I jerked open the door to the rusty Chevy and threw my backpack in. I acknowledged an angry figure in the front seat, not bothering to remove my headphones. It was the same process every day; Stepfather would pick me up from the local community college late at night when his janitorial shift finished and disgrace me. I guess it was because Mother had died three months earlier from leukemia. The passing was bittersweet: she neglected me throughout my childhood and destroyed whatever love I had for her when she remarried to that trash, but her hospital bills had obliterated any savings which “we” had. Soon after, Stepfather lost his job as an accountant and his hair began falling out. On the bright side, he hadn’t been aesthetically pleasing anyways.

“Nobody is proud of you and nobody will ever be proud of you! Are you listening to me? You’re a useless pile of garbage! Why not just kill yourself instead of smoking pot? It would save me hell lotta’ the money you steal from me,” was a small portion of what I heard through the heavy metal.

I gazed at the door handle, mesmerized by its gleaming surface and perfection, thinking about the events from last night and the night before that. Each time I had either been high or drunk, waking up in the morning on the sidewalk. And for once, I agreed with Stepfather. If I wasn’t around, there would be fewer resources to consume, fewer bills to pay, and less suffering. Everyone would benefit. Perhaps the bane of my existence wasn’t meant to be. I looked back at the handle, out across the road, and sighed.
So this was it.
I pushed the door open and jumped as far as I could from the damned vehicle, landing on my stomach and wrenching my shoulder. Searing pain burned through my body as I felt some something rip in my arm; a passing Toyota with blazing headlights slammed into my side, sending me into a snow bank underneath the bridge. Seeing my bloodied and bruised arm made me sick, yet ironically, I didn’t feel much pain. For once I could appear as mangled on the outside as I was on the inside. And to be honest, I could care less about my predicament. I could care less about the sound of Stepfather slamming the breaks. I could care less about the fact that I had thrown away anything that I still had. I could care less about dying. For once I couldn’t hear anything. For once I couldn’t see anyone. And for the first time in years, I smiled.