It was 10:30 at night, Sarah’s family had gone to bed, after watching a movie together. She went upstairs to her bedroom and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Sarah knew that her family thinks she’s asleep, but only she knew what could have kept her up at this hour. She sat on her desk to write the last goodbye letter to her family, expressing all the times, when she was wrong, apologizing for all the times she had lost her temper. But as she sat, staring down at the paper, thinking of a way to start the letter and express her feelings, a tear rolled down her cheek and stained the page. Soon, she realized that she didn’t have enough courage to write regarding what she was about to do. Although she wanted her family to know the real reason why she was about to do it, she wasn’t able to. In vexation she crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the overflowing garbage bin. She walked back to the mirror and gave herself one last look before her blood started flowing everywhere and staining the beautiful and soft white rug. 

    It was 6:30 am, Edith had been waiting downstairs for her to give Sarah a big hug before she went to work. She kept calling her name but got no response. She decided to go upstairs and see if Sarah had woken up yet, as she opened the door a mephitic smell travelled to her nose. As she entered inside, she gave a grievous scream and collapsed on the floor, next to the puddle of blood. She saw Sarah’s body with her wrist slit open, she held the  body in her hand and she was in such a state of shock that she wanted to cry but the tears weren’t rolling as her mind was not ready to accept that her lively and cheerful daughter was dead. The only thing she could think of were all the reasons that could have led to Sarah’s present state. She sat there with Sarah in her arms, until she had the courage to call up her father. When he heard this cataclysmic news, he was speechless, his memory started to go back to the time when he saw Sarah crying and talked to her, maybe she wasn’t crying about the pain in her stomach, maybe it was something bigger than that, something that could have led to this situation. He rushed straight home and Sarah's parents cried and cried.

 Then, they picked up Sarah's little sister and older brother. They didn't know how to explain their young and fragile minds this, so they said with never-ending tears and grief in their heart, that their sister had died. When they reached home, Sarah's brother rushed up to her room and when he saw the blood-stained rug, he ran to his room, slammed the door shut and cried for hours, it was his fault, if he hadn’t picked on his little sister, maybe she would still be alive. To let out all that rage and guilt, he kept pounding the walls till his hands were bleeding. He thought he deserved the pain that he was going through, but clearly he wasn’t the only one blaming himself for this horrific tragedy. When Sarah’s little sister saw her sister’s blood on the rug, she ran to her parents and started mumbling apologies, for all the times she had stolen Sarah’s things without asking. She weeped and weeped. Her eyes were bloodshot with all the tears she had shed. She felt like there was a part of her that was behind this. Even after their parents explained to them that it wasn’t their fault, neither one of the siblings was ready to forgive themselves. 

A few days later, when Edith went to the school to collect the last of Sarah’s belongings, Sarah’s teacher Ms. Fray, asked Edith if Sarah was ok, as she hadn’t come to school for some time. Right when the Edith heard the name ‘Sarah’ she started weeping, after a lot of tears, she finally explained Ms. Fray that Sarah had committed suicide. When she heard this news, she was heartbroken. Maybe it was her fault for being too strict with Sarah when she was not performing that well. Maybe if she had noticed that Sarah was having trouble keeping up with the school work, she could’ve helped. Maybe Sarah could still be alive. Soon, this news was given to Sarah’s class, everyone started crying when they heard this. Even Robin,the callous boy who used to sit behind Sarah and annoyed her was crying. Ali, the popular girl who bullied Sarah for not looking that good was crying too.

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Later that week, Sarah’s family hosted a funeral for her. Everyone from Sarah’s school and their families were there. One by one, as each person delivered their heart touching speeches, the pain in people’s hearts got deeper. After the funeral was done, Sarah’s parents decided to tidy up her room, they made the bed, and tidied the shelves. While Edith was cleaning Sarah’s room, she found a piece of paper that had some notes written on it, she kept it thinking it might be something important. When they were done cleaning up the room, Edith opened the note, and read what was written. It seemed like Sarah had been talking to someone using that piece of paper. Some of the writing that Edith was able to read, said “ I can’t live like this anymore, you don’t realize how shameful it will be, Lucas. If my family found out that I have been abusing drugs, it’ll be so shameful, and what kind of role model will I be for my sister? She is only 10, I can’t do that to her” In more legible writing it said, “ Sarah, I understand your problem, but what are you going to do about it?”, “ I have decided, Lucas, there is only one option and you of all people know what that is”. 

Later on, Edith realized that Sarah had been talking to one of her classmates. So she decided to go to the teacher and requested to talk to Lucas. When Lucas entered the room, his hands were sweaty and his face was burning. Before Edith could ask any questions Lucas blurted out  the whole situation, about how he had been selling Sarah drugs, so that she could keep up with school. When she heard this, Edith held herself accountable for not being that mom that Sarah would talk to. She was so busy with her job, she never had time to listen to Sarah’s concerns. She drove home as quickly as possible and realized that the mailbox was overflowing. With all that had been going on, she hadn’t checked the mail in a long time. When she opened it, the first thing that fell out was a newspaper dated to the exact next day that Sarah had committed suicide. The headlines said “ The city in shock with a 14-year-old girl committing suicide” This reminded her of the night when they all had sat down to watch a movie, and she had noticed that Sarah seemed a little dull. But she thought it might just be because she is tired. Someone had given the printing company an anonymous tip about it. Following the newspaper, a huge pile of sympathy letters rushed out. At this point, Edith knew that she had to do something about it, so no one else would go through the pain that her family went through.

Edith went inside and told the rest of the family about everything that has happened from Lucas to her current thought about helping out kids with depression. After hearing about this, her family agreed with her and decided to spread awareness about substance abuse and what are the repercussions of it. Later on, Edith realized that her campaign had helped a lot of parents help their kids before they committed suicide. Edith had been revered for her courage to deal with this issue and how she was so strong even after what had happened to her daughter. Edith also realised,that she hadn’t been that approachable as she was always piled up with work. If only she had taken out some time for her family, Sarah would’ve had someone to express her problems with. One thing that kept Edith up all night, was that Lucas had told her that Sarah said that even if she died, no one would even notice or care. Edith didn’t tell her family this because she knew, that if her family heard this, they would go back into the state of guilt and regret that they got themselves out of.