June 28, 2025
Unseen
Three times now she’d almost died, and no one had noticed. The first time was when she was eight. She was at swimming class with her family and half a dozen other kids she didn’t know but who had already taken the time to get acquainted by telling her how fat she looked in her new swimsuit. Her mom was in the pool at the shallow end, holding her toddler brother in the water, trying to get him to kick his legs and stop pulling the teacher’s hair while the teacher tried to ignore him and explain to the older kids different types of strokes. The girl didn’t care about different types of strokes; she hadn’t even managed to grasp any of the basics the other kids had seemed to pick up intuitively over the last few days. Her teacher’s frustration, mother’s disappointment, and sister’s superiority weighed heavily on her, but as the other kids reminded her, she didn’t have to worry about drowning anyway, fat floats. Her sister was surrounded by the other hateful brats who seemed, like everyone else, enthralled by her very presence.
She wandered away from the group without attracting any attention and drifted towards the deeper part of the pool. Not all the way at the end, where the diving boards and basketball hoops lined the edges and they weren’t allowed to go, but far enough from the others she didn’t feel judged by their stares (even when no one was looking at her). She felt the gentle slope under her foot as the depth increased ever so slightly. When her feet were flat on the bottom, the water reached just above her nose, and she busied herself bouncing up and down on one foot; under water, over water, under, over. Occasionally, she would hear her mother’s voice reprimanding her brother or the squeal of the other students, who were all playing with a large beach ball now, but they paid her no attention, and she returned the favor as much as she could. This is where she wanted to be, doing what she wanted to be doing. She didn’t want to play their stupid games anyway.
She went under the water to practice holding her breath. Because she was so “out of shape,” she wasn’t able to hold her breath long. That, and her general lack of athleticism, was, she was told, the reason swimming didn’t come as easy to her as it did the other kids. She took a big breath and knelt down under the water, walking stooped down with her head completely submerged. She didn’t notice the slope this time as she crossed into the six and then shortly after the ten-foot pool. Her lungs were burning, but she was feeling quite proud of how long she’d managed to stay underwater. She wasn’t floating, as they all said she wouldn’t be able to help but do, but still walking crouched down along the bottom. She hadn’t worked up the courage to open her eyes under the water, but nevertheless she was delighted with her progress. Her lungs could wait no longer for air though, so she stood up, expecting to feel the cool breeze on her face, but instead finding only more water. She knelt down quickly and pushed herself up, her head just managed to break the surface and she gasped for breath, but before she was able to utter a cry for help, she submerged again.
She tried to remember her swim lessons and kicked her little legs as much as she could, but she could never manage to get more than her head above the water. Even in her panicked state, she was afraid to call for help, as she knew she would get in trouble for being where she wasn’t supposed to and, more importantly, she knew the relentless mocking she would face from the other kids. But after a few more minutes of only having the most meager amount of air in her lungs, she lost even her shame, and began trying to attract the attention of the others. Over and over she pushed herself up, flailing her arms, trying to call for help, trying to breathe, only to once again be pulled under, as though the water itself was punishing her for going too far. When her head broke the surface she could hear the splashing of others, the laughter, the cries of excitement over their newest game clearly for a moment before the sounds were once again muffled by water filling her ears. At that moment, she knew she was going to die. And if dying wasn’t bad enough, it would be with the sound of laughter in her head. Because maybe they weren’t playing a game, maybe they saw her, desperately trying to swim, and were laughing once again at the fat girl. Yes, she was sure that was it. They were watching her, and they didn’t realize she wasn’t flailing about failing at swimming again, she was drowning. They were watching her die.
As she continued the seemingly endless pattern of pushing herself up and sinking back down, she inadvertently turned to the side and realized the ledge of the pool was only a few feet away. Maybe, just maybe…She took as big of a breath as she could manage and when her foot reached the bottom again, she pushed with all her might to the wall. She had done well, perhaps too well; her forehead violently hit the wall, but she didn’t even feel the pain; that would come later. All she felt was relief that she wasn’t going to die. She sank once again and pushed straight up, and before her head even broke the surface, her small hand found the ledge. Her fingers started to slip, but she quickly grabbed on with her other hand and managed to pull herself up. She laid on the edge of the pool for a moment, coughing at first and then just breathing, tears running down her face.
When her lungs finally felt full again, she stood and looked toward her mother. Surely her mother was coming to her, bringing the comfort and hugs she so desperately needed. But her mother was turned away, all her attention still on the girl’s younger brother. The other kids were still playing, now throwing things in the pool and diving under to retrieve them. No one was looking at her at all. She stood and walked along the edge of the pool beyond the shallow area where everyone was to the lounging chairs and sat down in one, using a towel to dry the tears that were still falling freely down her chubby cheeks. She had just managed to stop crying when her mom walked past her carrying her brother. “It’s time to go. You know, if you’d spend some time in the water instead of just sitting around, you might actually learn to swim.” She got up and followed her mother to the car, listening to her mother chastise her about not trying to make friends or participate in the swim classes she had paid a lot of money they couldn’t really afford for, and she stayed silent. No one even noticed the redness, welt, and eventual bruising on her forehead.
The second time, there was no one there to notice. Although, she’d probably been close to dying for a while before the night it almost happened. The girl was in high school now, and she finally had friends of her own. Sort of. She had people she ate lunch with, people who told her all about their problems. The girl quietly listened and said what she was expected to say in response. They complained a lot, and the girl thought their problems were mostly petty and annoying, but she never said that. She listened, she let them copy her homework; they kept her from being alone and nobody messed with them, and by extension her, so they had effectively removed the target from her back. It seemed a fair trade off to the girl. It didn’t stop people saying things about her, but no one dared approach her anymore, and that was good enough for her. Most days. Most days she was able to convince herself the snickers from the bleachers in the gym during P.E., the stares as she walked down the hall, and the laughter during the dance practices her mother forced her to attend weren’t related to her. Teenage girls were stupid; they giggled about anything and everything, all the time. Perhaps it was arrogant of her to assume so often it was related to her.
She thought things were actually going fairly well for her, for a time. She was on the honor roll and the teachers all seemed to like her. Quiet, respectful, hardworking they called her. Many said she should speak up more; she always knew the answers to the questions they asked but would never offer them unless called on directly. She didn’t like calling attention to herself, and in the moments when no one would answer a question and the teacher would call on her, for a split second she would hate the teacher for forcing her into the spotlight. After she took her ACT exams, the school counselor asked her to speak to her peers about how she was so successful on the test. To her, that was a ridiculous request. How could she even answer that? She hadn’t done anything to prepare for the test; she simply answered the questions, most of which were common sense. She was successful on the test because she wasn’t stupid. It’s not like anything she could say to her peers would make them less stupid. But the expected answer was yes, so of course that’s what she said, and she spouted off some bullshit about studying the ACT guides the teachers provided (she hadn’t read it, but she assumed they probably contained useful information), and told the other students there seemed to be many more algebra related math questions than trig or geometry, so they may want to prioritize studying that branch of math, but no one was listening anyway. They were whispering to each other, laughing in the back of the room. The girl reminded herself that it probably wasn’t about her, and the school counselor, satisfied, allowed the girl to slunk back to her seat and her silence.
The girl thought things were going about as well for her as they could, but a call from the school, who was apparently concerned about the girl’s self-esteem, changed everything. When the girl got home one day, her mom, who was never home until after dinner, was waiting for her. She told the girl that she wanted them to have a special day, just the two of them. At first the girl was apprehensive; alone time always came with lectures; what had she done? However, as the day went on, the girl began to let her guard down. Her mom was asking her questions, not in her normal interrogation fashion, but questions about what the girl liked, what her goals were, and seemed to be actually interested in hearing the girl’s answers. Rather than shooting down the girl's dreams as unrealistic or pointing out how the girl’s shortcomings would make accomplishing her goals difficult, and, as the girl was frequently reminded, she never tried hard enough when things were difficult, her mom told her she could do anything. The girl got her ears pierced and went to the beauty school, where, after a brief talk between her mother and the manager, a young man came over and pampered her. Her hair was washed, conditioned, and cut, and the whole time the girl was complimented on her beautiful thick hair, the unique color, told how much the cut made her shine, and so many other things she had never heard before. The girl and her mom went to dinner, alone, and the girl felt happy; not just the bored contentment she had come to accept as her life’s default but truly happy. She let herself forget, for a moment, that feelings like this were short lived and never real.
As they were finishing dinner, her mother asked the girl if it had been a good day, and the girl enthusiastically affirmed and thanked her mother again for the special day. “Good, because I don’t want to hear from the school again about your low self-esteem.” The whole way home, her mother proceeded to tell her how embarrassing the call from the school had been, how they had made her feel like a bad mother, how the girl had to try harder to be who she was supposed to be, and the girl knew none of it had been real. Everything about the day, the pampering, the bonding she had thought was happening, wasn’t for her; it was for her mother so she could convince herself that the school was wrong, and her daughter didn’t have self-esteem issues. Or, if the girl did, it certainly wasn’t her fault. The girl quit smiling, and silently listened to her mother tell her how expensive and inconvenient spending the day with her had been and resolved to try harder to be who she was supposed to be.
Over the next few weeks, the girl really tried to smile more and act the way she thought everyone wanted her to at school. When she got home, she did her chores, sat in front of the TV until after dinner, and then went to bed, often before her mother got home. Sometimes, while she was lying in bed at night, she could hear her mom talking to her siblings about how lazy she was, already in bed, and she’d close her eyes and try to force herself to fall asleep faster.
Despite her best efforts, the school called her mom again. The girl had been falling asleep in class, and her grades had started declining. The school was concerned that rather than improving, the girl’s problems were getting worse. That day, her mom didn’t even wait for her to get home; she was waiting for her in the parking lot at school and drove the girl straight to a counselor’s office, telling the girl she didn’t know what else to do if the girl wasn’t even going to try. When they met the counselor, the girl’s mom told him how the girl was so lazy, she went to bed early every day. She was so smart, but her grades were falling due to her laziness as well. She was obese and refused to exercise. She wasn’t taking care of herself. She had no friends. The girl’s mom listed every grievance she’d ever told the girl about, and many more the girl had never heard of, all while the counselor nodded understandingly about how hard the girl’s mom had it, trying to raise such a lazy, fat, unpleasant girl.
When her mother finished her diatribe, the counselor finally turned to the girl and asked her what she thought the problem was. The girl’s mom stared at her, and the girl knew she couldn’t tell the truth. She couldn’t tell that she wanted to be asleep to avoid everyone at home. She couldn’t tell that she didn’t exercise because of the jokes from her peers and the disdain from her family when she tried. She couldn’t tell him that she had quit trying to fix her hair and dress nicely because no matter what she did it wasn’t good enough or the right thing for someone. So, she told him the only part of the truth that she could. She was exhausted.
He promptly decided that meant the girl was depressed, and the session ended with the girl’s mom being handed a prescription, which, the girl was informed on the way to the pharmacy, was yet another unnecessary expense she was forcing on her mother who was already working multiple jobs just to make ends meet. If only the girl would try…
The girl took the pills and didn’t dare complain about the nausea or headaches the expensive pills were causing. She took the pills and hoped maybe these would make her into who she was supposed to be. She listened at the counseling sessions as her mother aired her grievances against the girl and tried to make changes where she could, but it was never enough, and her exhaustion grew. Like in her classes, the girl never spoke in the sessions unless she had to. On the rare occasion she was forced to say something about how she truly felt, she paid for it on the ride home as her mother either berated her for her feelings or shared how embarrassed she was that the girl made her appear to be a bad mother. Many times, the mother would say “I guess it doesn’t matter how much I try, I’m just a horrible mother and my kids hate me,” and the girl would find herself trying to comfort and reassure her mother that she was in fact a good mother, and everything truly was the girl’s own fault.
The exhaustion became so overpowering that the girl began going to bed as soon as she got home, skipping mealtimes and waking up to eat by herself in the middle of the night after everyone else had gone to sleep. While this did allow the girl some alone time, it also prompted a painful session with the counselor where the mother complained about the girl’s weight and her binge eating habits. Never being home at mealtimes, the girl’s mother didn’t know she was skipping most of her meals, only eating once a day, when she could be alone and have no one judging what she ate, how much she ate, or having to listen to more about how she was inadequate while eating.
The girl began spending entire weekends in bed, unable to muster up the energy to move, even when she heard her mother complaining about her laziness and selfishness. Her grades continued to decline, and the girl for once truly didn’t care what anyone else thought. Let them laugh at her. Let her teachers think she’s not trying. Let her mother think she’s lazy and worthless. She quit the fake smiling. When her teachers called on her to answer a question, her answer was always the same, “I don’t know.” Sometimes the girl would stay home from school; it wasn’t difficult, her mother left for work before the bus came and her siblings would leave her alone when the girl said she was too sick to go. She’d sleep all day while they were gone, and as soon as she felt somewhat rested, she’d hear their voices and exhaustion would overtake her once more.
One night she was lying in bed, and she heard her mother on the phone, talking about the girl. She really didn’t want to hear anything else about herself…after all she had heard in the counseling sessions what else could there be? But she couldn’t help overhearing her mom talk about how disgusting she was. Perhaps it was the girl’s excessive weight that made her smell so bad? The girl, who unnoticed by anyone else had gone down three pant sizes in the last few months, reflected on this. It didn’t hurt her this time; she didn’t really feel anything anymore beyond the exhaustion; instead, she pondered it as a curiosity. Why was she gross? It occurred to the girl that she could not remember when she had last bathed. She had thought about it many times, but the very idea of gathering clothes, going to the bathroom, running the water, lowering herself into the tub, and all that followed was simply exhausting to her. She decided she would take a bath that night, but later, after everyone was surely asleep, and the girl gave into her fatigue once again.
When she woke late that night, the girl gathered up clean clothing and quietly made her way to the bathroom. The trek down the hall was so draining that the girl almost abandoned her goal, but with much effort she finally was in the tub. She knew she should scrub herself, but couldn’t muster up the energy, so instead she laid back, letting the water wash over her. The tub was filled to the top and unless she made an effort to hold her head up, the water would cover her face. As she lay in the tub, her head floating on the surface of the water, the most intense weariness she had ever experienced overtook her, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep in the tub. Her body felt so heavy, but it was not uncomfortable at all. The girl felt as though she were sinking into a warm bed, made just for her. As the water began covering her face, the girl realized, without any concern at all, that she could drown in the bathtub. The thought comforted her as she drifted off to sleep.
Against her will the girl jerked upright in the tub, spewing out the water that had filled her lungs. As the coughing wracked her body, the girl’s mom pounded on the door, “What are you doing in there at this time of night making all that noise?” The girl pulled herself from the tub and dragged herself to the toilet as the intense coughing prompted a violent episode of vomiting. The sound of the girl’s sickness quieted her mother for a moment; when the girl had nothing left in her stomach or lungs her mother told her to make sure she cleaned up any mess she had made and retreated. The girl had never been so disappointed in waking up.
The next few years were a blur for the girl. The exhaustion continued, but luckily a few years later it wasn’t her mother’s problem anymore. The girl moved in with her friends from school, who didn’t really know her but at least accepted her. She worked a dead-end job, the kind of job most people despised, but the girl found comfort in serving the impatient and often hateful customers their burgers and fries. She was used to fake smiling and being courteous even when being treated horribly, making her uniquely qualified for working in fast-food. She had accepted this boring existence for her life, surrounded by people who didn’t know her and didn’t care to, and was content as one could be after coming to this realization.
She no longer took any of the pills she’d been prescribed through the years. Each new counselor had a new diagnosis and a new prescription for her. Paxil, Prozac, Lithium, Depression, Anxiety, Bi-polar. She was by no means an expert, but after her mother had fired her first counselor for being unable to fix the girl and a new counselor told her mother she probably was schizophrenic after one conversation that didn’t include anything about hearing or seeing things, which was what she understood schizophrenia to be, she flatly refused any further medications. When forced to see counselors, she began declining to speak at all, even when directly asked questions. It didn’t take long for her mother to give up on trying to force changes with medication and counseling. The girl’s mother accepted the girl would always be lazy, worthless, and uncaring. The girl accepted this assessment of herself and owned it.
The girl began joining her fake friends as they drank and experimented with drugs. While she’d been around this behavior for years, she had always chosen not to partake, worried that she would further disappoint her mother. Freeing herself from the responsibility of her mother’s feelings was liberating, and the girl started once more to feel alive, but she had never learned to live for herself. Having never developed plans for her life, she mimicked those around her, drinking to the point of oblivion each night, dancing and pretending to enjoy the party house lifestyle her roommates embraced. She lost her virginity in a drunken stupor with some guy who didn’t even know her name. As he held her close to his chest while he passed out afterwards, instead of focusing on how she had told him to stop and he hadn’t listened, she fixated on the feeling of being wrapped in someone’s arms. She never saw him again, but after a short time she began sleeping with anyone who showed the slightest interest in her, living for those moments when she could experience a short time when she didn’t feel ugly, unlovable, and utterly alone.
It was during this time that she met Alex. Unlike all the other guys, when she froze when Alex ran his hands over her body, he not only noticed, but stopped. He told her it was okay, that they could slow down. He held her and listened to her while she talked. First, she tried to keep the focus of the conversation on him, but he always asked her about herself. She only talked about trivial things in the beginning, but when he finally convinced her that he wasn’t going to leave her as she kept expecting him to, she was finally able to allow herself to open up and share with him pieces of herself. Small pieces at first, her insecurities about her looks, her sense that none of her friends really knew her, and eventually bigger pieces, like the fear that convinced her she would fail at everything, overwhelming her to the point that it became less painful to not try at all.
He urged her to find new dreams and pursue them, to plan a life, to go back to college, and eventually he asked her to join her life with his. The girl rarely spoke to her mother anymore but wanted to share this news with her. Her mother would surely be thrilled that the girl had grown up and was finally doing the things a responsible adult should do. The girl started the conversation small, telling her mother that she had enrolled in college.
“By the time she was your age, your sister had a master’s degree, so I don’t understand how you expect me to be excited that you are going to a community college. And since you pissed off high school, you’re going to end up drowning in debt for a degree you probably won’t even finish.” The girl ended the call quickly, not even telling her mother about her engagement. A short time later, Alex was moving out of state for work and the girl dropped everything to go with him. She didn’t want to leave school, and he told her that she could finish and join him later, but she worried that if he went alone, he would find someone else, and she would be alone again. Just the thought of that made her want to die, so she packed up her meager possessions and went with him.
Shortly after they arrived, before they’d even finished furnishing their small apartment, they were married at the local courthouse with two of his new co-workers for witnesses. She hadn’t ever wanted a big wedding, but she had hoped at least for a gown and a bit of ceremony. There was no telling how long it would’ve taken to save up for those extravagances though, and a part of the girl was still scared he would realize she wasn’t enough for him and leave her, so she settled for the cheap, courthouse marriage instead of a wedding. When she pledged to be with him as long as she lived, she meant it, and she truly believed, at least in that moment, that he did too.
She called her mother the next day, telling her about her move across the country and her marriage. “I knew you wouldn’t finish school, even at a community college,” her mother replied, and the girl hung up the phone, finally done with her birth family and fully devoted to her chosen one.
The first few months were great; the girl had hoped to enroll in a local college, but living in the city was expensive, so instead she worked waiting tables to contribute to the bills. It didn’t take long though until the fear returned. Alex began working longer and longer hours, and the girl could no longer convince herself that he was actually working. The first time she found actual evidence that he was cheating, condom wrappers in the floorboard of their shared car, the girl met another Alex, one who spoke in yells instead of sweet promises, insults instead of encouragements, and with his fists instead of embraces. Sitting on the bathroom floor that night, blood still dripping from her nose as he slept peacefully in the next room, the girl considered leaving, but couldn’t think where she could go. Her family wanted nothing to do with her, and if she even asked her mother she knew she’d hear about what a disappointment she was, unable to make a marriage last for even a year. She already felt inadequate; she couldn’t bear it to see the contempt once again in her mother’s eyes and hear the disdain in her mother’s voice. She would take a thousand beatings before she would go crawling back to her family to confess herself a failure.
By the third time she almost died, the girl wished for death. Fear was the only thing that kept her from ending things herself. Fear of what would come next if she took her own life. She didn’t really believe in a god; it was difficult enough to believe in an unseen higher power for normal people. For those whose lives were more pain and suffering than anything else the idea of a loving god was simply asinine. But she couldn’t deny how often in her life she had been wrong and couldn’t overcome the thought that maybe she was wrong about this as well. The only thing she could imagine that would be worse than the suffering she experienced every day of her life was burning for an eternity in hellfire. So, she stayed alive, barely, going through the motions until life was finally kind enough to kill her.
The constant exhaustion had returned, and the girl spent her evenings working, but she made no friends, knowing that she couldn’t trust any of them. Each night she returned to their shared home only after she was sure Alex would be asleep. She stayed awake and alert until just before Alex would wake for work, and then would pretend to be asleep on the couch as he dressed and readied himself for the day. Most days he would ignore her, but occasionally he would yell at her, or, if he was in a particularly bad mood, throw things at her, telling her how fat, lazy, and worthless she was. A few nights a month, he would wait up for her and speak nicely to her, and she would go to bed with him, hopeful that maybe this time the kind Alex would stay around a little longer and things could go back to the way they were. When she finally accepted that wasn’t going to happen, she tried saying no one night, enraging him. He dragged her into the bedroom and threw her down onto the bed. Her struggles seemed to excite him, and he ravaged her body until she screamed. He yelled at her that the neighbors would hear, then slammed her head into the wall and beat her until she was no longer screaming. He raped her body while her mind was far away, begging for death. When he was done, he pushed her off the bed, and she collapsed in a broken heap on the floor, blood escaping from battered body. She watched the blood pool around her head as she listened to the soft sounds of his snoring and waited contentedly for death to finally claim her.
When she first heard his voice in the morning, berating her for getting blood all over the rug, she silently wept with the realization that the peace of death had once again eluded her. He kicked her as he walked by and she curled up, attempting to protect her bruised ribs from further assault but in the process exposing a large part of her back which was apparently too enticing for him not to kick as well. After he left for his job, telling her to get off her lazy ass and clean up her mess before he slammed the door, she laid on the floor in her dried blood and watched the blue and purple bruises on her ribs join the others painted all over her body.
She considered calling off work, because she wasn’t sure she could handle carrying the heavy trays and being on her feet all evening, but she had nowhere to go except to stay where she was and wait for him to come home. Maybe when he came home, he would be sorry, and bring flowers and apologies and empty promises to never hurt her again, but the old Alex returning briefly after fights was happening less and less often, so she couldn’t count on it. So once again she dressed too warmly for the summer heat, covering the bruises with long sleeves, a turtleneck, and pants. She did her best at concealing the marks on her face, but makeup can only do so much and some of the darker spots remained no matter how much she painted her face.
With every step towards the bus stop, pain radiated down her back. With every breath she felt a sharp stab in her chest, and she tried to breathe shallowly to minimize the pain. By the time she’d reached the bus stop the sun had melted her carefully applied mask, and by the stares of the other passengers she knew all these strangers knew what had happened to her. They all must be thinking how stupid she is for staying with him. How pathetic. Pity filled some faces, and they would look away quickly when she raised her eyes to theirs but most were full of contempt and made no attempt to hide their judgmental glares.
The expressions were mirrored on the faces of her co-workers; one looked at her with slightly contemptuous sorrow but said nothing. The other woman she had spent the last year working with glared at the girl, sighed loudly each time the girl winced while she struggled to lift a tray, mumbled about how the girl was even more useless today than usual, and whispered to the first waitress and customers, pointing and laughing at the girl. The girl felt the tears building and the pain wracked her body, but her life had made her an expert at hiding her pain, emotional and physical, and she smiled at everyone, trying to pretend they were looking into her eyes and not at the bruises surrounding them.
As the girl neared the door to her home a neighbor stuck his head out from the adjacent apartment and yelled at her to keep things quiet today. He was tired of hearing all that bullshit from her. She apologized, and he went back into his apartment, muttering about having to live next door to white trash before slamming his door. She took a deep breath before preparing herself to open the door to her apartment, and just as she was about to turn the knob, she heard him moving inside, and knew she couldn’t face him, not today, when she couldn’t even breathe without pain. She backed away from the door and made her way to the elevator, deciding to visit the rooftop garden while she waited for him to fall asleep.
When she stepped out onto the roof a warm breeze welcomed her, and she made her way to the edge, staring at the bright city lights. She hated this city, these lights, which had stolen not just who she could have been but even the stars from her. The girl bent over at the edge of the roof, staring at cars rushing by below her, enjoying the feeling of the wind pushing against her back, making her feel as though she could lose her footing at any moment. The girl knew that no matter what was waiting for her, she couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t be this person despised by everyone, especially herself. As she finally decided on her course of action, a peace and sense of clarity filled the girl. Three times now she’d almost died, and no one had noticed. No one had cared enough to see. Just this once I want them all to see me she thinks as she takes a slow, peaceful step over the edge and into the abyss.