I run and I run until I can’t run anymore. I run until I burst into tears and until my heart is about to burst through my chest. I run away. I run away from everything. Whether it’s from fear, anger, guilt or sadness. Running is my escape. But no matter how hard, long or fast I run it all catches me somehow. I wish I had a different life. My parents are divorced and my mom is never home. My dad is an alcoholic and is never sober enough to have even a short conversation with. My life seems endless and running in my escape. Yet even in my escape everything still catches up to me and it seems like I run forever but in reality it’s only for a short while. I run away from my problems in hopes that I loose them, in hopes that someday everything will be different and ok. I have contemplated suicide but decided that running away from my problems in enough for now. Maybe someday my parents will get back together and my mom will be home again and maybe, just maybe, my dad won’t use the bottle to escape from his problems. Maybe my life will someday be somewhat normal and I won’t have to be on my own so much. I run because I don’t want to face reality. Face my family, friends, if I had any. And most of all myself. Everyday is just me going through the motions not actually living, but going through everyday life feeling like I have no purpose, like I’m just here to take up space. But one day something that finally pushed me over the edge. I had enough. Enough of coming home to my drunk dad throwing up or passed out on the couch with an empty 24-pack lying on the floor. Or just waiting for my mom but knowing she won’t come. I had the worst day ever. All the kids at school, even ones I had never seen before started to harass me. Everyone at school knew about my situation at home and only the teachers tried to be somewhat sympathetic. But deep down inside I knew they didn’t mean it. None of them knew what I was going through or what I had already gone through. No one cares about me. No one ever has and no one ever will. I didn’t know how to love someone and no one could ever love me. But that day at school seemed like it would never end. It all started that morning with me skipping my first period because I had to take my dad to the emergency room in the middle of the night because he had been throwing up for hours and couldn’t stop. So when I walked into my second period all eyes were on me as I trudged back to my seat in the back of the class. As soon as I sat down the teacher said “Erica where on earth have you been?” My reply was “I had something better to do than waste my time in school.” She had nothing to say to that and just turned to the class and said “Ok class we have to start to read…” And that was all I heard before I zoned out and pulled out my iPod. As the bell rang for class to get out and as I gathered my stuff everyone starts to stare at me and make little comments under their breath like “She was probably out getting stoned,” or “why can’t she just go die. No one would miss her.” I these kinds of remarks are made daily and I try to blow them off and just keep walking. But on this particular day I snapped back “If no one wants me here I’ll just leave and I won’t come back… ever.” I ran out of the classroom and I dropped all of my stuff in the hallway and I just started running. I ran out of the school and just kept going. I didn’t know where I was trying to go but it didn’t matter, I just had to get away from everyone. I finally stopped running and broke down in tears and gasping for breath. In my mind I was thinking “they are all right you know.” “Nobody wants me on this planet and no one would miss me if I did die.” I started to run again but this time I knew where I was going and had every intention to get there as soon as I could. I was running home to get some supplies for something I knew had to be done. Once I got home I gathered up everything I needed in a bag and started towards the old abandoned warehouse on 56th street. I knew no one would be there and that was a place that I could be by my self. When I got there I opened the bag and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and my iPod and I just started to drink. I drank the whole bottle and I could still feel the pain so I pulled out another bottle and began to drink again. When I was half way through the second bottle I saw the silhouette of a person walking in the building. I barley muttered out who’s there and I heard the reply “Someone like you that just had to get away from everything.” It was a boy and he sat down with me and I offered him the bottle which he took and finished off quickly. I pulled out another bottle and we both started to drink together. We were total strangers yet without even talking we understood each other. We understood that no one wanted us here and no one would miss us if we left. After we finished the third and last bottle we were both completely drunk and I leaned over to the boy, the boy whose name I didn’t even bother to find out and I said to him “If we die here together it will be a perfect ending to a really messed up life.” All he does is look at me and says “It sure will be.” I reach into the bag and pull out a rope and I tell the boy to tie it to one of the support beams in the warehouse and he does without question. I pull out a piece of paper and a pen and write down in big cursive letters “Goodbye, Erica.” I pin it to my shirt and walk over to the rope hanging in the middle of room. I tie it around my neck while standing on an old wood box and I look at the boy and I say “Thank you for everything you did,” “But it’s time for me to go now.” He nods and says he understands. That was all I needed to hear, that someone understood how I felt and was willing to help me put and end to my pathetic life. I look down to the ground from the box and I close my eyes and have a flashback of the one happy moment in my memories. I see my parents and me outside at a park with my dad pushing me on the swing and my mom laughing and saying “Oh Erica how did you manage to get dirty?” But when I open my eyes it’s all gone, all of the happiness, joy, and laughter. I reclose my eyes and jump off the box and in a moment everything is gone. My life has been ended and I finally escaped from all my problems, not by running away but by committing suicide. Being there in the empty warehouse drunk and with some boy I had never seen before was the perfect ending to a really jacked up life.