Memoir

In my daydreams, you appear before me with your arms open and a smile worth a thousand lives; in my dreams, you run towards me with happiness I haven’t experienced in years and a heart so full it spills into mine. 

There’s a hotel in Geneva that has my heart, a small, dark place with little light and an elevator that makes far too much noise; there’s a hotel room on the fourth floor that smells faintly of mold and simmering hate, a hotel room with aged yellow lamps and maroon carpeted floors—a hotel room with a swollen door and hateful windows. There’s a room on the sixth floor with a balcony that looks over the entirety of Geneva, a balcony that holds my heart, not because it was in any way special but because of the way the earth split itself in front of me on the night of January 5th, 2022. There’s a hotel room on the sixth floor that my parents stayed in somewhere between 2021 and 2022, with aged yellow lamps and maroon carpeted floors. There’s a hotel in Geneva that’s close enough to the center of the city that you can walk but not close enough that the bustling of the city reaches into your heart and rips your soul from the place. 

On the night of January 5th, I did nothing besides occupying myself mindlessly with books I was only half interested in and writing in a journal I had gotten only a day prior. I had always loved writing and reading; I read everything I could from the age of four and wrote as much as possible for as long as I can remember, but now, here in this dark, sorrowful room that smelled of mold and simmering hate, in this room full of thick, stale air and the sounds of the city drifting in through the slightly cracked windows, I felt nothing but damp despair, and a shaking inability to write my thoughts down onto the paper; overstimulation, and annoyance overcame me. I found myself dressing incredibly early for dinner; I donned clothes I had purchased only a few days prior and makeup that, in the future, I would mock myself for wearing. I shot text after text directed at my close friends. I had grown up a sociable and excited child. Still, the responsibility of living in a home that was primarily without parental figure and having a slightly younger brother meant I quickly became the epitome of childhood responsibility and independence; the after-effects of such resulted in the need for only a few close friends: Lauren, Lukas, Ari, and Jonathan. I had no idea that despite priding myself on the ability to rely on no one but myself, the absence of one of these four would cause my world to crash so severely that I would remain a shell of the person I was. After dressing in clothes made to preserve my body heat and shoes that resembled army boots, I sat and waited, mindlessly distracting myself with social media; such was the first mistake I made of many in the next twenty-four hours. 

Dinner was unremarkable; we walked to a small French restaurant on the corner of a street notorious for its bookstores and stationery shops. I don’t remember what I ate; I just remember the faint feeling of alcohol sturring in my stomach after my dad had let me taste his wine. We walked home, and I remember feeling sad, angry, and hateful; despite being in one of the world’s prettiest cities and surrounded by love and laughter, I was remarkably unhappy. We reached the foot of the hotel, and I was overcome with a sense of dread; fear thrummed through my body. I was afraid of the person I would be if I returned to the hotel room that had previously been difficult to manage but now would be downright unbearable. I contemplated texting my best friend, Ari, and upon opening my phone to our previous conversation, the remnants of last night’s argument remained prevalent. Despite this, I sent her one of the many texts I would send her over the next few hours. 

“Hey Ari, can we talk? I’m sorry about last night; things are getting bad again. Please don’t be mad.”

This was my second mistake. I should’ve called her instead, begged her to forgive me, and forced her to understand that last night’s argument between us had meant nothing, that I loved no other person in the world more than her. I ran the bath and forced myself to lie without my phone, making myself breathe, just breathe. The warm water enveloped me, and the smell of soaps and shampoos bristled against my nose; I lay flat, letting the water soak my scalp, forcing myself to wash the mess of hair on my head (A task that had long since become tiresome and arduous.)  I rose from the bath only once the water had turned cold and angry, forcing myself into a towel, pressing my back against the warmed tiles, letting my body slide to the ground, and listening to the water slowly draining. Tremendous pressure had mounted in my brain, and I began to feel the usual sadness creep up on me, a common occurrence at this time of day. I checked my phone only to be found with no response from Ari,  disappointing but not surprising given our argument the night previously had been particularly vicious and void of any form of kindness or consideration. I found myself staring blankly at the razor placed delicately on the sink, the razor which I had already begun to feel against my skin, the sharpness of each blade slicing into my body without mercy; I shivered at the thought and attempted to move away from thoughts of actions that would result in harm that would take years, decades to fade. 

I don’t remember the time when I got that text, nor do I remember where I was or how I was feeling; everything in my life immediately separated into before that moment, and after it, I remember dimly my stumble to the bathroom and my desperation to prove that it hadn’t happened, my desperation to force her to text me, call me and tell me it was some terrible prank to which she had orchestrated. I faintly remember sliding to the ground, calling her repeatedly, texting her hundreds of times, and praying she had just fallen asleep, that nothing had happened, that it would all be okay. I remember the hope bubbling inside of me as seconds piled into minutes and minutes flowed into hours; I remember the hope pulsing through my veins, forcing me to believe that nothing HAD happened; I remember the moment the bubble exploded, the moment all hope and happiness vanished from my body. I remember taking the razor in my hand and feeling the sharpness of my actions pierce through my thoughts; was I about to sacrifice my sober streak of over a month right here? Right now? In this stuffy white-tiled bathroom with a yellowing tub? Right now, in this hotel room with maroon carpeted floors, in a hotel room that smells faintly of mold and simmering hatred? I found myself stuck somewhere between slowing down and speeding up, stuck somewhere in between broken and angry, my life swinging in balance; tears flooded my eyes; she hadn’t answered, she wasn’t asleep, she wasn’t busy or angry, realization after realization struck me down like showers of knives aimed directly at my heart. My third and final mistake, spanned over the course of a year and a half, my third, and final mistake, was my inability to let go. 

Often, when one hears the word suicide, they are unable to think of a worse fate for someone, unable to think of something worse, not necessarily for the person who indeed committed the act, but for the family, the friends, and the others involved. Upon hearing that your daughter, son, or father died in a car accident, a plane crash, or any other fate, leads you to blame anger and despair, leads you to blame someone else, leads your anger to be directed at the person behind the action, whether it be faulty technology, human error, etc., you have someone else to blame. When you find out that your daughter, son, or father died because of themselves, died because they were so utterly miserable, angry, or empty they felt the need to kill themselves, your first reaction is internal blame. What you did wrong, whether it be the classmate in the front with whom you’ve never actually conversed with or your very own father, we, as humans, first arrive at internal blame.

For a very long time, I have wanted to die, not in a sad way, not in a way to demand attention, but simply in a way to see what was beyond life. What was waiting for me after.  

 In the days preceding the death of my best friend, I found myself completely unable to associate with the world. I was so consumed by anger, grief, and guilt that I could not cope. I found myself in that bathroom with white tiles and a yellowing tub for more hours than I will freely admit, faintly listening to the draining of the water while contemplating whether it was worth living without her. My life was a constant circle; the one person who had kept me alive had, herself, died. In my nightmares, I dream of that bathroom, the days that followed, and the person I became. 

In my daydreams, you appear before me with your arms open and a smile worth a thousand lives; in my dreams, you run towards me with happiness I haven’t experienced in years and a heart so full it spills into mine. 

The sunset the night I lost my best friend.