Five sentences. Five sentences was all she needed to write and yet she struggled so much with them. Tapping with her pen against her notebook, Angela sighed and clenched her jaw. Why was it so hard?

What would you say to a person who tried their best at some task, no matter the outcome of it?

You did your best. Good job?

Knowing these sentences will have to apply to herself with the exercise Dr. Hawthorne will give her, it was even harder. How was she supposed to say good job to herself when everything she did was either bad or maybe just average at best?

Angela had a job at a supermarket, a part time job so she could have enough money for her tiny apartment and some food. Just enought to get by. She didn't have a choice after her academy basically threw her out for not coming to classes.

They had every right to do that.

But her work exhausted her. She despised talking to the cashiers when she was at the store since it gave her so much anxiety, and now she was the cashier herself. Ironic, huh? Oh, how much she hated life. Having to greet each customer with a smile on her face, asking them how they are doing each time since her politeness was so badly engraved into her, it was hard to ignore it. Having to politely smile at the rude remarks her customers had about either being too slow, or that there are too many people for just one cash register or that they are in a hurry or even about the prices. It exhausted her. All of it. Constantly having to be polite towards people despite them giving her shit constantly.

Her schedule was all over the place. Despite it being a part time job, she worked all of the hours she could to get as much she could from a minimum paying job. She either had to get up at four in the morning and worked until two, started at two and worked until ten, or had a split shift meaning she worked a few hours in the morning and a few in the afternoon. Not one week was the same. No, not even one day was the same sometimes.

She was tired.

I don't seem to enjoy colors anymore. They are strange to me now. I used to have enough energy to go outside and take a walk, maybe watch the sunset. Now they seem useless to me, they don't have the same effect. At times when my head was full I could at least focous on the colors of the sky when the sun was going down. But now I can't do it anymore, I can't keep my mind quiet for long enough to enjoy it.

And with that she closed her notebook, writing down her stupid thoughts instead of what she should have written down. See? She was bad at everything.

Angela got up from her desk and sat down on her bed. She was off today since it was Sunday. Thank god for Sundays and closed stores, right? Otherwise she wouldn't be able to even stand up with all the hours she was working. Just as she was about to reach for her phone, it started ringing. Fuck, who now?

It was Kaitlyn. Her friend since she was a kid. They were even related in some way that her mom explained thousands of times to her, yet she still didn't understand.

Although Angela loved her with all her heart, the sight of her name popping up on her phone made her blood run cold. Why was she calling? Why didn't she leave her alone today? Angela didn't want to answer the phone, so she let it ring. And it rang, and rang. Kaitlyn wasn't the one to hang up after a few rings. So she insited. And Angela insisted on not answering, the thought of having to talk to someone and act like she was doing good tired her out.

So it continued to ring. Until it stopped.

Sighing, Angela felt a bit of weight go off her shoulder, though she felt very uneasy knowing she was dodging a call from a very good and dear friend. But she just wasn't in the right state for it.

"Sorry," Angela picked up her phone and deleted the missed call notification.

And so the time went on. Angela spent half of her day in bed, scrolling through feed of Instagram and Facebook, switching between the two each time she got bored of one. An endless cycle.

Then she reached a post of a famous piano player, Evgeny Kissin. He was a famous virtuoso whose thechnicality on the piano was truly impeccable. Angela adored him, though she heard he could sometimes be a handful. Everyone has their flaws, right? She watched him play a very difficult piece of Frederick Chopin. His fingers flew so quickly and firmly over the keys, his hands moving to the music and his body with them. He had complete control over every note, over every dynamic, over every measure and beat. He was perfect.

Why couldn't she reach that state? Why couldn't she practice for hours and hours like you are supposed to at academic level, work on her technicality and expression. Why couldn't she reach the state of knowing the piece so well, you could do it in the middle of the night with your eyes closed. She practiced and practiced her piano, and yet she couldn't get to where she wanted. She recorded herself, played it back for herself, listened, commented, took notes, tried to fix it and yet each time she recorded and listened again, it was worse than the last time.

Either she was falling out of tempo, she hit the wrong notes or it just didn't have any dynamics in it at all. She played like a robot sometimes and she absolutely hated it.

Why couldn't she be Kissin? Or Beethoven? Or Mozart? Or Prokofiev? She would kill to be them, or to at least learn from them. They were masters. And she was a mere beginner compared to all of them.

She hated herself for not being able to reach the level she wanted, to play the piece the way she wanted or to practice how she wanted. She hated the fact that she couldn't get in an academy to continue her studies because she fell out of practice so much it was hard to come back. She needed to take another year to preprare herself for school. She had to pass the entrance exams first though. And that was hell for her.

Angela kept replaying Kissin's video over and over, now staring at the ceiling of her apartment. Her head kept going over how perfectly he played and she couldn't even reach his ankles. Her mind kept playing tricks on her, telling her how untalented she was, how unworhy of music and time she was, how absolute garbage she was.

And she believed it.

Angela could feel herself tear up and her throat choking up. There was no way in hell she could reach at least a respectable enough level of piano. No way. Tears started rolling down the side of her face, wetting her brown long hair that was layed on the pillow. Her chest started hurting, or rather burning. It was as if someone put a giant rock on her chest and set it on fire. Then her hearing slowly focoused only on her body, hearing her heartbeat getting faster and louder, feeling it in her chest as well. Grabbing her shirt, she pulled it away from her as if it would be easier to breathe that way. Only it wasn't. She cried as the music of Kissin continued to play, filling up the space of silence between her weeps.

"I can't," Angela whispered as more tears rolled down her face. She turned on her side and crouched up, putting herself in a fetus position as she continued to cry. "I can't, I can't, I can't," she continued on as her burried her face in her pillow, gasping for air.

I could just suffocate myself.

One thought was all it took before Angela pressed her head in the pillow and hugged it with her arms. She pressed it against her face as much as she could as she continued to cry. It was harder to breathe. Way harder. Angela gasped yet her arms were still pressing against her face. She needed to do it. She needed to end it.

Why would she stay alive?

********

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