I have two bottles of pills sitting in front of me. The first are meant to be taken daily, the second in small doses, only when needed. About a month’s supply remain in the first bottle, and 10 minuscule, white disks in the second.

I have some DayQuil capsules in my closet, left over from a nasty cold I had last year before I started taking the first bottle of pills. I have a list of the medications I can’t take with the daily meds. Cold medicine is at the top of the list. The room is pitch black, with only the dull glow of the laptop in front of me. The door is locked. The window is wide open, chilly end-of-summer air drifting in and brushing goosebumps over my shoulders. I roll the first bottle of pills in my hand, listening to the soft noise the pills make as they slither along the side of the bottle.

I could take one of the small white pills. They’ll start working in an hour or so, relaxing me so I can fall asleep. They’ll ease my shaking hands and aching chest, relax my body. But I’ll wake up in a few hours, my body in a cold sweat, seizing in panicked spasms. The relief will be short-lived.

I could take another to go back to sleep, and another in the morning, if I need it. But the effects will wear off if I take them as often as I need to. My increasingly desperate mind can come up with only one more option: Take all of the pills in the first bottle, all of the pills in the second, and whatever is left of the DayQuil. With all that, I won’t have to worry about waking up. When I push down on the top of the first bottle, my eyes burn with tears. I want to live, then. I pick up the second bottle, and take out one pill.

When I wake the next morning, I think I’m happy with the decision I made. It’s a new day. There’s a chance that it’ll be different. When I step in the shower, I don’t feel the hot water rushing down my body. I don’t feel my hands run through my hair. I don’t feel my feet against the floor when I walk out. I don’t feel the brush of the towel against my skin. I look out the window and can’t bring myself to relate to anything, not the trees, or the people on the sidewalk. I’m a ghost watching the world go by.

I go to class, I hear the muffled mumbles of the lectures, I scratch down whatever is being said without recognizing the words on the page. I smile at passing friends. Tonight, I’ll pass you for the first time in two months. I’ll smile at you. You’ll say I glared. It’s easier for you to keep on hating me if you can make yourself believe the feeling is mutual. When I get back to my room, I’ll stand in front of my mirror and pick myself to pieces, exactly as you used to do.

You want me to blame you.

You want me to blame you so you can feel sorry for yourself instead of doing what you should, and taking responsibility for the mistakes you’ve made. But I’m not going to. It isn’t your fault, not completely. There are more factors than you. But you were the lead role in the final act. You never liked to believe that what we do matters to anybody else. It didn’t fit your philosophy.

I used to tell you that even a speck makes ripples in the oceans — it was meant as encouragement, but now I’m saying it in warning. Everything we do, like it or not, can have consequences or benefits, and when you knowingly involve other people, it’s ignorant to believe otherwise. You are just as responsible as you like to pretend you aren’t. It’s not all your fault, but you are at fault.

I’d gone unnoticed for so long, I didn’t know what to do with myself when someone saw me. I was flattered that you paid attention to me, talked to me, actually noticed me, and thought I was worth your time.

“You’re like the loch ness monster,” you texted. “The guy that finds you is going to be lucky. You’re a diamond in the rough.”

I wonder if you laughed when you wrote that. Laughed to yourself, knowing I was getting tangled deeper with every conversation. I wonder if you felt guilt when you saw what kind of person I was, if you questioned whether or not you should do what you were about to do. I can’t tell you how many nights I wanted to crawl into your brain and view your motivations firsthand. I don’t think either of us will ever know your full intentions. I was about to say that you never intended this to get out of hand the way it did, but I refuse to lie to protect your feelings — not anymore. I’ve already done that too much.

I tried to distance myself from you when the miles between were too many. When one thing piled onto the next, when I felt my mental state disintegrating, when I found out you still were talking to the one before, I told you the truth. I told you I wasn’t interested in you.

“We should stop talking,” I wrote. “You’ve got some unresolved issues, and I’m really not up to dealing with them. You should’ve told me right away, and you didn’t. You need to sort yourself out.”

Then you begged. You cried, you sent paragraphs and paragraphs of apologies. And I was ignorant, I was weak, and I thought it was admirable that you were willing to fight for something you wanted. I was a child. Isn’t that why you chose me? None of your games would’ve worked otherwise.

You showed me a kindness I had never received. You listened to me when I didn’t think my thoughts mattered. You made me want to tell you everything that kept me up at night. I trusted you, you gave me no reason not to. When I look back on that, it makes me sick.

Most of what you said and did was insincere, but a small part was genuine. There is something in you, tiny and obsolete by now, that you smothered the further we went. There was a part of you that was capable of kindness. I hate to see you waste yourself on selfish ambitions.

You listened. I wonder, did you take notes of what I said? Made sure you kept track of all of the insecurities and fears I told you, so you could recall them later? When we talked, after everything had fallen to pieces, you said you didn’t remember anything I’d told you.

“I had no idea you were depressed,” you said. “I had no idea you were insecure. I had no idea you felt that way. If I had, I would never have pursued a relationship. I’m sorry if you think you told me, but you didn’t.”

I would tell you that lying doesn’t suit you, but it really does. But you weren’t lying to me, you were lying to yourself. I spent hours trying to decide if I was insane. What had I really said, what had I really done? My memory told me one story, you another. But you used things, even small things, things that I barely remember telling you, so I know that one of us is lying to ourselves, and it isn’t me.

June came, with its warm wind and the sweet perfume of fresh grass. You pulled me on your lap; you played “Annie’s Song” and told me you wanted it to be sung at “our” wedding.

“I don’t like to say 'my' wedding,” you said. “Because I fully intend to marry you.”

Commitment or craziness? I couldn’t differentiate between the two. All my life, I was waiting for something or someone to give me security, and there you were, happily offering it. I finally had my feet on solid ground, and I was too young, too inexperienced, and I had too much faith in a person’s word to know any better. You were grown. You had already done this before, already watched a relationship disintegrate into hatred. You knew the recklessness of your words and the inevitable destruction they would cause. But you continued on. And maybe you told yourself you believed it so you could keep going.

You shook my father’s hand, and smiled at my brothers. You asked me to meet your sister, you talked about me to your mother. Not all of that was false, and if it was I applaud you for such a thoughtful show. Maybe you did want your lies to be true, and I could’ve dealt with all that. But you crossed the line when you whispered those three words across the table that night in June and followed on with:

“See that church?” You pointed out the window, across the parking lot. “If it was acceptable and my parents were here, I’d marry you right now.”

I laughed, because I didn’t know what else to do. I pushed away the second thoughts and let myself feel secure in your promises.

“There’s a storm coming,” you said, looking down at your phone. “I’ll have to go to the station and report the weather. You should get going, you don’t want to get caught up in the storm.”

Sometimes in books, authors use a writing strategy that’s referred to as foreshadowing. It indicates to readers that consequence is coming. The same thing sometimes happens naturally in life. The problem is, when it happens, we don’t have the entire plot to piece together what will happen next and prepare ourselves for the inevitable end. We stood, you grabbed my hand, and we walked out the door into the heavy summer air. The wind that blew through my hair smelled damp and warm. Billowing, black clouds quickly covered the blue sky before it faded into sunset. I drove at top speed to my destination, and I beat the storm. But I couldn’t outrun you.

Then the changes started. You had built a foundation on making sure I knew I was in charge of how you felt. I was the reason you got out of bed. I was what gave you motivation to keep going. I was what was going to fix you. And I didn’t take that lightly. So, when you started to grow tired of me, you couldn’t merely end things cleanly. You said there was no one to blame, but you knew someone was going to have to take responsibility. You made the choice for both of us.

In order to keep you happy, I was your cardboard cutout. I had to look the way you wanted — no makeup, because you didn’t like how much I wore. Something to make me look bustier than I was; I was too flat-chested for your tastes. No heels, because I’d be taller than you, and it made you insecure.

I was to be exactly the person that you wanted — I was never to feel sad, because it made you sad. I was never allowed to worry. And I was never supposed to question you.

When you started telling her you loved her in all the places that I could see, you treated me like an insecure baby. I had always been insecure, and how was I to know what was acceptable or not? You took my apology with such admirable forgiveness. Wasn’t I so lucky to have someone that willing to look past my many faults?

But when you found out that you had someone else to fill my place, you stopped being subtle. You needed me out of the way, and I was sticking around too long. I had already filled your ego, made you feel you were alive for a few seconds, and you didn’t want the baggage anymore.

You started making fun of me, of everything I did — telling me how wrong I was about everything. You blamed me for everything bad that had happened in your life, and then would cry over the phone about what an awful person you were so I would tell you it wasn’t true and you could sleep at night.

There was only one thing that made you human to me in the next few months. The last time we met face to face, I had to call you up. You didn’t want to talk, it had been a long day, and you wanted to take a shower.

Whenever I know I’ve done something wrong, I take a shower. As if I can wash away my sins with soap and water. That’s not how it works, but I try. The softness of your voice, the tired notes you tried to hide, told me you were hoping it did work that way. When we hung up, I tried to ignore the empty feeling in my stomach, as if I hadn’t eaten in days. That brief moment of honesty in your voice told me everything about what had gone on. I had never known you.

You couldn’t wash away your guilt in the steam and hot water that night. I know, because you tried to give it to me the next day. I had forced you. I had forced you to do everything you did. Forced you to see me, forced you to touch me. Didn’t I know that you were sick at the idea of having to be close to me? I made you physically ill. But you felt like you had to.

“I never said you forced me,” you said, after I apologized. “You just, you made me because you wanted me to, you expected it. You wanted me to.”

Maybe I had done something that made you think that. I didn’t know myself well enough anymore to tell. But I knew that things had come to an end.

“We can’t be friends,” I said.

“What? So we’re supposed to be nothing?”

“Yes,” I said.

A few days later, you would tell anyone that would listen to you that it had been you, ever so noble, who had tried to tell me it was time to cut things off. You kept going, I kept pushing, you kept pulling. You knew I could never end things on bad terms. You knew when you told me you were broken that I wouldn’t leave you alone. You needed to keep me around, just in case.

I gave you your way and said we’d stay friends, even though the phone call ended in cussing and pointing fingers, accusations being thrown every which way. I remembered months after we talked, you’d told me once when you were a kid you went into a blind rage, chasing another boy down and beating him to a bloody pulp without even remembering. You’d punched a window in, too, even showed me the scar to prove it. When you told me, I couldn’t believe someone so gentle could be capable of violence. Now I do.

I may not have been bruised like the child you left on the playground, but you had learned to do it without your fists. I stopped getting out of bed. Food started tasting like cardboard and the only thing that made me feel I could survive was to sleep as much as possible. Nothing was enjoyable. I’d given you everything I had and more than I had, because you asked for it. I was wasting away by the time you were done with me. The day after we stopped talking for the first time, I looked in the mirror.

The person looking back at me was unrecognizable. I had been in the sun non-stop for four weeks, but you couldn’t tell that by the pale, washed-out complexion. There were dark bags under my eyes, despite the constant sleep. My hair was limp, my muscle tone gone, my collar bones protruding, my tank top hanging loose. When I stepped on the scale — something I had neglected for two weeks — the number had dropped twenty pounds. I felt nothing, I was left with nothing, and I was nothing.

That’s where I’ve been, now. We’ve talked a few more times. I still blame myself, because you conditioned me to do nothing less. I need to clear my head, and decide to go for a drive. Get myself away from the bottle of pills that scream at me from the drawer.

I walk to my car, turn on the radio. Your voice comes through. My stomach burns. My chest tightens. My hands shake so violently that my phone slips from my hand and onto the floor of the car. My face flushes in a fever. I turn the volume dial down all the way, sitting for a minute.

I get out of the car, and go back to my room. I turn my ringer on silent, I lock the door, I turn off all of the lights. I collapse on the floor and spasm in panicked quakes, balling myself up to stop my stomach from clenching over and over. The words “worthless, crazy, broken” are the only words that echo through my head.

“I don’t care what you do,” you said, after I had told you, the only person I had to tell. “Just don’t talk to me about it anymore. It’s bringing me down.”

If it’s that easy, why can’t I just take out the bottle of pills? I suppose I’m a coward. I don’t have it in me to actually finish things off. I want to see what tomorrow brings. And now isn’t the right time. I can’t do it now. My mom’s birthday is coming up. I can’t do that to her. Not in November, either. Too close to the holidays, too close to the day my sister died. I don’t want to ruin the month for my family completely. December, no. December is Christmas. I want the family to have one more Christmas, I don’t want to wreck it for them forever. January. January is a good time. Nothing is going on. January 7. If I can just make it to the first week of January, then I can swallow the bottle of pills and stop living my life in fear.

In the meantime, I try to keep myself together. I erase you as much as I can. You try to come back in, only to remind me that I’m nothing to anyone, and nobody will ever want me. I pushed you away, I’d push anyone away.

“If he’s talking to you, he just wants sex,” you said about anyone new that came into my life. “That’s all. He wouldn’t actually want to be with you.”

You made sure that I was stripped of any and all hope. But I made it through November. I kept doing what I’d always done. I made sure I texted every friend I knew and asked if they were OK as often as possible. When you’re alone, it helps to make sure no one else is.

I tried to make the most of the time I had left. I fell into fits of exhaustion, I picked myself up, I reminded myself that I only had to make it to January. I kept going. Your voice started to fade.

“You should never put other people before yourself,” you told me. “You can never be the best person you can be if you care about someone else more. I have to look out for me first, everyone else second.”

People are afraid of being lonely, when they should really be afraid of getting close to others. They should be afraid of helping someone else unless it helps them first. You can never live a full and happy life if you care about other people instead of caring about yourself. A fulfilling life is one lived completely for you.

That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? That’s what you wanted me to say. \We all have a tendency to try to make people side with us on issues of questionable nature. If we’re doing something we know is wrong, or something that makes us unhappy, a habit we’re too lazy to change, we have to make sure that someone comes along with us for the ride. It’s our way of justifying ourselves.

The truth is, I woke up one day before January 7th. I had a nightmare that I had driven my car full speed into the side of a building. I felt warm blood pooling onto my lap and terror when I realized I couldn’t take back what I’d done. I woke and realized that I didn’t want to swallow that bottle of pills. I thought of the people I cared about, and what they gave to make me feel I was going to be all right.

If any of them had followed your life philosophy, that nightmare may have been a pleasant daydream, and eventually a reality. You were wrong about that. You were wrong about other people. And if you were wrong about everything else, why should I keep believing that you were right about me?

Why did you pick me? I thought I must’ve sinned so unforgivably that I was being punished. No, you picked me because you picked me. There’s no sense going back and trying to figure that out. For everything you did, for the cruelty, the abuse, the lies, the rumors, the cheating, the manipulation.

For the days I lost. For the years of progress I made with mental health that you erased. I won’t spend this time trying to convince you that you made a series of mistakes, because I know you don’t believe in mistakes and never will. I woke up with people who love me, faith that sustained me, and eventually you’ll be nothing more than a bad memory and whatever purpose that I have will be met. I don’t know that you’ll wake up with that kind of peace. So, I will show you a kindness that you never showed me.

I forgive you.