How to Die

My life may as well be Hell. My parents do nothing but sit and wallow in their own misery, I have no siblings, and my only friend killed herself last summer. Her name was Alice Pendragon. Her hair was dyed a fiery red with aquamarine streaks. She slit her wrists the day before I was going to propose to her. Alice was my only anchor to the world.

I'm seventeen and my hair is purple with black and red streaks. I keep it sort of long and hide my eyes behind my bangs. My eyes are an almost white kind of blue. My left eyebrow is pierced with a fiery red tear to represent Alice. My nose has a silver stud and my lip has one black loop.

Today I'm wearing black skinny jeans and a plain white T-shirt. My hightops are neon green. I head out the door and when I walk out Simone, my mother, yells, "No kid of mine is going to have a metal face!" I give her the bird and keep walking. Charles, my father, gave up on me years ago. When I get to school, Hell High, the usual happens. I get checked out by girls, flip them off, go to class, get busted for being high, and Mr. Lowdern, the principal, calls Charles. Charles makes up an excuse for me not to come home, and I go back to class just in time for lunch.

Nobody bothers me when I sit down alone. I eat quietly, examining the many scars on my wrists. I've always wondered what suicide was like. When you kill yourself, do you go straight to Hell? Or can you choose? Personally, I want to go to Hell. In Heaven they take away your humanity. Sin is a part of us. I know people say that god wants you to do a ton of crap, but god can go screw himself. He isn't real, anyway. If he was, why would I get screwed over so badly? I never did anything until my life sucked, which started when I was eight.

I ditch the rest of the day and go to the spot where Alice and i would hang out. I pull out my knife and draw a pattern on my arms. I studied anatomy, so I know where the main arteries are. I decide right there, as her face becomes etched in red on my skin, that I want to die. I use my knife and cut all the way down my main artery. Not side ways like wusses do. The ones who only want attention. I go long ways. As I'm laying in grass, looking up at my last day, I sing Alice's favorite song. Lucy, by Skillet. By the end, I'm crying and whispering her name. I don't know if this is just the blood loss, but I swear I heard her sing with me.

I looked over and there she was. Her perfect body now only slightly scarred by two, long, pink lines down her arms. She laid down next to me and said the only two words that ever mattered to me. "I do." She leaned over me and gave me a long, sweet, kiss. She stood up and then dove into a hole.

I fell asleep and when I woke up I was in the same spot, only all the flowers were wilted, the grass had died, and I was in a black suit. A little boy in white sneakers, black jeans, and a grey T, walked up to me and said, "I'm terribly sorry, but you are dead." I laughed and said, "I'm not sad, or mad, or even a little upset!" The boy looked puzzled for a sliver of a second. Then he got it and nodded once. "So, what is this place?" I asked. "Well, since you weren't eighteen when you committed suicide, you are considered an innocent," said the boy.

"Well, I choose Hell," I tell him. He nods and then clicks a pen and jots something down. I see a staircase appear and I walk down it. Alice greets me at the bottom and we walk through Hell together. We were greeted by tons of people. I finally felt at home. For a tiny moment I wondered what the look on Simone's face would be when she found out I was dead. I laughed and Alice laughed with me. Her laugh made me happy. Screw heaven, I love my sinful life!