There was a year of my life in which I wanted nothing more than for it to end. It was the year after I

graduated with my MFA in creative writing, when I followed my then-partner to a small town for their

job & struggled to find my own. Thus the drive thru. I spent 8 hour days standing in the back window,

concrete seeping up from the floor & into my feet so I could barely walk when I got off—usually I

would crawl, or walk so lopsidedly that it was something like an overexaggerated limp. To pass

downtime we were supposed to clean, but I hated it so much that I'd usually download books & read

or stand & stare out of the drive thru window & think about the riverbank that was behind the trees.

Usually I’d think about going there after work, taking off my stinking socks & uncomfortable shoes &

putting my miserable feet in the cold water until they adjusted to the temperature. At which point, I'd

begin to think about drowning myself. But I knew I'd have struggled with that, because it wasn’t very

deep & the current wasn’t fast enough to carry me out. You see, as much as I wanted to die, I did not

want to have a hand in it. I hoped desperately for a semi to lose control & take my life any time I drove

on a highway, or that I'd gain a burst of courage & throw my car over the side of a mountain. The

thought of opening up my skin for the sunshine to find its way in sounded poetic enough, but the

violence in it intimidated me. I refused to buy a gun, to even think too long about that option, despite

the quickness it promised. I felt as if there was enough mess in me, in the lives of the people I loved, to

go around making any more. I often very seriously considered taking a bottle of sleeping pills & lying

on the bed of that river beneath a blanket for someone else to find, but that, too, left the body for

someone else to take care of. I was already a burden—financially, to my then-partner, who paid most of

the way the entire time we lived on our own; emotionally, to anyone in my life unfortunate enough to

receive one of my many drunken rants about my misery; visually, to anyone I felt looking at me during

that time; & really any other way I could think of in which my interactions with other people were

asking too much of them. I did not want to leave anything to anyone to have to suffer more once I

wasn't there to prop up my bones & smile. This was all existence had come to mean for me; pretend,

perform, go home & drink, do it again. But there was, once & only once, a moment with a random

man in my window. I’d not been sent on my 30 minute break until i was 6.5 hours into my 8 hour

shift, so by the time I came back I had only 1 hour to go, just 60 minutes until I could pour vodka

down my throat & chin & become sloppy—I had a duty to continue sending my drunken misery

rants—to become inconsolable & simultaneously more & less pitiful. He was gruff, with dark hair & a

full beard & hands that looked like they worked hard. His truck was loud & had a lift on it, & he

looked down at me from his place in the driver’s seat. I do not remember what he’d ordered, or how

much it cost, but I remember the way he looked at me. Like we were in on some secret I couldn’t

remember & it was very important that I did. He held out a folded hand with a folded bill after he’d

paid for his meal, & because I took so many bills & cards over & over again in that window, I thought

he’d been paying for another order. I try to be a Godly man, he said, not smiling & not scowling, but

serious. I work for what I have but when the Lord tells me to give, I try to listen. He passed me the money,

& I looked at it & felt confused. I don't know what you need in your life, but I feel like God wants you to

have that. He'd handed me what I thought was a $20 bill, but realized after looking twice was actually

$100. I had friends & family that would be devastated, months down the line when I eventually

reconnected with them & told them about how much I didn't want to live, then, but who, in that

moment, were unaware of how ugly the state of my mind had become. I did not answer them when

they called or texted, & I did not reach out my hand for help no matter how badly the bones in my

fingers hurt. But there sat a stranger with rough, dirty knuckles seeing that hurt, looking at all of my

loneliness & desperation, anyway. I don’t know what God I believe in, if any, but I believe in the

existence of something other than myself, & in that moment it was sitting right there in that driver’s

seat, staring at me through eyes that seemed older than what the man’s face looked. It was not a saving,

not like the Sunday in 2nd grade when I’d repeated the words a preacher told me & my father said that

all the angels were singing. There were no harps—there was no music at all—but a quiet hum that

began to sound in the back of my mostly empty head. A vibration of my own living that echoed itself

throughout my body at this man’s kindness; the way he somehow bore witness to my pain, despite

how hard I worked to hide it. I remember that I thanked him & spent the rest of that last hour trying

not to cry. I did not go to the river that day with the thoughts in my head of never leaving. I did not

leave that town or relationship, either, until several months later, but on the day that I did—the day I

packed all my belongings into a trailer & left with my family to finally go home & learn how to breathe

again—I remembered the way it felt to be seen.

Jessica Bell (she/her) is an emerging writer based in Southwest Virginia. Her work can be found in The Journal, Nightshade Lit, Londemere Lit, Midsummer Magazine, Anti Heroin Chic, and more. She enjoys writing about the inherited grief of women and reading fantasy novels.

Author's Notes: This poem represents a lot for me—a horrible year of my life; an unhealthy relationship with myself and alcohol; a job that made these things worse—but I wanted all of that to be juxtaposed by a moment in which I felt something that was not overtly negative for the first time in a long time. I don’t know if that man (a friend of mine and I call him “Ernest”) regularly hands out $100 bills in drive thrus or if he really did notice something about my physical appearance that day. But the act of a stranger giving me grace, of noticing or maybe just guessing, that I was in pain was incredibly validating. That time in my life made me feel like I was no longer in touch with reality and that no one around me could see it, or if they did, they didn’t care. I no longer question if the people around me care about my mental health, but I’m grateful to Ernest for taking a moment to express kindness when he perceived that I needed it. To me, breaking the stigma looks just like that.