When Reason Breaks

She lies on the hard ground, breathes deeply, and waits for death to come. She isn't afraid, but anxiety gnaws at her.
Will this take long? Is it going to hurt? What's on the other side? Anything? Will anyone miss me? Or will they be relieved that the miserable girl who screwed everything up is gone?
She takes another deep breath and exhales.
I was broken beyond repair, and they were tired of trying to fix me. They'll definitely be relieved
. Her body starts to relax. Everything will slow down and eventually stop.

Her life doesn't flash before her eyes, like she expected. All she thinks about is this morning. She retraces her steps to make sure everything was executed as she had planned.

She sat in the oversize chair in front of her window, hugging her knees to her chest. The sun gradually broke the
darkness and cast its light everywhere. This would be her last sunrise. Wanting to capture it, she closed her eyes and held them for a moment, like she was taking a mental picture, before rising from her chair to get ready.

Like a burglar in her own home, she walked around her room with careful steps and measured movements to retrieve what she needed from closets and drawers. She didn't want to wake or talk to anyone before leaving. She wouldn't have the guts to look her family in the face, lie, and continue with her plan.

Once dressed, she slipped through her partially open bedroom door, with her boots in hand. She stopped in the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, and dropped the bottle of sleeping pills into one of her boots.

She paused at the top of the stairs and whispered to those still asleep behind bedroom doors, “I love you. I'm sorry.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She swallowed hard, shook her head to stop the tears from coming, and picked up her pace. She practically slid down the stairs and shuffled into the kitchen. After slipping on her boots and coat, she tucked the bottle of pills, the manila envelope, and a bottle of water into her coat pockets. Her note on the whiteboard that hangs on the refrigerator door read:
Mom, I went to school. âE

She kept her hood up and eyes lowered on the long walk from home to the high school. Outside the building, she checked her watch as students and staff started to arrive for Saturday detention and other weekend events. She had to get
in and out quickly. She needed enough time to reach the clearing without getting stopped by anyone.

Hood still up, she entered the school and removed the manila envelope from her coat pocket. She pulled the letter out of the envelope but left the journal inside it. When she reached Ms. Diaz's classroom, she slid both under the door and continued walking. She whispered, “Thanks, Ms. D. You tried.”

Once outside, she lowered her hood and took a deep breath.
I'm almost there
. She raised her hood again and ran full speed across the field to the nearby woods.

Now she waits. Her limbs grow heavy and sink into the earth. Her body is downshifting, but her mind is racing.
This is the right thing to do, isn't it? Everything was so screwed up and it was all my fault. The only way to clean up the mess was for me to disappear. And how else can that happen? There was no other way, right?

But then images of her family and friends flip through her thoughtsâstupid stuffâlike cosmic bowling and making angels in fresh snow. She pounds the sides of her legs with her fists. “No. No. No,” she whispers to herself. She chokes back tears and orders herself, “Do not rethink this.” After all, there are far more things she won't miss, like the guilt or the pain. And then she laughs a little, because, really, what could she do now, even if she wanted this to stop?

As her eyelids grow heavy, she blinks hard and forces them open. She squirms on the ground and says, “Don't panic. It's going to be okay,” but she can't stop her tears and the
choking feeling in her throat. She breathes deeply and, to still her mind, she stares at the sky. Bare branches bump into prickly evergreens as they all sway in the cool wind. They look like they're tickling the blue sky's belly. The sun shines bright and continues its ascent. The moon is visible, but fading. Squirrels race through trees, deftly leaping from branch to branch, and a large black bird, with wings outstretched, glides overhead.

She pounds her fists on the ground and kicks her legs out hard, like she's fighting someone. She rocks her body from side to side and tries to sit up, but fatigue pushes her down. She arches her back and screams and then lies flat. Wanting to hold on to something, she digs her nails into the dirt. Tears slide down the sides of her face as she closes her eyes.

Not far away, Ms. Diaz reads a note slipped under her classroom door, drops everything, and runs as fast as her legs and heart allow. Her legs pump. Her heart pounds. Her arms instinctively clear away branches that threaten to slow her down. A few of the trees' extended branches scratch her cheeks and forehead.

But she won't stop. Her legs and heart pumpâfast, faster, go faster, she begs them, until she reaches the clearing.

She pauses for a second, then races to the girl. She bends over her, lifts her body, repeats the word, “No,” first softly, then louder until she's screaming. She forces herself to focus, to stop screaming and draw a deep breath. She places her mouth over the girl's and pushes the air in hard, trying desperately to breathe life into her and bring her back.

Chapter 2
“Adrift! A little boat adrift!”
EIGHT MONTHS EARLIER, JULY

By 8:30 a.m., Elizabeth figured it was time to get out of bed. She had been up for a while anyway after another restless night. Sleep had been teasing her for about a year, jolting her awake every two hours until she stopped trying, which was usually around 6:00 a.m. It had definitely affected her sunny disposition, or so she'd been told.

She rolled out of bed and shuffled across the hardwood floor to her dresser, where she raked a brush through her jet-black hair. With a section of hair down the front of her face, she resembled the creepy, pale girl from an old horror movie she saw once. Elizabeth tilted her head in a sinister way and snarled. Then she grabbed a pair of nearby scissors and, with one slice, gave herself slightly uneven bangs.

After a scalding hot shower, she dressed and pulled her
hair into a tight ponytail, her newly cut bangs hanging right above her eyebrows. She hastily applied red lipstick and black eyeliner before heading downstairs for breakfast.

Her eleven-year-old sister Lily sat at the kitchen table, watching cartoons and messily eating Cocoa Puffs with a huge spoon. Her mom leaned against a counter, gripping a coffee mug and staring into the space in front of her. Mom was always petite and pretty, but the small lines around her eyes were new. So were the dark circles under her eyes that showed despite layers of cover-up. They had that in common.

“Good morning,” said Elizabeth.

“Morning,” Lily mumbled through slurps of cereal. She glanced at Elizabeth and then did a double take. “Nice hair,” she said and returned to her breakfast and the television. Elizabeth scrunched her eyebrows in response. Was she serious or being sarcastic? If it was a joke, she probably would've gone further, saying something silly like, “Nice hair â¦ if you were a gerbil.” A genuine compliment? Wow, she wasn't expecting that.

“Morning, sweetie,” Mom said absently. Elizabeth stared at her mom, but her gaze went unnoticed.
Hello? Anybody home? Notice anything different, Mom?

After a few seconds, her mom snapped out of her daze and into action.

“What time is it?”

“Almost nine,” Elizabeth said and walked to the refrigerator. As Elizabeth approached, her mom moved away. She
tossed a fistful of pills into her mouth and swallowed them with a gulp of coffee before dumping the cup into the sink.

“I hope those are vitamins,” said Elizabeth. Mom didn't respond.

“Lily, baby, we need to go. Finish your cereal. We can't be late for camp. I have a job interview this morning, and I want to be on time. No, I want to be early, so there's no chance I'll be late.”

Mom was frenzied, clearing dishes, washing her hands, checking her purse for the essentials, and studying herself in the mirror to see if she appeared job-worthy.

“Why do you have an interview?” Lily asked. “You already have a job.”

“I know,” Mom said as she scanned the room for anything else she needed. “I might get a second job. We need the money.”

“Are we really that broke?” asked Elizabeth.

“Yeah, well, I don't want to talk about it,” she replied.

“O-kay,” Elizabeth said, pronouncing each syllable with sarcastic emphasis.

She waited for a reaction but didn't get one. Mom turned toward Lily, who was still watching TV and slurping her cereal casually.

“Let's go. Let's go. TV off.” She hit the power button with one hand and swiped Lily's bowl with the other.

“Mom,” Lily whined. “I wasn't done.”

“Well, you're done now.”

“Why do I have to go to summer camp, anyway? I'm almost twelve.”

“Right. In a year.”

“I could go to Nana's again.”