A/N

Trigger warning, it is not bluntly stated but a character commits suicide. It isn't very bad, but don't read it if that kind of thing bothers you.

And although while I spoke to her the resolve on her face was clear, she had made her decision, my heart still sank through that dark, hate filled, bottomless pit that it tends to travel to in evil times when I heard her open her cabin door.

I knew she didn't want to hurt me, didn't want me to see. Yet, I wonder if she wasn't quite quiet enough with the door on purpose. If part of her wanted me to drag her back to her cabin. A small part.

I watched in horror from a crack in my window as she ran through the trees in nothing but a flowing nightgown, her long curly hair flying behind her in the night. The wind whispered in her ears, telling her that she was wanted and cared for and loved. But it was to no avail as she was sure. As sure as the darkness around her.

And when I couldn't see her anymore, I listened. I heard the padding of her bare feet on the dried leaves as they slowly receded. Something stopped me from going after her, from finding her and holding her tightly, from telling her time and time again that we loved her and needed her. That I needed her more than anyone. But that would be selfish, wouldn't it? Because that was what she wanted, wasn't it? To escape the world we all are in? Or was it because I was worried, terrified actually, that if I went after her it would be too late, that I would see I what I had been dreading for years: the broken splintered body of someone I loved.

When the footsteps finally stopped, I held my breath, wondering if I would hear something else. I stood looking out that window for more than an hour hoping, pleading, that she wasn't really gone. That she would burst through the trees and say she changed her mind.

But she didn't, of course.

Because our world makes us do crazy things, it makes us doubt ourselves, give way to guilt and shame and hatred. It makes us think the only resolution, the only escape is to end it, all of it.

And that needs to change.