Mozart's Requiem
an excerpt

There was a point in time when I would’ve done anything that Brady told me to do. I would’ve robbed a bank just so he’d look at me. I would’ve climbed Mt. Everest just so he’d talk to me. I would’ve swum across all the oceans and then back again to be at his side and so once I was there, maybe he’d like me. I would’ve killed a thousand innocent people just so he’d love me…but instead of doing that, I attempted to kill myself instead.

I had the habit of taking him too seriously. Maybe I did it again that time, too. When I told him I loved him he told me to jump off a bridge. Instead I decided submerging myself in my bathtub would have to do, and so that’s what I did. I filled it to the brim, played some classical music, and sank into the water, hands over my eyes as Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor echoed and throbbed above the surface.

My sister was the one who found me. She panicked…thought I was already dead, but then she and my dad pulled me out of the water. Dad performed mouth to mouth, got me stable enough till the ambulance came and picked me up. Then the paramedics did their magic on me and saved my life.

There was none of me that felt relief when I woke up in the hospital. I felt that I had failed Brady. I felt that he would just find me to be a huge disappointment, someone that disgusted him…someone that wasn’t good enough for him and never would be good enough for him. I felt shameful. I felt afraid. I felt like I had to try to die for him again.

Unfortunately, I was too weak to get out of the hospital bed and the tubes going in and out of me helped to keep me in place. Unfortunately a nurse came in to find me with one of those tubes wrapped around my neck. Unfortunately they all knew that my near drowning in the bathtub had been intentional and what I’d just done had confirmed it.

And I felt even worse after that. Even more worthless. Even more hopeless. Even more lost.

My dad came in and sat by my bed, asking me why I’d try to do such a thing. My sister, beautiful, smart, eleven year old Julie, threw herself across my stomach, clung to me, cried and sobbed, asking me how could I possibly leave her? Even my mother showed up, her new husband at her side as she sat stiffly beside me, saying that if it was her fault she’d like me to tell her, though I doubted her motives. Was she there to erase any traces of guilt she might have or to help me? Then the nurses and the doctors came with notebooks and clipboards and scribbling pens.

“What’s the matter, Keegan?” they’d ask with their pens poised, waiting for me to say something interesting, say something they wanted to hear. I couldn’t think of anything. If I mentioned Brady, he’d be dragged into it. He might get into trouble. He might hate me for it and then we’d never talk, never be close to each other, he’d never like me, never ever love me…so I kept my mouth shut.

I lied. I said I’d been feeling depressed. Dad blamed himself. Julie blamed herself. My mom blamed my dad and I watched it all, feeling guilty but not guilty enough to mention Brady.