Selfish

I’m sitting on a bench alone in a park. It’s 2:16 a.m. But I’m not truly alone. There is a girl, a young girl, no older then eleven. She’s crying. Her dark brown hair is covering her face as she weeps into her hands. Her skin is the color of a cloud. Pale. Very pale. I can make out her shoulders shaking from the tears that she is shedding. Maybe I should go over and ask her what’s wrong, try and help her. That wouldn’t be good for my image though. A grown man going over to a little girl at two in the morning at some random park. I should probably get going. I don’t like it when people are upset, I don’t like seeing their pain.

I stand up from the bench. The movement must have caught the attention of the girl, because when I glance back over she is looking right at me. She has deep hazel eyes that glisten in the little amount of light that the street lamp nearby provides. Her eyes are searching mine now. Eyes can tell someone so much about what a person is thinking. At this moment in time her eyes seem to be pleading to mine, begging for help. I can see in her eyes that she does not lead a good life, that she has been to hell and back multiple times. I should really help her. But I can’t let myself do that. It could hurt my image. I pull my black trench coat tighter around me as a gust of wind blows by, and I turn and walk away.

What I didn’t know in that moment was what exactly this girl had endured. Every night her father comes into her room, once his wife is asleep. She was under that tree at 2:16 in the morning because she couldn’t stand another night with her father’s hands on her. What I didn’t know that night was that the girl did not have much time left on this earth. For the next morning when I went down stairs and turned on the news, a picture of the girl was on the screen. Apparently her father had been furious that she had run away. He drank himself into a fit of rage and went out to find her. And when he found her he did the unthinkable. He took his own daughters life. I burst into tears in the living room of my apartment. I can’t help but think that that innocent little girl would still be alive if I hadn’t been so selfish. If I hadn’t only been concerned for how my life would have been effected if I had helped her. Selfish…Selfish. That’s all I am.

After one week of crying myself to sleep and slashing my wrists I can’t take the guilt anymore. The little old lady next door finds me hanging in my bedroom. Time of death 2:16 a.m.

Selfish.