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The message was from an angelbaby911. Oh please! Angelbaby? That is so unique!
Not.
“Hey! I’m Isabella! How are you?” Angelbaby said. I clicked reply.
Gently placing my fingers on home row, I type, “Leave me alone. You just interrupted me.” I click send and lean back in my chair only to realize that my neck was still gushing blood out. I jumped up and walked to the bathroom. Well it wasn’t exactly walking, more like running because the cut was pretty deep and well deep cuts usually bleed a lot and fast, especially when the cut is in your neck. I open up the closet in the bathroom and take the first aid kit off of the first shelf where I put it after my mom’s suicide attempt. After my neck is all bandaged up, I go back in to my room and sit back down at my computer. I refresh the page to my inbox and unsurprisingly the words “1 new pm” return to my screen. I click them and another message from Isabella appears.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt you. What were you doing, anyway?” She asks.
“It doesn’t concern you! God, I thought I told you to leave me the hell alone!” I reply to her. I turn my chair around to look at the spot where the rope is laying on the floor. Only minutes early the rope was hanging from the ceiling, and I was hanging from it. I shudder at the thought and turn back around, so I don’t have to look at it. How could my plans be destroyed? It wasn’t fair! Life’s not fair. The feeling of the rope suffocating enters my mind again. Rubbing my neck, I refresh the page. Isabella had replied to my letter.
“You sound angry,” she says. Angry… is that the word for what I’m feeling.
“I am angry, at you!” I replied screaming the words in my head. How could she? I would be dead right now if it weren’t for her. Dead. That’s what I wanted right? It’d be so much easier. I wouldn’t have to deal with any of the crap I have to take every single day. The mess behind me wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for my horrible life, with my horrible parents and horrible friends.
I click the refresh button and I’m greeted by “You have 1 new private message.” Clicking the flashing words, Isabella’s next message opens. “I’m so sorry. I just wanted to talk to you, that’s all.”
“Talk to me? Why the hell would you want to talk to me? You don’t even know me!” I explain to her and clicked send. Yawning, I get a good whiff of the blood that’s staining the floor and stand up to some Mr. Clean floor cleaner, a bucket of water, and a scrub brush. Then, I begin to work on getting the red liquid off of the wood floor.
After I’m done I empty the red watery blood out of the bucket and toss it along with the Mr. Clean and scrub brush under the sink. Then I go back into my room and gently pick the rope up. What shall I do with this? Keep it and show it to my kids when I’m older? Now that’ll be a story. Throw it away to completely wash the memory out of my mind. Once my neck heals the rope will be the only thing keeping this memory in my head. I could forget it ever happened. Is that what I would want? Would I want to forget the one thing that really mattered to me, the one and only thing I could control?
I decide to toss it into my closet just in case I want to try again. Maybe next time this Isabella chick won’t bug me and ruin my plans. “You have 1 new private message!” My computer announces. I walk toward my computer and sit back down in my desk chair. I click the flashing words to make Isabella’s message appear. “You’re right. I don’t know you, but I do know about you.” About me? How does she know about me? Does she live in Missouri too? Only one way to find out. I click reply and type in “Where do you live?” Clicking send I lean back in my chair and yawn. Then I yawn again. I close the internet and turn off my monitor. Then I climb underneath the covers and fall into a deep sleep.

Can’t breathe. Blood dripping. Rope snapping. I wake up fast, startled. A nightmare, it was only a nightmare. Slowly my breathing slows down and my stomach growls. I glance at my clock: 5:15. I get out of bed and pull a sweatshirt over my head. Stumbling to the bathroom, I pull my hair up into a pony tail. When I reach the bathroom, I automatically open the drawer and take out my toothbrush and tooth paste. I place some paste on my brush and stick it in my mouth. Placing the cap back on the tooth paste I look in my mirror. The rope. It’s on my neck. Blood is gushing out of my neck and I smile. I reach up and feel my mouth; the end of the tooth brush stops me. I’m not smiling! Startled I step back and fall over a towel, landing hard on the floor. The tooth brush falls from my mouth. Breathing heavily again, I get up and finish brushing my teeth without looking up at the mirror once.
I dash down the stairs and shout, “Mom, I’m going to go get some breakfast…” Then I remember. My mom’s not here. She’s in the hospital and God knows where my father ran off to. I slip on some flip-flops and walk quietly out the door, locking it behind me. I practically run down the street, tears in my eyes until I reach the diner. I dash through the door, and run up to the counter. I sit down, desperately trying to catch my breath. I quickly wipe my eyes before the jolly old man comes out of the kitchen. He smiles.
“Well hello there,” he said very welcomingly, “You’re here mighty early again this morning.” I glance at my clock. It’s 6:15.
“Hi,” I manage to get out. It came out in a squeaky voice though. His joyful face suddenly turned to one of worry.
“What’s a matter?” The way he said it was very soothing, almost making me forget that there was anything wrong, almost. What am I supposed to say this time? Not the truth of course. My life will crush his poor old heart.
Sniffling I reply, “I…I just had a bad dream, that’s all.” He smiles a smile of compassion. He walks around the counter and sits on the stool next to me.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” He asks. I shake my head and wipe my last tear away. “Okay then, how about this? We’ll let one of my mama’s recipes turn that frown upside down.” I smile as he gets up and heads back into the kitchen. When he’s out of sight, I turn around in my stool and look around his diner. It’s very small, and everything is extremely clean. My mom would love him. There’s five red booths along the far wall with the windows and two tables between the booths and the counter. In the corner there’s a bathroom.
“Hey, uh…” I begin but then I don’t I stop. I have no clue what to call him.
“What? I didn’t quite hear what you said,” he says coming out of the kitchen with a spatula in his hand.
“Uh what should I call you?” I ask him, hoping that he won’t be offended. He chuckles and walks toward me. Sticking his hand out he says to me, “Hi, my name is Seamus Alexander Heaney, but you can just call me Grandpa.” I laugh.
“Okay then, Gramps, can I use your bathroom?” I say smiling.
“Hmm let me think about that one. Of course you can use my bathroom, now will you leave me alone, so I can cook your breakfast,” he replies jokingly. I get up and toward the wall with the door for the bathroom. I push the door open just to be greeted by darkness. My hand searches the wall for the light switch. Flipping the switch, I walk into the bathroom and look in the mirror. A girl with black messy hair and tear stained cheeks looks back at me. I close my eyes because the image is just so… sad. I imagine beauty. What would it be like to have beauty? Why do I have to be so ugly, so miserable, so ignored? I reopen my eyes to face reality again. Ignoring the misery that’s looking at me through the mirror, I wash my face and fix my hair a little bit. Then I back out into the little restaurant, turning the light off as I go. Walking out, I see this little jukebox in the corner. I begin to walk toward it when Grandpa shouts, “Here’s your food, young lady.” I swing around and stride towards him. He’s always so happy, so sure of himself. That smile is always plastered upon his face, even though life is horrible.
“Thank you,” I say sitting down on the stool. I pick up the fork.
“Now this,” he says, “is my mom’s amazing omelet. It’s one of my favorite recipes from her.” He smiles and comes to sit beside me. I take a bite of my omelet and meet perfection. I smile at him.
“I can sum this up in one word, delicious!” I say with excitement. He chuckles.
“Well, thank you!” he replies. We sit there in silence after that, me gobbling down my omelet. Finishing, I get off of my stool and say, “Thank you. Now how much do I owe you?” He looks at me as if I’m insane.
“You already paid with your company,” he says recovering himself quickly and smiling.
“No, no. I’m paying this time,” I reply.
“Fine, then it costs one dollar,” he says, smiling. I roll my eyes because I know that he won’t let me pay full price, so I say, “One dollar coming up.” I take out my wallet and pull out a single. I hand it to him and say thank you once more before leaving the diner. I walk up the street to go back to my house.

Once inside the house, I go straight to the bathroom and strip from my clothes. I start the shower and step in, closing the curtain behind me. I take out my ponytail and begin to wash my hair and body.

I don’t know how long I stayed under the steaming hot water, but it was long enough that when I got out the whole bathroom was filled with a thick wall of steam. I put a towel around me and another one around my hair. Then I walk out of bathroom and is greeted by cold air. I wrap my arms around myself and go to my room. Silently, I take my towel off and put on clean clothes. Then I unravel the towel from my hair. Leaving the towels on the floor, I go into the bathroom. Wiping the steam off the mirror I take out my brush and begin to brush the snarls out of my hair. My eyes begin to water with every stroke of the brush. Finishing my hair, I violently wipe the tears away.
Taking out the first aid kit, I remove the wet bandage from my neck. I gently clean the gap going around my neck and wrap more gauze around my neck and tape it, so it’ll stay. Then I go back into my room and sit down at my computer desk. I turn on the monitor and look at the clock in the corner. It’s 9:23 a.m. I click the internet icon and sit back waiting for it to come up. When it does, I bring the cursor to the URL bar and type in yourlife.com. It brings me to yourlife’s homepage. I quickly set it to my computer’s homepage and click on recent message. My inbox appears and in it is a single message from Angelbaby. I click it.
“I live in Nebraska. What about you?” It reads. How does she know about me if she doesn’t even live in the same state as me?
“How the hell do you know about me?” I angrily type and press reply. She can’t possibly know anything about me. Not a single thing! I sit back and wait for a reply.
After about 10 minutes I realize she must be at school so I minimize my page and stand up. I pick up all of the clothes on the floor in my room and then go to bathroom and do the same. I go downstairs and put them in the washing machine. Then I hear it, the doorbell. I walk silently to the door and look through the peephole. A police officer is standing there looking impatient. I debate in my mind whether or not to open the door, but then I decide to because it could be something about Kevin.
“Hello there, officer,” I say opening the door. He looks relieved that somebody answered.
“Are you Kristy?” He asks me.
Confusedly I reply, “Yes it is.” His eyes fill with worry and sadness. “What’s wrong officer?” I ask him.
“We think we found your father. This man,” He explains as another officer begins to drag a man, my father, to the door in handcuffs, “says he lives here. He said that you’d probably be home because of a suspension.” So my dad knew about me being suspended but how? Does my mom know too? “Is this man the right man that we’ve been looking for?” Looking for? Why were they looking for him? What did he do?
“Yes he is my father,” I reply with confusion in my voice.
Turning to the other officer he says, “Okay you can let him go now.” With that the handcuffs are taken off my father, and he stumbles into the house.
“Thank you, officer, for returning my dad. I really appreciate it,” I lie. Then I smile at them, and they begin to turn and walk away. I close the door behind them and lock it again.
“So Dad, where were you this whole time?” I ask him angrily.
“Where’s your mother?” He replies.
“The hospital,” I say truthfully. He looks at me then. Worry is actually coming to his face. “She tried to kill herself because you left, Dad.” He screams then and knocks over the table. He dashes out the door, swearing to himself. I pick up the table and all the contents that were sitting on it. Nothing is broken. Why? Why must my dad be home? I was enjoying being home by myself, not having to listen to everyone yelling and screaming all the time. My dad is ruining everything. Why wouldn’t the cops just arrest him? I mean, he is doing illegal drugs. He must have faked his way through the police and got let off with a warning. Yet, they caught me carrying drugs, and I’m suspended. I curse to myself then go upstairs to my room. I slam the door shut, feeling my anger vibrate throughout the room. I sit down at my desk and turn on my monitor. It’s 3:02. I bring up the page I minimized before and refresh it. A new message is in my inbox. I click it.
“You won’t believe the truth, but if you really want it I will give it to you,” the message reads. I won’t believe the truth? Ha I suppose Santa Clause came to her telling her all about me. I laugh to myself and then click reply.
“You better tell me the truth, now, b***h!” I type angrily. She doesn’t know me; she can’t know me. Nobody knows a single thing about me. Nobody. Not my mom, my dad, Kevin. She should just leave me alone. Telling me lies isn’t helping at all. It’s just making me angry. I refresh the page and bring up the new pm.
“God told me about you. He told me you needed my help and that you were going to kill yourself. He told me you were hanging by a rope and that’s why I sent you that message.” I sit there in my chair and read this over and over again. It doesn’t make any sense. God doesn’t exist. I begin to laugh extremely hard until tears are running down my face. Finally I get control of myself and click reply.
“And I guess Santa Clause told you I was being a very bad girl this year and that I should get coal for Christmas,” I reply to her still chuckling silently to myself. Almost instantly after, a reply appears in my inbox, and I click it.
“I would have been wanting to kill myself too if I saw my mom do it after my dad left.” How did she know about my mom? How did she know my dad left? My heart begins to race. Is this person stalking me? The whole God thing cannot be true. It’s almost as believable as the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy.
“Who the hell are you? Are you stalking me? Just leave me the hell alone!” I type as fast as I can, then I click send and exit out of the internet, turning my computer and monitor off. There will be no more of her nonsense tonight. I glance at the clock on my wall, 3:45. I crawl into bed and sleep.

I don’t really know how long I slept for, but when I woke up the birds were chirping and the sun was up, shining down on earth, warming it. I yawn then get out of bed. I run my brush through my hair and brush my teeth. Then I pull on a pair of sweats and a sports bra. I grab a sweatshirt and tie it around my waist. Then I head outside to take a run. It’s hard at my first. My lungs begin to burn and my legs are aching in pain, but I keep on running. I run for miles and miles, hours and hours. With every step I take, I begin to go slower and slower, until I’m jogging and then walking. I turn around and head back home, thinking about what Isabella said. I guess it could be possible. I mean, I heard stories about how God sent angels to earth to protect others. Still, why me? Why do I need to be protected? Nobody is hurting me, so what do I need to be protected from? Nothing and nobody. No one has ever put physical damage on my body, and I doubt anyone will ever.

By the time I got home it was dark and late. The sweatshirt that I wrapped around myself about halfway home is soaked in sweat. I strip from it and pull on a nightshirt. I pull off my pants and crawl into bed. Listening to my stomach growl, I fall into a soundless slumber.
Suffocating me, the rope tightens because of my weight. My face turns blue, and I can’t breathe. I hang there and wait and wait because I already know what the ending will be. The rope will snap, and I will be alive; I’ll be able to breathe again. One minute goes by. Then another minute flashes by, followed by another and another and another. It doesn’t break. Isabella doesn’t send me a message. I die.
White pureness surrounds my soul. It was lifted up past the clouds, up into the heavens. I met him, well my soul did—a handsome man by the name of Jesus Christ. He wore all white. Pink circles were embedded into the skin on his hands. Scars. He told me they were from the sacrifice he made. He knew he was going to die. He knew who was going to kill him, but he did not stop it. He died for us, for our sins. He is perfect, absolutely perfect, and he just hopes that one day we all will be perfect too.
He talked to me about my sins. He told me that swearing was a sin. He told me that stealing and doing drugs was a sin. He told me that judging others was a sin. He told me that selfishness was a sin. Disobeying and talking back to my parents are sins. He told me that I sinned millions of times in my lifetime but not to worry because everybody sinned. Then he told me about my suicide. He said that was also a sin, but it wasn’t a big enough sin to decide my whole destiny. He took all my sins and put them into a pile. The pile filled rooms, but then, with one hand, he picked all my sins up and crushed them into a ball the size of a marble. He said everybody’s sins were exactly the same size to him. He said he chose to be blind to the sins, so he cannot tell what they are, even though he does know what they are all. And then he said that if I believed in him all my sins would vanish because he is the way to heaven. Because I didn’t believe in him when I was on the earth, he didn’t let me through the golden gates. Instead I had to walk through the fiery gates, and I ended up in hell.

Gasping I sit up in bed. The red numbers of my alarm clock glow out 1:42. I lay back down trying not to think about what just happened. After all, it was just a dream. I just can’t help thinking, is God really real? Does he really exist? I slowly get out of bed and walk in the dark to my desk. I settle down in my chair and boot up my computer. I get logged in and open up the message from Isabella, totally ignoring what was written there. I gently place my fingers on home row.
With long strides of my fingers I type, “Is God really real?” I click send and sit back in my chair. “Please, Isabella, be on, please be on,” I whisper to myself. A few minutes later a message returns.
“Yes.” That’s all. One word is all I get out of her. I was expecting more like a paragraph, or even a page about him, but all I got was one word. I sigh loudly and click reply.
“Will you tell me about him?” I ask her. When I asked it in my mind to her, I wanted to know. Now, however, I’m not so sure if I want to find out the truth. I know nothing about God. Well I knew absolutely nothing about God until my dream. But a dream is just a dream, it doesn’t mean anything. What happened in my dream isn’t going to happen to me. I will not burn for eternity. I’m a good person and I wouldn’t deserve it. Nobody deserves it except maybe my dad and Steve, but that’s all. And yet, in my dream, hell was such a big place. It was huge, and there were trillions of people in there, except you couldn’t really tell that they were people. They were more like burning logs on a fire. No not logs, twigs. They were small compared to the flames. Huge, huge flames were drowning them all, swallowing them. They were screaming and yelling, and it seemed so painful. I couldn’t feel the pain, though, because God was standing by me, holding my hand as if he wanted to try to make the feeling in the pit of my stomach die down. I didn’t want through the gates to hell, but I had to. It was where I belonged. I belonged with the sinners, the non-believers.
I don’t know how long I was sitting there staring at the monitor screen before a message finally appeared. I clicked it and inside was what I thought was going to be there with my first question. There was a page, maybe even longer than a page, about God. My dream mainly summed up everything that was in the message. She talked about heaven and hell. Heaven was perfect and everyone who entered heaven became perfect. There was no sin, no hurt, no bad feelings. Hell on the other hand was horrible, worse than horrible. Everyone who entered wanted a second chance but few got one. They cried and yelled and screamed all day for weeks and years and decades and centuries. It was never quiet, there was always yelling, always someone screaming. People entered at a fast rate. It was crowded and hotter than hot could ever be. It was absolutely miserable.
After I was done reading her message and I sat there and cried. I cried and cried until tears would no longer come. Then I went to the bathroom and a shower and cried some more. I scrubbed and scrubbed. I washed my hair and my scalp so violently that it was burning. I tried to get hell out my mind. I tried and I tried but the image wouldn’t leave. It stuck to me like chewed gum does to a shoe, like glue sticks to pieces of paper together.
After I showered I took the bandage off my neck. It was no longer bleeding. I cleaned it, but I did not put the bandage back on. Instead I went back to bed. I slept for 5 minutes then woke up, and then I’d fall back asleep for another 5 minutes and so on. I did that for hours, and when I finally did wake up for the 50th time, I got out of bed and cried some more.
“Come on, Kristy. It was just a dream. Dreams don’t mean anything! Get a hold of yourself. Look at you! You’re so pathetic! Crying because of a lame dream! You deserved to die that night you tried. You wanted it and it didn’t happen. Look what happened to you now, you sick little twit. You’re a stupid child! Only children cry at nightmares. I mean, look at yourself, Kristy, you’re acting like a child,” I yell at myself in the mirror. Why me? Why does this all have to happen to me? This amazing God that Isabella explained really can’t be that amazing if he’s putting all this hatred in me. I hate it. I want it out.
Tonight I’ll do it again. I’ll kill myself again tonight but this time I’ll use pills. There’s got to be tons in the medicine cabinet. I will prove to myself that there is no heaven and hell and then I’ll go tell that Isabella chick that it doesn’t exist. She deserves that much. She deserves to know that what she believes in is fake. F. A. K. E. Fake!
“You’re fake, Kristy. You’ve always been fake. Your smile is fake, your laugh is fake, and your intelligence is fake. You are ugly. You are stupid. I HATE YOU, KRISTY!” I shout at the top of my lung at the mirror, at myself.
“Kristy?” A voice asks behind me. I turn my head away from the mirror, breathing heavily and crying loudly.
“Kevin…” I begin but then he cuts me off.
“Kris, what’s wrong.” He hesitates but then takes a step toward me. “Why were you yelling? Why are you saying all those horrible things about yourself?” I just stare at him, tears streaming down my face, air barely making it to my lungs. Then he notices my neck. The painfully colored ring from the hanging. Tears form in his eyes. He sits, leaning against the wall, crying.
“Kevin,” I gulp. “It’s not what you think.” He looks up at me then, his brown eyes sparkling with sadness.
“Oh really, did you try to kill yourself just like mom did.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement. He knew the truth and to lie to him would make me a bad guy too, so instead I walk over and sit down next to him. I take my brother in my arms. We sit like that and cry for the longest time. Eventually, he cries himself to sleep, and I carefully lay his head on the ground, using a towel as a pillow. I lean against the opposite wall and look at my 15 year old brother. His brown hair is messy and sticking up the places where his head was rested against my chest. His freckles are running over the tops of his cheeks. His shoulders and elbows are sticking out at odd angles. His spine is clearly visible beneath his shirt. I smile at my sleeping brother and kiss his cheek before getting up and walking back to my room. I open the internet back up and bring up Isabella’s message. I click reply.
“I’m going to hell, aren’t I?” I sit back in my chair and wait. The wait isn’t more for a few minutes long. A message comes back and before I read it, I brace myself for what I know is coming. I brace myself for the yes.