[Buttons.]

That evening things took a turn for the worse. The overwhelming grief I felt for the life that I'd left behind was unbearable. Every thought I had seemed to have teamed together and turned against me so that I was never free for an instant of reminders of my failed attempt to cope at university, the distress I had caused those around me and how deep my sense of failure ran.

Carefully and quietly I felt for the slip of metal, cool against my fingers, feeling the razor sharp edge nestled in it's concealment. I glanced around me. No one was there. Breathing sharp and shalllow breaths I took myself to one of the locked bathrooms, slightly out of the way, slightly less likely to be noticed, hoping against hope that someone would have forgotten to lock the door.

As I arrived at the door another patient was just leaving, and my roommate was also waiting to use the bathroom. I managed to fob her off to a degree and persuaded her to go in first, so that once she left there would be no one outside the door waiting for me to reemerge.

I waiting second after achingly slow second, until my room mate left. I slipped into the bathroom and quietly shut and locked the door. Gathered my wits about me I covered the floor around me with paper towels-hopefully although still messy, slightly less of a pain for whoever cleaned up after me if I managed to succeed in tempting death.

Taking some slow, steadying breaths, I sliced down until bead after bead of blood ran ruby red down my wrists, until the streams became rivers. Still, I had not reached my main goal of finding a vein or artery and letting life slip away, despite the fact that I was still losing a fair amount of blood, making my brain foggy.

I pressed the tool down, the thin blue lines that ran on the inside of my wrist seeming to be a road map to my final destination. Pressing the blade down, I began to carve deeper, and deeper. Then I heard a voice from outside the door. 'Katy are you in there?' I remained silent. Despite being an 15 minute observations I had actually been left alone closer to half an hour and hoped that if I simply didn't answer that she would leave me be. No such luck.

'Katy can you open the door please?'
'Just give me a minute,' I called, trying desperately to stay calm. I fought hard to figure out a way out of the situation, if only to clear up and try another time but the blood loss and stress had taken it's toll and each time I tried to rise I collapsed back onto the floor. 'Katy, I'm sorry but I need to see you every fifteen minutes, and you've been in that bathroom a long time. I'm going to have to unlock the door.'

I shook my head, trying to clear it, but only caused myself another wave of dizziness and disorientation. Hearing the click of the lock I closed my eyes, leaning my head back against the cool bathroom wall, wishing myself far, far away…