You Own Me (Owned 1)

And now Vic was gone. I might never be happy again.

It was a morbid and sobering thought. I wish I could end my year on a note of positive self-discovery but that probably isn’t in the cards for me. As Zoe said: happiness didn’t just happen. It was something you worked on. I knew this, but I didn’t care.

I could work hard on my happiness and maybe reach a semblance of the happiness that I had with Vic, but… Vic was gone and I was just, God, I was fucking dead.

As champagne smiles and laughter flowed around us like something out of a hip-hop video, I kept a smile on my face. I wouldn’t ever be happy again, but I was buoyed by memories of euphoria. Some people don’t even have memories.

I was a person whose emotional stability wasn’t just peaks and valleys, but caverns and mountains. With Vic, I had been blissful. Sure, there had been some rocky times, but, by my definition, it had been bliss. I was happier than a person should be allowed to be, and the universe knew that.

If we look at it rationally, things are looking up for me. I have a business, I have friends, and I have the memory of perfect euphoria. And memories never die, after all, the past isn’t even past, right?

I sipped my champagne, smiling a true smile for the first time since Vic left. Yep, I might die alone choking on a TV dinner for two while my foster cat licks my face off, but things were looking up.

You can’t deny that.

It’s July 14th. Years ago, I tried to kill myself. I could have created a twisted tradition and kept trying, but instead, I got my act together. Sort of.

I’m drinking espresso at the offices of Moore Events. (Get it? Like “more” events.) Our “offices” are actually just an illegally subleted condo, but, hey, Apple started out of a garage or something. After we got funded, everything became a whirlwind. In the last couple of months, Moore Events has gone from a short stack of papers declaring my legitimacy to one poorly paid intern fielding two spam calls a day to all of us in a condo, preparing for our first paid event.

It was early in the morning, too early for anyone to be here. I hadn’t slept last night because I never sleep the night before July 14th. I’m too wired, like my body

knows something is up. This day means more to me than any other day. It means more to me than my birthday. It basically is my fucking birthday. July 14th was the first day of the rest of my life; it was the day I decided to keep trying.

As I stare at the poorly painted wall across from me, the bad paint strokes become a blank canvas onto which I projected the movie running in my head.

I was the one to find my mother’s body. I remember the day vividly. The memories are in Technicolor.

I walked home from school, like I always did. I was in the fourth grade. I saw a note on the front door in her handwriting, so I plucked it off the painted wood.

“Don’t come in,” it read. “Call 911. I love you.”

Naturally, I ran inside. My stomach was ice cold and my whole body was a mess of tingles and shakes. I think I was already crying before I saw her. I knew, I just knew, what had happened. When someone commits suicide, it usually isn’t a surprise to the living. It’s a horrible shock but, generally, it isn’t out of the blue. When my mom killed herself, I knew with terrible clarity what that note meant. The hanging body was just the period on the end of the sentence.

I sipped a little more on my espresso, thinking back to my suicide attempt. It had had nothing to do with my mother. Well, not nothing, but she wasn’t the sole reason. It wasn’t like I was part of some vicious cycle. Well, maybe. But what I’m trying to say is even if my mom had survived her suicide I still would have gone and tried my own.

Because I was depressed. I am depressed. I got over my mom killing herself. I still get sad, but I grieved and moved on. My father never moved on, but he didn’t try to kill himself. He just left the world behind. In some ways, that’s the bigger tragedy.

My mom left me a gift before she died; she gave me a piece of herself. She gave me her mental demons.

The whole side of her family is brain-fucked to kingdom come. They either self-medicate with heavy drugs or pretend everything is A-OK by indulging in too much religion. None of them admit they have a legitimate, medical problem.

I was the first one to really get help, and even I’m not doing so well.

I sat my cup down and looked at the clock. Now five-thirty a.m, Zoe and Lissie would arrive anytime. They get up early, because they’re sick like that. They’re usually at the office by six; six-thirty if they had sex before leaving.

I can still remember what my mom used to hang herself. It was some kind of belt. I never wore belts again, because every time I put one on I saw my mom’s pale, dead face sticking out of it. Years of butt cracks followed my mother’s suicide.

I used a razor, because I wanted control over my death. I wanted to be the arbiter of my life and my death, and a blade gives you that control. With pills, you can fuck up and be a vegetable but not dead, with a shotgun the same thing, with the highway, you can be paralyzed. Blood loss is pretty straightforward.

I read somewhere that if you hang yourself, there is the possibility, if not inevitability, of being alive for a while, albeit paralyzed, while you slowly die. That terrified me. I try not to think of my mom in that position, for obvious reasons.

The door clicked open and in walked Zoe and Lissie.

“Are you sitting in the dark?” Zoe asked as she turned on the lights.

I shrugged, because I had been. It just feels weird to have the lights on while the moon is out.

“Only for a little bit while I was drinking my coffee,” I lied. No need to go into graphic detail about what this day means to me. The only other person I’ve told about my scars is Vic, and he’s living on the periphery of my life right now.