Cariña

You wake up in the morning and think, "why am I alive?" You contemplate on bed whether or not it is worth getting up. You don't get up. You don't get up at all, even though you know that there are a million reasons to get up. You pull your comforter over your head, hoping that the temporary feeling of warmth might alleviate some of the pain you've constantly been feeling. You want to die. You feel worthless. What's the point? You're a waste of space.

You stopped going to class in October after a mental breakdown no one saw, except for the strangers who were also waiting for the Bronx bound 6 train. However, it feels like an eternity ago; your sense of time is entirely warped. You spend most of your days sleeping, crying, reading. At least you can pick up books to read, the only form of joy you have left. You fool yourself thinking that it is a good sign when in reality reading is one of the ways you use to escape the real world. All you can think about is escaping the physical world.

It's another day. Another sunless morning in which you deeply regret waking up. You can't help it. The same way you can't help but feel stuck to the bed, as if there was a weight all over your body, preventing you from moving. You're trapped. You desperately want to get up. You feel short of breath. The weight is crushing your lungs. You look around in a panic. Then you hear the door open.

"What do you want for breakfast?"

You don't want breakfast, but you know that is not an option, so you slowly sit up in your bed. You turn your head and upper body towards the door. There she is, wearing her navy blue nightgown that stops just below her knees and exposes the pale skin of her shoulders and arms. The baby hairs near her forehead stand in every direction, creating a halo-like shape. Most of her hair, at least the ones that can be contained, are tied in a low ponytail. Her heavy eyelids barely keep her hazel brown eyes open, which are fixed on you as she waits for your answer.

"I'm okay with anything."

"Avena?"

"Sure," you say, giving her a weak smile.

"You want pasas in it?"

"Yeah."

On Saturdays, you go with her to work. You're not doing much of anything else, anyway. It's weird, but you spend most of the day with her, unable to open up. You desperately want to bury your face in the safety of her arms. She can tell you're in pain. She can tell something is wrong. She never believes you when you say, "I'm okay, just tired." You can feel the worry in her voice when she questions your answer. But you insist that you are fine. And you desperately want to believe your own lie.

Wake up, clean guinea pigs' cage, eat, read, cry, sleep, repeat. A few weeks go by and nothing changes except you've been slipping down into a darker and darker place. The frustration of your family becomes evident. They don't understand why you no longer go out to see friends. They question you about whether or not you dropped out of school. They insist that all you need is yoga and therapy.

"you're fine. Tu eres una nina alegre. You don't need to be hospitalized. They will just hook you on drugs and turn you into una zombie."

But they haven't seen the scar on your left wrist. They don't know about the knife you hid in your drawer for "just in case." They don't know about the bottle of pills you put under your bed just so you could find your way out the next time you felt like there was no hope. You kept fighting for them. But the more you fought yourself, the more you resented them. Why do you have to suffer for them? Don't they know how incredibly selfish they're being? Every minute of your very existence feels like agony, and yet they expect you to put on a brave face and "power through" because they would miss you if you were gone. But haven't they noticed, you ARE gone! You are only the hollow shell of your former self; you no longer read, you no longer write, you don't go out or talk to friends. Nothing seems to bring joy, the world has turned gray.

You love them, so you try your best to follow their advice. You try to find activities to distract yourself. You use the little energy you have to show them you can somewhat function. On Fridays, you go to organizing meetings. But, honestly, if it wasn't because of the comfort it brings you to see one of your best friends, you wouldn't bother. You try this for a couple of weeks. However, you run out of the energy that gives you the tiniest feeling of willingness to keep going.

After watching you struggle for what seemed like an eternity, she confronts you. It's a bitterly cold Saturday. You spent the day working outside with her. She comes into the room you share with your sister. She sits on your bed and tries small talk first.

"So, how are you feeling?" she says while stroking your hair.

"A little tired."

"Anything else going on?"

"Not really."

"Are you sure?"

Of course, she doesn't buy it. She isn't stupid, you are obviously going through something. You desperately want to tell her, but there's a knot in the back of your throat. It's as if your vocal cords have all tangled and intertwined between each other, like the headphones you accidentally left in your pockets for too long. You try to face her but can only maintain eye contact for a few seconds before you turn your upper body away.

"You know you can tell me anything," she says as she wraps her arms around you. She then rests her head on your left shoulder blade for a few seconds.

"Look at me."

You obey. Then she fixes her eyes on you, waiting for an answer. That's when you realized that your head hurts. You look around, trying to decide if this is real or not. The room is dark, except for the warm orange light coming from the lamp in the corner. The heater fills the room with a "shhh" noise and warm dry air that irritates your nostrils every winter.

"I'm not okay," you finally manage to say as streams of salty water run down your cheeks. Your shoulders round towards the floor; they're no longer capable of supporting the weight of your head. You can feel the knot in your throat tightening as you sob uncontrollably in front of her. She asked a few more questions, which you answer with the bare minimum of words between sobs. Entre llantos. However, everything is heavy and blurry. Your head can no longer tolerate the pain, and a voice inside you demands sleep. If you're not going to kill yourself, at least sleep. It tells you. So you try the best you can to conclude this utterly exhausting experience, just so you can disappear for at least the next eight to twelve hours.

The next morning you wake up late, as everyone does in your household on Sundays. You walk past the kitchen on your way to the bathroom and see her making breakfast.

"Buenos dias!" She smiles at you. "I made you Yuca." You then sit to have breakfast after using the bathroom. The Yuca is your favorite, and she knows that. All of a sudden, you feel a comforting warmth on your chest. You gather all the energy and strength you have to give her a smile.

"Gracias." You say to her. You hug her. You are still in pain. You still hurt so much on the inside. And She knows. She sees that. Maybe she is at a loss, because she doesn't know exactly what to do. She doesn't know that sometimes, what she says is hurtful. She doesn't know how much you appreciate her. You just sit there, eating your Yuca and eggs, thinking about how tired she is from working all week. You think about how the first thing she did was make you your favorite dish for breakfast. None of that takes the pain away. But you know that as long as you fight, you'll have someone to love you forever.