A Cry For Help

• Ashleigh Kennedy, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2014

You’re just being a teenager.

It’s the one line you get sick of very quickly. You get annoyed with stupid catchphrases or abbreviations like ‘lol’ and ‘omg’ but that stupid sentence is the excuse for everything from the age of 12 to 18.

Oh, you’re not fat, you’re just self-conscious. You’re just being a teenager.

You aren’t depressed, it’s just hormones. You’re just being a teenager.

People like you, you’re just being silly. You’re just being a teenager.

You’re not thinking about suicide, you’re just being dramatic. You’re just being a teenager.

Okay, so are you still just being a teenager when you’re standing on the edge of a roof with cars whizzing by beneath you?

Questions like that and more, all flying through Will’s brain as fast as the cars beneath him. He was maybe ten stories up, the roof of his apartment building. It had been used as multiple things through the years. A star-gazing spot, a patio, a movie room. Now it was abandoned, the railings around the edge rusted away, boxes of people’s abandoned items dumped around in hazardous piles. There were two ways up: the fire escape that snaked up the back of the building and a rusted, creaky ladder. The stairwell had originally let up, but that had been blocked off years ago. Now it was Will’s little safe place that everyone was too scared to come up to.

Apparently, Will wasn’t fat or depressed or a social outcast, he was just being a teenager.
Apparently, his body wasn’t a mess of self-inflicted scars and pain; he was just being a teenager.

Maybe, if all the adults around him stopped falling back on their go-to excuse, they would’ve noticed. They might’ve actually noticed that he was alone, scared and hurt. They might’ve noticed all of his friends had dropped him because Steven had started doing drugs. They might’ve noticed he was depressed.
They’d told him he was just bored, and they told him to take up a hobby. So Will took up painting.

He just didn’t mention that the brush was a knife, the paint was his emotion and his body was the canvas.

This little swipe of red, here? Yeah, that’s the anger.

This cut over here? That’s fear.

This burn? That’s depression.

And there’s years’ worth of more art, if you’d take the minute to have a look.
That was always what had amused him. Years of pain, hate, fear, sadness, loneliness, it could all be seen in a minute and diagnosed as “Just a Teenager”. He just wanted someone to notice him. Someone to hear him screaming for help he couldn’t find. No one would listen. No one ever did.

Maybe that’s what bought him here, to standing on the edge with the stone cold beneath his feet and his arms by his side. A need to get noticed. A need to be heard. Even if all they heard was a splat and all they saw was blood.

Anything.

Nothing was ever right when it came to Will. His name, his looks, his style, his way of speech. There was always something for someone to attack. Even his choice of friends. It wasn’t his fault that Steven had got busted getting high. It wasn’t his fault that TJ had committed suicide last year. It wasn’t his fault that Tom had decided to get drunk and drive his car off a bridge.
None of it was his fault, but it would always get pined on him.

Association could hurt.

Will looked up from the ground, the breeze cool on his bare arms. The city lights glittered like gems in the sea of darkness and music was playing loudly down the street. Cars honked a harmonious tune below and the birds nesting on window sills warbled mournfully. The sun was setting, casting brilliant rays of light and long, dancing shadows.

A beautiful painting that Will planned on ruining.

It was getting progressively colder, and Will would’ve regretted his singlet if he didn’t care. Now you could see all the scars, a gorgeous collection of cuts and blood traced up his arms with care. Years of painstaking hours with a knife, carving out the useless skin and revealing the bright red life beneath. The stains would never come out of the tiles and the scars would never fade. It was permanent, and Will loved it.

He held out his arms and closed his eyes, imaging blood-stained wings growing from between his scarred and burnt shoulder blades. Was it even possible for something beautiful to grow on something so gnarled and destroyed? Will’s toes curled around the edge and he opened his eyes, sending one final glance over the street.

He wouldn’t miss it. God, he wouldn’t even say goodbye. It wasn’t worth the breath. The only thing which had been worth breath was Josh, and even he had given up on Will.

He felt his breath catch in his throat. Josh.

Josh had been the one person who’d understood, the one person who knew what it was like. He’d worn his scars with pride and done the wrong things right, and he hadn’t cared that Will was a mess because he was just as bad. Will had let himself have a moment where he imagined what it would be like, to have a fairy tale life instead of a nightmare. He’d often joked with Josh about it, saying Josh could be his prince. And then Josh had asked if he was a frog, and Will had told him that he wasn’t even a frog, more like a toad. And then they’d made out for a while.

Josh had been his king with a broken crown and Will had been his prince, and they’d been set to run away until Josh broke Will’s legs and ran by himself.

Will’s chest tightened, random tears springing to his eyes. It had been beautiful, and then Josh had revealed his true intentions. He built Will up, a delicate doll made of lies, and then he’d smashed him and left him to pick up the pieces.

He wished Josh had actually loved him. He wished it wasn’t a cruel prank, reality dealing its final blow.

He wished a lot of things, but right now he wished he could fly.

Will closed his eyes and his bloody, beautiful wings grew.

Then he fell.