair, and anything she did seemed special. My mother was a teacher at my primary school, all the children loved her she was so smart, beautiful and perfect and she was mine. I was the only one who got see her every hour of the day, who could hold her hand and hug her all the time, only me. I was selfish I didn’t want her to laugh with other kids and I didn’t want her to smile at them, I was jealous. I was blinded by my own stupidity and one day I snapped. I shouted at her, and said I hated her. Even though she tried to make up and cheer me up I only sulked. If only I had known I would never see her again I wouldn’t have said those cruel words.

It was on that day after school, we were walking home, me her and my baby brother, when it happened. I was holding my mothers coat when I saw a small butterfly in the middle of the road, I let go for only a second, and reached for the small winged creature. They were my mothers favourite, I thought perhaps if I give her this she’ll forgive me.

I didn’t see much after that, but I heard and I felt what happened. A car came around the corner; they didn’t see me till it was too late. My mother turned and ran with a speed I didn’t know she possessed and shoved me out of the way. I banged my head on the pavement and woke up twelve hours later in a cold dark hospital room. Luckily my baby brother was already safely on the pavement, and wasn’t even scratched but my mother didn’t make it.

I was never the same after that, none of us were, my father my brother and even the kids at school, they blamed me for what happened and one by one my friends turned there backs on me. I was so alone so terribly alone until she came, the voice, that quiet vindictive voice.

She was the only one I could rely on the only one who helped. I remember how she came to be in the first place.

One day at school I sat in the corner of my year 10 art class, alone as always. A girl knocked me and I shied away from her clenching the pencil in my hand.



“Oh I’m sorry.” She said apologetically.

“Oh Hannah ignore her she can’t feel anything anyway. I mean she never even cried at her own mother’s funeral!” The pencil snapped in my hand, and crimson blood dripped onto my jeans. They flinched away and I ran to the bathroom without a second thought. It hurt, what they said hurt. I looked down at my palm and clenched it as blood came oozing from the wound and I watched entranced. It was then I heard her, the voice.



“Isn’t it beautiful?” I flinched and shivered. It was more of a statement than a question. It spoke again.

“Doesn’t it feel better can’t you feel the pain just melt away?” I nodded and slumped to the ground still staring at my palm, it tickled as the blood trickled down, and it was lessening now.

“You’re alone aren’t you? But don’t worry because I’ll help you, I’ll always be here to wash the pain away when ether you need me, just obey me and I’ll numb the pain.” I smiled for the first time since my mother’s death and felt good again. Of course it only lasted a little while before I found myself needing her again, needing her presence and to relieve myself. It slowly went from a habit to an obsession, when ether things got too painful or something really got to me, I’d hear her. She helped me let go of the pain. Her calm reassuring voice telling me I’d be alright to slowly press the blade, lightly into my skin and I’d listen, every time. I would help me to become empty again, empty of pain and misery to just become completely hollow. To just let go.

It was like some sort of strange twisted routine. I’d come home like normal and head up to the bathroom, a small dreary place, the only light source an old shattered window; I’d walk in and lock the door behind me and head over to the window sill. I’d climb onto it and reach for my shard of broken glass I kept hid behind the mirror, roll up my sleeves and slowly wash away my pain. I would watch and listen mesmerised by my own bodily fluid and a voice in my head, I was sick, mentally ill, but at the time I didn’t know that, who would?  It all seemed so right that I didn’t think twice about what I was actually doing. I didn’t think of the consequences. I had scars playing across my arms in intricate patterns. I was living breathing freak show.

I had no one too turn to for help. I had no friends. My father had become a mindless wreck after my mother’s death and the only things he could do was eat, sleep and go to work. It felt like years since I’d heard his voice let alone seen him smile.

My brother was somewhat normal except from being rather quiet and shy. He was lucky, he didn’t feel any pain. He couldn’t remember like I could. He couldn’t relive the same moment over and over every time he closed his eyes; the memories were contestably entangled in my mind, making it impossible for me to forget.

Still I went on through years of suffering and pain, the voice and my blade were my only friends, they were all I needed to keep going, and they were all I wanted.

I remember what caused the beginning of my end. I was slowly making my way home from school, when all of a sudden I saw it. It was like a mirror image of myself. 

A small boy let go of his mothers hand and walked into the road to retrieve a ball. His mother hadn’t noticed she attending to her baby, he was young, and he didn’t know any better. Then it came a car came round the corner they didn’t see him, of course they didn’t they couldn’t.

“No.” I whispered under my breath.

I heard the voice.

“Leave and go home, lock your self in your room. She deserves it, she’s not watching him.”

“No.”

“She doesn’t care; she should feel the same pain.”

“No.”

“It’s her mistake to make!”

“No.”

“No one helped you.”

And for the first time, since it appeared I didn’t listen to it.

“LOOK OUT!”

I ran out, I hurled myself at him. I scooped him into my arms protecting him as much as I possibly could. I felt pain in my side and legs. I heard a screech. I heard voices. I heard screams. Panic, shock and fear surrounded me. I slowly opened my eyes. A woman was standing over me, small crystal tears streaming down her face.

She collapsed onto her knees before me as I slowly sat up, the boy still in my arms.

“I’m so, so sorry.” She had her head in her hands and was trembling

“I’ll never do it again I’m sorry, so sorry.”

People had gathered around us now, and the boy had scrambled out of my arms and into his mothers still shaking ones. I looked around panicked, so lost and alone. My thoughts were jumbled the thoughts were cloudy. It was only when someone tapped my shoulder did it all come to me. I was alive, I had lived, why did my mother die if I lived? Why couldn’t she have lived in my place?

I didn’t no what to do so I did the only thing I could, and ran. Tears cascading down my face, for the first time since my mother’s death I cried. I ran faster and faster, blood pounding in my ears. I was in pain and I was injured but I didn’t care, I needed something to release my pain I needed the voice! But it was gone I couldn’t hear it, I was alone again. I was so confused, so lost. Why, why did I live if she died? I didn’t understand. I opened the front door and ran straight up the stairs and to the bathroom not even bothering to lock the door behind me. I shoved the mirror out of the way and it smashed on the floor into a million tiny pieces. I grabbed my shard and sat, still shaking, on the window sill. I couldn’t hear the voice, she wasn’t telling me what to do calming me, and I didn’t care nothing could stop me. So I pressed the blade down.

It was only then, when the blood came gushing out that I knew it was too deep. I cut too deep. I was so shaken and wasn’t concentrating. It hurt.

I opened my eyes then. I had remembered all the pain all the happiness from what seemed so long ago. I stared at my wrist in pain, I needed help, a hospital, a doctor, anything. I moved perhaps a little too quickly after that because the next thing I knew I was falling, my hand had let go of the side and I was falling out the window and I couldn’t hold on. I realized then, if I was truly so sad, so alone, so empty that I felt like letting go, why did I reach out? Why did I try to hold on? Why did I crave the very thing that made me miserable? Why was I trying so hard when it meant so little to me? I smiled for the first and last time since that fateful day all those years ago. I closed my eyes and let go of all the emotions and feelings I had kept bottled up. I know now, I finally understand why I want it, why I want to live. I guess its just one of those things you learn, when it’s too late.