Levi’s POV:

Everything feels so fuzzy right now. 

I can hear and see everything around me, but it feels as though I have no connection to my body and that I am not really here. Cars fly by beneath this overpass, the same one I ride the bus over every day in order to work and pay my pathetically high rent for such a small one room apartment. I suppose the room would look a little bigger if I didn’t trash it so much and leave a mess whenever I actually choose to do anything. 

Not that it matters anymore. 

My hands are clutching the cool cement railing, and I feel a drop on my hand. The sky above is clear, so I reach for my face and realize those drops are falling from my own eyes. My breathing is shaky, my throat is tight… how did I not notice that?

I guess it comes down to the whole out-of-body experience that comes right before you jump off an overpass and get crushed underneath someone’s car. It’s pathetic that this is how I go; surely it will traumatize someone, but I never had the guts to shoot myself or slit my wrists deep enough to actually kill me. I’m scared I’ll go find help if I try to overdose, and then I’ll have a hospital bill to worry about on top of all of the other bills I already have. 

At least this will be quick, and once I fall, I won’t have a chance to think twice, even if I regret it. The cars are moving fast enough that I’ll be crushed as long as I dive head first. Work can find a new worker, I have left my official letter of resignation on my bed, along with a letter to my girlfriend. She’s gorgeous, sweet, and funny… she’ll find someone new without a problem, though I have a suspicion that she’s already cheating on me anyway. 

I would too, if I was her. 

I climb up onto the railing and sit down, looking down at the cars that zoom by underneath. My heart is pounding, my head is throbbing so I guess I’ve been crying more than I had originally thought. As I touch my cheeks and feel the sticky path of dried tears, it’s clear that I’ve cried way more than I originally thought. 

I need to close my eyes and just do it, finally just commit to being done with the hell that is being alive. It will be better for everyone, I won’t be in pain anymore, and I will finally get to rest. 

“Stop being so weak,” I whisper, staring into the distance. “You want to do this, so just do it.”

Despite whispering this to myself, I stay still and don’t fall forward. 

I’m so weak… all I have to do is push myself forward and I’m not even able to do that. I close my eyes and begin to count back from ten. 

Ten…

Nine…

Eight… 

Seven…

As the number seven echoes in my head, I feel myself stumble on the wall despite being seated, and I scream in agony. This is it, this is it, I am going to die. Do I want to die? Oh, fuck, I don’t even know! I have things to do, don’t I? 

The wind is knocked out of me from my back and I open my eyes and realized that I have fallen backwards as opposed to forward. I take in a slow breath and let out a broken sob. Honestly, I do not know whether or not I am happy that fate knocked me backward instead of forward. 

“Are you alright?” I hear someone ask. 

I sit up and see a man with tanned skin and almost golden eyes staring at me. I nod and he holds out his hand, helping me to my feet, brushing the dirt that has most likely stuck to my back. 

“I… I’m alive?” I try, because it’s true, despite my weak efforts.

The man looks me up and down, not in a judging way, but he definitely does not fully believe what I have just said. “Are you sure? I watched you sit there for a good long while.”

“How long?”

“I’d say a half an hour,” he responds, patting my shoulder. “I suggest you go home, young man.”

I give him a look of confusion. “Young man? You look about the same age as me,” I respond, ignoring the first part of his statement where he was watching me and then telling me that I should go home. 

“I age quite well, but I can guarantee that I am much older than you,” he replies with a soft chuckle. “Now, go home. I know things seem low right now, but you have a life to live and people who would be broken if you were to leave.”

He does not know how untrue that is. 

“Go on,” he says, and his eyes seem to almost glow, and I feel compelled to follow what he is ordering me to do, because this is definitely not a gentle request. 

I nod and dumbly turn around without another word and begin the slow walk to my house. I still feel detached from my mind and I am not sure how I find my apartment, but soon enough I am standing in my cluttered living space. I stumble to my bedroom and see the letters I had written and left to be found once my body was confirmed to be simply that; a body with nothing living inside of it. 

I grab the letter for work and throw it on top of the full garbage can, watching it fall to the ground instead of staying where I tried to put it. Then, I grab the letter for Maggie. 

I have no clue what to do. 

What do you say to your girlfriend of four years after you tried to kill yourself and failed? What are you supposed to do after a four year relationship in general? 

Maggie used to talk a lot about getting married, so I suppose that would be the next step. 

Her parents think I’m a good guy, she has a good job and I can find a better one, I suppose. That would be the ideal next step… and, maybe, just maybe, she will distract me enough to keep me away from the haunting thoughts that keep me awake and compel me to do stupid things. 

I need to finally just do it… just take the next step and act like a normal, functioning person. 

Grabbing my bed sheets that are in serious need of a wash, I strip myself naked and wrap myself up, trying not to let my eyes linger on the fresh, sore marks on my inner thighs. I made those last night, after waking up with a mind numbing headache due to a nightmare. 

Well, I wish it was a nightmare.

I would much prefer nightmares and bad dreams of monsters, demons, normal things like that. Unfortunately for me, my nightmares are always memories. Bad dreams about when I was a child, when my father died and my mother killed herself out of grief. Dreams about the countless foster homes I went through and ran away from… my foster father who destroyed my trust in men and made me push a part of myself under the rug because I’m too scared to let another man touch me. 

A lot of the time, I wish my mom was selfish and had killed us both so I did not have to suffer in this horrible world. It’s not fair that she left me behind with nothing, but complaining does not pay any kind of bill and I still have those to pay. 

I cover the marks with my nasty sheet and take out my phone, an old one that has the function of a touch screen but it’s on the cheapest payment plan that I could get. There are a lot of jewelers in Cincinnati, but the first one that pops up surprises me. Not only does it have five stars, but it has over six thousand reviews! That seems almost impossible, as there are a lot of people here who will complain about the flavor of water, but as I read the reviews, I’m even more pleased. 

One of their rings will make Maggie say yes. 

Soon, my life will be worth living.