Death is the only escape.

The cycle will repeat if it doesn’t happen.

And it doesn’t happen.

Andrew is the only one who’s able to. He’s done it before. He knows how it feels. He can live with it. Lyle needs to die. This is the only way. But Andrew doesn’t listen to me when I scream at him to finish it. He’s listening to somebody else. I am not here. I can’t even trust the people I care about the most.

The vial of Winter is still in front of me. I pick it up and look up. Jerrica is rubbing Andrew’s back. Cody is still catching his breath. Andrew is staring at the ceiling.

I need to get out of here.

“Grace! Wait where are you going!” Cody shouts.

I’m already out the door.

“Jerrica follows her! We’ll deal with thi…” Cody's voice fades away.

“Grace, wait up!” Jerrica yells from behind. She calls out my name and it becomes quieter the more distance I make.

It’s dark out and I’m running deeper into the forest. I can’t see where I’m going. I just run and keep on running. I was running like this four years ago when I chased after Elizabeth. Her name was being called out for then. My name is being called today.

Everything repeats.

Jerrica’s voice fades away. I lost her and stopped to catch my breath. Even this repeats. I’m in front of the tree where Elizabeth committed suicide. It’s in the middle of nowhere. I can’t see five feet in front of me, but this is where Elizabeth died. She was as much part of the cycle as everyone else was. The only difference is that she found a way out. Death.

I used movies and tv shows to ease my loneliness as a child. I was able to live in those magic worlds as an escape. I wanted reality to have magic too. I’ve been spoiled. Real life pales in comparison. Life is mundane and boring.

It’s not special.

It’s not worth living.

There are drugs in my back pocket. I swallow the entire bag of Molly and pop both pills of ecstasy. I might as well and it’s too dark and raining too much to get high on cocaine.

I start walking. Where? I don’t know. Anywhere works. Fuck, if anything, I know the perfect place to repeat the cycle.

I’d rather not exist.

All my favorite poets took their own lives. Their lives were poetry. My existence is poetry. Why would I be any different? Every day only gets harder. Don’t look too close now.

There’s no narrative. There’s no redemption arc. There is no journey. It’s just me and my mistakes. It’s all been building upon each other, day by day, until they all become a gross unrecognizable mess. It’s hideous. One day it’ll get so ugly that it'll crack the mirror. And I’ll only get worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. That day is at this moment.

I often thought about what might have gone through Elizabeth’s head in her final moments. I thought about how the metal must have felt against her temple. I wonder if she felt the bullet. I wonder if any part of her was still alive as she fell on the ground. Was she scared? Was she relieved? I must imagine her being happy. She no longer had to be in pain.

Her death had significance.

I get it now.

I can stop blaming her.

My death will be the same.

The door to Cody’s treehouse is open. I’m dry inside.

I do a bump of cocaine, then another, and then another. It doesn’t make me any better. I don’t want it to.

I’m a girl born without love. She’s incapable of it. The rain washes away her unsightly stains. It washes away every age she’s ever been and every age she’ll ever be. She cares too much. It eats her alive. She remembers every little thing she’s ever been told. She remembers every little thing she’s experienced. She’s burdened to carry everything that has ever hurt her. Remembering is an unbearable torture.

Yet she cannot remember what makes her whole.

I do another bump. And another. Another. Another. Another. I swallow all the xanax bars. Then I do more and more cocaine until I can no longer stand.

My heart is going to explode.

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Grace is a vessel of memories than she is a person. There isn’t anything left of her worth saving. She used to cry herself to sleep and hope someone would check on her. It’s time to wake up now. She’s been dreaming. She tried her best. There were just some things that were too hard to overcome. That doesn’t make her a bad person. She didn’t mean to be angry. She didn’t mean any harm. That’s not what she wanted. Grace just wanted to be happy. Now it’s too late. What she was looking for never existed.

I open the vial. There weren't instructions on how many drops I should release from the dropper. I guess it doesn’t matter. I swallow it all. My teeth, gums and tongue freeze over. I took a bite of absolute zero ice but it doesn’t hurt. In one of the gas stations near my house, their slushie machine has a flavor that's called purple. It’s not grape because it doesn’t taste like grape, but purple. It’s sort of how an orange is orange. Winter tastes as the embodiment of a snowstorm.

Remember, I'm shaking too much from the cocaine to stand.

Remember, life doesn’t have happy endings.

Everyone dies alone, just how I will die alone. I will be mourned and grieved. How could this happen?, or, she was too young, they’ll say. Then someone else like me will come along and I’ll be forgotten. The world will move on. The world can’t miss what it never loved. And the cycle will continue to repeat.

A woman with broken wings knows best about nets and frayed respect. She knows the devil doesn’t need any I-told-you-so’s. It’s nothing but cheap talk and wasted breath. Everyone loves a mess. She intends to give one they won’t forget.

Okay.

I think I’m ready to let go now.

-

-

-

“Mom? Do you still love me? I didn’t mean to make you cry. I didn’t want to hurt you. You were once a girl with needs and dreams just like me. You didn’t deserve to have the child you gave your life to be taken from you. I’m sorry for cutting your dreams short. I’m sorry for not giving you support. I wish there was something I could have done to help you. I wish I could free you from all of this. Are you listening? Am I still your baby? Please, still love me, mommy.”

I hope death feels like when you carried me to bed when I fell asleep in the car.

-

-

-

The ocean sings.

The waves crash. The salty air is warm. The sand is soft.

I can’t see the ground below me. I’m in the treehouse high above the main cabin. I lean back from the guardrail and turn around. It’s supposed to be pitch black. A woman is on the opposite wall, examining the pinned Polaroids. She’s glowing. She’s wearing a white dress. I take a few steps forward. She turns around.

I don’t recognize her.

“Life is beautiful, really, it is,” she says. She smiles. Her voice is almost like an angel’s. It’s soothing. “Life is great,” she continues.

Her hair is brown, but her eyes are nearly completely white. Her body is slightly transparent and the light emitting out of her is an aura of light rainbow hues.

“Without it, you’ll be dead,” I reply.

“Life is beautiful, really, it is. Filled with beauty and illusions,” The woman walks up to me and hugs me.

-

-

-

I lean away from the rail again. When I turn around, the woman in the white dress is walking around the walls with her fingertips tracing on them. Her hair is short–wait. I remember this haircut. She stops in front of me. She holds a finger over her mouth. Her eyes are large and round.

“Life is beautiful, really, it is,” She says angelically. “Life is great.”

“Without it, you’ll be dead,” I say again.

“Life is beautiful, really, it is. Filled with beauty and illusions,” The woman hugs me again

-

Again.

I turn around from the rail. The woman in white was waiting for me in the middle with her hands clasped together. Her smile is gentle and kind. Her hair is styled as a bob. She’s wearing the white dress from the poster.

“Life is beautiful, really, it is,” She says as an angel. “Life is great,”

“Without it, you’ll be dead.’

She shakes her head. “Life is beautiful, really, it is. Filled with beauty and illusions,” The woman walks up and hugs me.

-

Remember.

Grace.

-

-

Once more.

I climb up the ladder, my phone dropping out of my pocket as I rise. It falls all the way down. I’m surrounded by complete darkness. A lightning strike lights the sky for a brief moment and I lean over the rail. I can’t see the ground below me. It’s not raining as hard anymore. It’s slowing down to a drizzle.

I turn around.

The woman in the white dress is standing in the middle again. Her hands are clasped together. The aura around her is now golden and she isn’t transparent anymore. She extends her hand for me to hold when I approach her. I rest my palm on top of hers then I look her in the eyes. There’s no mistaking it now. She resembles my mother but that was only my initial thought. The woman in the white dress is me, or at the very least, taking the form of an older me. I think.

It’s hard to recognize her.

“Life is beautiful,” I say. “Really, it is. Filled with beauty and illusions. Life is great. Without it, you’d be dead.”

The woman in white closes her eyes, smiles and nods.

She hugs me.

She loves me, and I love her back.

Everything becomes dark.

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

The ocean’s waves sing back and forth.