Alex looked up at the ceiling of his room. He had woken up that morning to the sound of last night's shitty music ringing in his ears.

Though he held pride in his alcohol tolerance, the amount of alcohol he had imbibed was too much even for him. He turned down the volume on his headphones and, like most days this year, realized he was late for afternoon classes. He looked at the clock beside him and saw that it was five in the afternoon. At this point, it would be almost counterproductive to go. 

Ramming through the mess on the floor with his feet, he knocked down all the empty cans of Red Bull and dirty tissues in his way. The four letters of rejection that Alex had received earlier on in the week lay untouched on his desk. After nineteen years of work, he couldn't bear to touch them. Next to the creamy-white letters were sixteen crumpled cans of beer, four for each day since. Nobody really visited his apartment any longer, so he didn't mind the mess.

He looked at himself in the mirror. On the surface, he was the same old teenage Asian kid, same old matte black hair and hunter eyes. His relatively muscular build from his younger years and his conspicuously tall stature remained. The birthmarks on his neck and forehead stood firm, taunting him in their imperfection. His reflection felt the same. So why didn't he?

A ring from his pocket snapped him out of his reverie. Yanking the phone out of his pocket, Alex quickly glanced at the screen only to see that it was his English teacher.

Shit.

He thought about declining for a moment, then gave up on that idea. The questions came quickly, raining down on him like artillery fire. He had no answers nor excuses any longer for the reprimands.

"Why haven't you come to class? You're fifteen minutes late. All your assignments are overdue, and your latest essay contained the words "low-strength beer is for pussies," which I don't even want to get into. It's been a while, and I'm worried about you. You had so much potent-"

Alex hung up the call. Potential. Fucking potential. He didn't want to hear another time about how he was wasting his potential. In a way, knowing he had the potential to do anything made it all that much worse that he was doing nothing. He knocked back a can of beer, and in his little fit of rage, spilled some on a cracked glass picture frame on the floor.

He got out of his seat to wipe some of it up, and saw a face that cut deep into his cauterized heart. He still couldn't let her go. He remembered the way her hair brushed up against the upholstery of their soft, broken-in couch and the way her adorable little chirrup laugh reverberated around any house she was in. But most of all, he remembered the smile on her face when she was leaning against and kissing his best friend. The man was handsome, intelligent, and ambitious in a way that he never was. Somehow, it hurt even more that she was happier without him. 

The way they used to be was almost like... no. He wouldn't, no, he couldn't say that word. 

Not after his mother.

He saw her eyes, angry and sharp, reprimanding him over a million things. She'd entrapped him in her web of lies at an early age, jumping from point to point in her frequent rants. The beatings and scoldings all came back to visit, those old monsters still hanging over him. In spite of all the difficulties, Alex had always been proud that he was chosen, though. He sometimes imagined his parents walking to the adoption clinic. What was it like for them? Were they hopeful, perhaps? Looking forward to their lives and the child they'd have?

It was only later that he found out they were feeling manipulative.

Dragging himself out of his thoughts, Alex opened the window for a breath of fresh air, having already given up on the idea of making it to his class. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, though there was really a fat chance he'd be forgiven now, having hung up on his teacher. The pure sharpness of the bitter wind hit him like a fifty-millimeter bullet, almost knocking him back a full foot. Much to his dismay, Alex realized that he hadn't been outside in days.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Grabbing a bottle of cheap whisky and a pack of Gold Star cigarettes, Alex went out to sit on the balcony. He sat there and wondered for a while about life, and continuing on.

He took in a drag of smoke from his cigarette.

I'll be twenty years old soon enough. Almost two whole decades spent, and nothing to show for it. 

A small sip of his whisky. 

My friends will all be going to college.

A larger sip.

They'll be starting families.

Another drag from his cigarette. 

They'll make their parents proud. And in ten years, I'll have to look back and know deep in my heart that I failed to do any of those things.

Nick ended up sitting alone on the balcony for an entire hour, reminiscing about his past and slipping into the strange appeal of depressive nihilism. He was a little confused. He felt an inner chill in his heart, but he wasn't sure exactly where it was coming from. After eighteen long years of service to his goals, he was finally freer than ever. No relationships to uphold and no work to be finished. Wasn't he done? Shouldn't he be happy?

There was a big party going on beneath him, celebrating something meaningless like a birthday, an anniversary or, worst of all, a half-anything. He hated people that celebrated half-anythings. Having such optimism that they'd find any reason just to throw out the daily monotony of life and celebrate. The cheering and screaming of fifty people went loudly into the night, rustling the leaves and reaching all the way up to his balcony. Fuck. They were all so damned happy. Fuck them. Fuck them all.

With the party's noise and bustle beneath him, Alex looked down one more time at the world he used to love. He felt his hands go numb on the cold balcony railing bar, and, grabbing a chair, he took one last drink. Couldn't really hurt him now. He lifted his legs, placed one over the balcony railing, and unceremoniously started falling.

The sharp gust of wind on his way down from the twenty-sixth floor caught him by surprise. Everything slowed down, and ironically, like in the movies, moments of his life began to replay in his mind. All his sacrifices. The friends he'd turned away to focus on work. He never got to apologize. If he ever got a chance to do it over... His parents looking down at him after a test in the third grade, disappointed at his failure to score first. A thousand regrets, disappointments, and missed opportunities, looking back. He had a rare chance to treasure the life he had, and he wasted it. But now, unlike ever before, he felt a desire to change. Suddenly, Alex realized that all the "insurmountable" problems he faced had solutions, but the one issue that he would never find a solution to was falling to his death!

On the twelfth floor now, and with every little neuron in his brain working overtime, he could see the bustling metropolis he lived in beneath him, the pedestrians and party-goers already staring upwards in morbid curiosity.

Alex saw more memories. Happy ones this time. His sister playing with him, pretending to be Pokèmon on a bright Saturday morning. His friends clamouring in a soccer game organized outside the classroom, right in the middle of the schoolyard. Sneaking out with his friends on a junk boat trip, away from his parents and feeling entirely free for the first time in his life.

At the second floor, he saw the frightened children below him in a kindergarten classroom. Alex could see the littlest details in his life and everything he could do to fix himself. How he could quit alcohol, and video games, and learn anything, and know everything. How fucking cruel, he thought, that his brain would choose the moment of suicide to reveal that anything was possible. For the first time in the years after Alex had put up emotional barriers to guard away from the weariness of teenage overwork, he cried. All the missed memories, all the missed little joys that could have belonged to him had he not taken that one-second action of jumping... 

One meter from the ground.

One foot.

One inch.

One- 

Alex's nose touched the ground, and he felt like a bomb had gone off under his face. But before everything turned blank, a voice whispered in his ear.