Meant to Live

I look around the room as I sit in my chair. It's a light green chair, with white stripes. It’s pretty nice, actually. Too bad that I'm going to get it so messy. I look down in my hands and shiver as I see the object they contain. It's a gun. Colt 45. Pretty sweet piece of metal. Belongs to my dad. He doesn't think that we know where it is, but we found it. My little brother, Brett and I found it one day when we were looking for our Christmas presents. It was just a week before Christmas, and we were combing the house. When we got to my dad's office, I started looking through his desk drawers. Normally the bottom one is locked, but my dad had accidentally left it unlocked that day. When I saw the gun, I didn't realize how destructive it was. I had seen my toy guns and guns in the movies, but never a real one up close. Brett and I looked at it, but weren't very interested. We put it back in the drawer and kept looking for our presents. We never did find them.

That’s one of my good memories with my brother. We had had fun, working as a team. It was in February of the next year that things got bad. The doctors told my parents that Brett was bipolar, so mom and dad were always giving him more attention than me. I’ve sort of always resented him for that, even though I know it’s not his fault. One of the most prominent memories in my mind right now is from April of the same year that they found out Brett was bipolar. I didn’t really understand everything what was going on then, just that my brother was special. I don’t think my parents fully understood it then either.

I had just gotten a history test back, on the prime ministers of Canada, and I had gotten perfect on it. This was in grade 4, 10 years old. Brett was 8. The test was pretty easy, but back then it was a big deal for me. I practically flew off the school bus, up the driveway and into the house. Brett was already home because he went to a special school that let out earlier than mine. As soon as I opened the door I could tell that something was wrong, but I didn’t care. I was too proud of my mark. Brett was running around the living room, pretending that he was an airplane like he frequently did. He was in one of his manic moods.

“Mom, guess what,” I told her excitedly. Mom looked up for a second from cleaning a plant that had just been knocked over. When she looked up at me, she suddenly looked disappointed, as if she had been expecting someone else.

“Hi Mark.” She said annoyed. “Brett, get down from there, no don’t step on the coffee table.” I could tell this was a bad day, for both of them.

“Mom,” I whined. She didn’t even look up this time. “Mom look.” I turned around to get my test out of my bag and when I turned back around, she was gone. She was in the kitchen, trying to make sure Brett didn’t touch anything sharp. I marched in there after.

“Mrs. Suiter said it’s the best mark in the class,” I told her triumphantly as I shoved the paper under her nose. She pushed it away without even looking at it.

“Mark please, can’t you see I'm busy?” She pleaded with me.

“But this is important.” I was really starting to get upset.

“Mark, just go upstairs and don’t come down until I call you.” I fled the room before I started to cry. When I got to my room, I ripped the test up and threw it in the garbage. I cried upstairs in my room, and when my mom called me down for dinner, she didn’t even ask what I had been trying to show her earlier. She never did find out my mark.

The phone ringing brings me out of my trance. I let it ring. After 6 rings, the answering machine picks it up.

“Hey Mark, it’s Becca. I was wondering if we were still on for tomorrow night, because I need to know when to be there. Call me later. Love you bye.” Hearing her voice almost makes me cry. Becca’s my girlfriend. I love her so much. Her letter is the longest.

I look over all of the letters that I’ve written. I want to make sure that I havn’t forgot anyone. I unfold Becca’s. It starts out apologizing to her. I know she'll feel bad, like it's her fault because she should have suspected something. But how could she, how could anyone. I never talk to anyone. I have this problem opening up to people. I just can't do it.

I remember her giggle; the first time I heard it. She's the cutest thing I ever saw. So beautiful. No, gorgeous. I remember the time that I felt closest to her. It was dance night at my school. We had been going out for about a month, so we went together. Around half way through, we got really hot so decided to go outside for a while. We sat down against the wall outside, a bit away from everyone. I looked up at the stars, they were pretty clear that night.

‘Mark, there’s something I haven’t told you?', Becca said nervously.

‘What?’ I said shakily. I was really scared. What could it be that she was nervous to tell me?

“My mom has cancer.” There was a silence for a few seconds. I was so shocked I forgot to breath. When I got my voice back, I said:

“What??”


“Yup, she lung cancer. Sorry I never told you before, but I'm just tired of people’s sympathy, I'm tired of people saying they're sorry. It's no one's fault but hers. She’s been smoking for 25 years, what did she expect?” She sounded sort of spaced out, like she was not all there.
“I'm so sorry Becca.” Good job, idiot. That was exactly what she said she was tired of people saying. But it was all I could think to say. Along with not being able to tell people things, I can't think of the best things to say at bad times.

“Funny thing is, I haven't really been scared till tonight. The doctors always said that since they caught it so early on, she would probably live. But when I got home from school today, mom was there. She said that the doctors had just gotten their results from their last batch of tests. They revealed that she probably wouldn't live another year, and there wasn't anything they could do about it, the cancer had spread too much.” Then she started to cry. She just leaned on my shoulder and cried.

“Shh, shh, it’s ok. Don’t cry,” I just kept repeating that over and over again and rubbing her arm. Remembering that, I almost started to cry. Becca isn’t only my girlfriend, she’s my best friend, my other half. I tell her everything. Well, almost everything. I didn’t tell her I was going to do this, because she’d try to stop me.

I put all of the letter back. I had to stop stalling. I know I want to do this, I'm so sure. I’ve never been surer in my life. This is a pretty good day, actually. I haven’t doubted myself. I have good days and bad days. Just last week was probably one of my worst days.

I hadn’t seen Becca all day, which was weird. We may not go to the same school, but I usually talk to her at lunch for a second, just to hear her voice. When I got home, I had gone straight to my room. I picked up the phone and dialed her number. No answer. I turned in my computer, but all of the icons looked like gibberish to me. I wasn’t concentrating. I sat down on my bed; it creaked under my weight. I started going over things in my head that could be wrong. Maybe, on Becca’s way to school a bus hit her and her body was so mangled that they couldn’t identify her. Or maybe when she was in English she realized that she didn’t like me anymore so was trying to ignore me. Or maybe she’d been kidnapped, and she couldn’t…

“Stop it!” I couldn’t actually tell if I’d said that out loud or not, but I didn’t care. I did this all the time. My mind just kept going and going, and I couldn’t turn it off. I was do depressed that night that I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t read, do my work, eat, sleep. I just kept thinking about her and wondering why she hadn’t called me. That was probably the night that I decided for sure that I was going to do this. I’d been thinking about it for a long time, but wasn’t sure until that night. That’s when I’d started writing the letters. There were a lot of them.

I look at my mom’s letter. It’s simple, but I hope it helps. It goes: Mom, don’t hate yourself or think that you should have stopped me. Only know that you didn’t understand me, so you couldn’t have possibly known. I’ve always wished that she would help me. I’ve never actually told her that I’m drowning, but I wish she could tell, like mother’s intuition. But how could she? She barely even knows I'm there. All she knows is that I'm the kid that doesn’t cause her problems, so she doesn’t pay any attention to me. I think she’ll be care, but be angry with herself for not noticing. I really don’t want her to be sad thought. If I had really wanted her help, I would have asked for it. I just don’t want her to cry. I put her letter back and look at the gun,

Ok, this is it, I thought to myself. I whispered I love you to Becca. I checked one more time that he gun was loaded. It was shiny, I ran my hand down the handle. I place the gun in my mouth. I felt a single tear run down my chee. I pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. I let my breath out and screamed. That was the scariest moment of my life, it had taken so much balls, and nothing had happed. I had just pulled the trigger of a gun that was in my mouth, and I was still alive. I just started to laugh, I was still alive. I just sat there and laughed and cried, astounded that I was still alive. I looked at the gun. It’s pretty old, and hasn’t been used or cleaned to a long time, years. No wonder it didn’t work. I could have tried to clean it or get it to work. But I didn’t want to. I dropped it on the floor. I then realized something very important. This was my second chance. It was god, or whoever telling me that I was meant to live. If I could have a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger, and still be here, I was obviously meant to live. I got and picked up the gun off the floor. I put my dad’s gun back in his drawer, and shredded all the letters I’d written. Then I picked up the phone and dialled Becca’s number.