I imagine that this sort of hallucination is the type I should be expected, now that my brain has started to die. So I shrug my shoulders and go along for the ride. “No…what’s fun?”

“Dying,” says the six-inch tall horned critter. “And you know what’s not fun?”

“What?”

“Screwing up like you just did.”

The imp turns around and shakes its naked ass at me, mocking me for something I don’t quite understand yet. I figure out what’s going on quickly enough, though, because the hallucination ends. I come to in the hospital at a very inopportune time. There’s a plastic tube crammed down my throat. If my eyes weren’t watering so badly because of me gagging, I’d be able to look into the clear plastic tubing and see the toxic contents of my digestive tract getting vacuumed out of my stomach.

The worst part of it all is when I look at the nurse next to my bed. She looks at me, frowns, and, for some reason I will never find out, says, “Oops.”

***

From a completely childish and selfish point of view, there are a few nice things about an unsuccessful suicide attempt. For one, it’s a good attention grabber. It makes you the center of everyone’s universe for a little while as they try to figure out how things have gone so tragically wrong. It’s sort of like when you were a kid and you had the flu, so everyone tripped over themselves to fluff your pillow and warm you up some nice chicken soup. Only this time, you’re an adult, and everyone’s even more careful around you. If they’re even a little mean, you might snap again, and it would all be their fault. I guess that’s why pills are a favorite among women who want to stage an attention-grabbing suicide attempt. Most pills will mess you up, but nine times out of ten you’ll live if someone who cares calls the paramedics. There’s just enough room for doubt, so no one can accuse you of trying to get attention instead of actually looking to kill yourself.

I know this one girl who was an expert at fake suicide attempts. She would cut just deep enough to bleed like a stuck pig, but never enough to go into shock and die. She had the exact combination of booze and pills memorized, so she could always come out alive. You’d walk into her living room and see her twitching on the floor with foam at her mouth, and you’d be like, “What? Again?” But you’d still call 911, because you didn’t want this to be the time she actually died.

Then one day Suicide Girl went and jumped off a bridge. You can’t fake that one. Especially not when the police pull your fish-eaten carcass out of the river two days later.

Suicide attempts are not all happy attention-getters with get well cards and flowers and tearful hugs and kisses. That’s especially true when you actually want to kill yourself, and when all this attention is the last thing you need. I had a sharpened jackknife in the living room next to the computer, but I figured Lil would get suspicious if I picked it up and left the room with it. If I had been smart, I would have left the apartment and gone looking for a bridge to hop off of like Suicide Girl did. But instead I went with pills – the most emasculating method possible.

I learn later that there are three reasons I’m not dead. First, rather than just down the pills, I took them with water. I did this because I didn’t want to end up choking on handfuls of antidepressants and passing out in a pool of vomit. As it turns out, the water helped clean out my system and flush some of toxins through. The second problem was the fact that in my rush to down any pill I came across, I also swallowed a handful of vitamin C tablet. I always figured my parents were just trying to get me to eat my fruits and veggies when they told me vitamins would help save my life.

The big reason I’m not dead, though, is Lil. She found me on the floor and called 911 for me. Part of me wants to say, “Aw, she does care.” The other part of me wants to hit her. Not because her intervention ended up saving my life, but because she called my parents right after they loaded me into the ambulance.

I spend the wee hours of the morning with that damned plastic tube shoved down my throat and with Nurse Oops watching over me. The tube sucks out all the undigested pills in my stomach, keeping my innards from rupturing and killing me after all. In a way, it’s comforting to know that if even one of a handful of different circumstances had gone against me, then I’d be dead. I always told myself that when I finally worked up the nerve to kill myself, I’d do it right. Turns out I missed that goal by a small margin, but it’s good to know I came close, anyway.

After my stomach’s been scraped out, my parents come in with Lil. My mom, predictably, is in tears. My dad doesn’t say anything. He just squeezes my arm gently while my mom gushes over me. I look into the old man’s face and see something totally unfamiliar. I expected him to be pissed off, but he’s wearing a different expression. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was scared. But my dad never gets scared, not even when the drunken redneck next door unloaded his shotgun into the side of our house. I can feel his pulse through his hand, though, and it seems quicker than usual.

I only look at Lil once. It’s not a grateful expression, either. My gaze is poison, worse than anything she’s seen before. I’d rather have her run off to New Zealand with her online boy toy than call my parents at a time like this. Right then, I’m convinced that she’s finally done the one thing I will never forgive her for.

I am not the guy who tries to kill himself. The reason I wanted to make sure I did it right was because I didn’t want to have to face anyone afterwards. I’m the guy who got straight As through most of school. I was in all sorts of honor societies. In my junior year, I decided I wanted to write for a living, and I got my first three stories published in national magazines within a year. When my brothers got detention or failed a test, I was the one that my parents pointed to when they said, “Why can’t you be more like Chris?” And even with the wrecking ball of insanity rolling around in my brain for the past few months, I’ve still been the person for others to look up to. I could have anything, and I decided that all I needed was a good home and a woman who loved me. How can you get more romantic than that?

Of course, now that my parents are here, my dreams of being the special yet ordinary genius are shattered. Because now everyone knows. Everyone who matters in my life is watching as my secret is revealed. I’m not smart, and I’m not special. I’m just a guy who was really good at hiding who I was. Deep down, I’m just as messed up as everyone else. Maybe even more so.

I spend a night in the hospital on suicide watch. They want to make sure I don’t go and try something like that again. Secretly, I’m making notes on what I need to change so I don’t screw up next time. Deep down, though, I know I won’t be trying this again. After all, what if I fail again? It was bad enough going through this once; do I want to face everyone again on a second go round?

The day after I get out of the hospital, my mom insists that I stay at her house for the night. No one mentions anything; my suicide attempt is an invisible cloud that hangs over the living room while we’re all busy whistling in tune to The Andy Griffith Show. My brothers seem to be extra nice to me. Inside, I’m sure they’re sneering at me, because the chosen son has finally fallen.

After one hellish night sleeping in my old bed, I get to finally go home to Lil. Despite my harsh glare before, I’ve decided I’m going to forgive her. Because love can conquer everything, even her stupid mistakes that were compounded by my own stupid mistakes. And also because I owe her. No matter what happens from here on out, I have to love her. I’m required to. I literally owe her my life.

Our apartment is one-bedroom place in the basement. It hasn’t been cleaned once since we’ve been living there. Spilled ash trays color the carpet, and mold creeps along the windows. The landlord has already warned us that we’ll get flooding in the springtime. When that happens, we’ll put the bed on a few crates and mount our TV on an inflatable rubber raft. It will be a hell of an adventure.

I expect Lil to be sleeping when I get in, because that’s what she does during the days. It’s sleep in the morning, and chatting online at night. Once, she actually had a job, but when she hit 300 pounds she found she couldn’t stand for more than an hour without spraining her ankles. She’s not asleep when I come home, though. She’s cooked a meal for me – cabbage and hash. After the meal, she shows me a special present. She turns around the computer to where the modem used to be. She’s taken a screwdriver to the back of it, scarring the modem and permanently preventing this system from every being able to log online. She says we need to spend some personal time together. And any anger I had left in me disappears. She didn’t just save me out of guilt. She really does care about me.

Unfortunately, there’s one more thing that needs to be resolved. In between my 72-hour work weeks, I have to start visiting a psychologist – doctor’s orders. If I don’t, my other option is to have my parents sign me over to a mental care facility until they’re convinced I’m all better. It shouldn’t be this way, since I’m 18 years old and all, but I waived my status as a responsible adult capable of making my own decisions when I went and tried to kill myself. So I have to play ball, whether I want to or not.

The first time I walk into the shrink’s office, I nearly run away in terror. Not because of what it means for me to be visiting a psychologist, but because of the interior decorating scheme. The son of a bitch has mauve wallpaper. Mauve. That’s not even a real color; it’s something someone invented after they barfed up too much Pepto Bismol and grape soda. If this man is going to make the willing choice to paint his walls mauve, then how can he possibly be certified to declare anyone else sane or insane?

Once I get over the wallpaper, he sits me down and asks me a few preliminary questions. Tell me about your parents. What do you think of when you’re alone? Eventually, he works his way around to my education and my living situation.

Why aren’t you applying to colleges?

Because I don’t need college. I don’t need yet another piece of paper to tell me that I’m smart and capable.

He nods, and writes this down. Just like that motherfucker in the army. Then he asks what should be an easy one. He asks me about Lil. Specifically, he asks me why I’m living with her.

And I can’t come up with an answer.