Rules of 3

3 attempts, from 13 to 16, with three bottles.

The first time I tasted death, I was 13, and had a supply of antidepressants to my name that I couldnt pronounce. All I knew was they were meant to fill the darkness in my head, but they weren't doing it fast enough. I read online the quickest way to go was with pills. So, I let them fill my belly until I was uncomfortably full and fell asleep to some tinny suicide playlist on YouTube.

But I woke up, sick, but alive, to the sight of my childhood tree billowing beautifully through cut beams of a clear day outside my window.

The second time, I took an entire bottle of extra strength Tylenol, bereaved for my innocence so cruelly taken. The cherry-sugar coating stained my tongue for days, and all my mother could see when I came into her room in tears was red on my lips and a tremor to my body. I begged her to take me to the hospital, because I was stricken by fear. I shook, and shook, until I was placed into the scratchy cot and knew I was safe.

I had never felt so afraid before. I didn't want to leave my brothers without their baby sister, or my mother- clutching my hand with her jaw working to still the tears- alone.

The third and last time, I was at school. I laid on the bench in the change room, my head lolling, I think maybe seizing since I couldn't still my violently jolting body. I don't remember anything, beside my best friends bursting in with matching haunted looks tattooed on their faces. I don't recollect ever telling them I was in there, nor would they have any reason to be in the desolate gym wing when there weren't any classes near. The only thing I ever said, was that the perfectly nice nurse was a fucking bitch as she forced the drip IV of activated charcoal down my nose and doctors came rushing into the ER. But I survived that too.

I shouldn't have survived any of those. Maybe the first, it hadn't been enough of a dosage. The second time I didn't allow the pills time to work. The third time, I was ready. I took the whole bottle, and planned it so no one would find me. But I was found. I survived that one too.

That isn't luck. That can't be.