I’m Still Trying to Stay

(First person) (Rambling) (Adapted)

A ten-person dorm room. Fifth floor, Room 507, top bunk by the door.

Under the bed board, someone had written: I don’t want to stay here.

The person who wrote it left a long time ago.

Now I’m here.

In ninth grade, I thought of all kinds of ways to die. The quickest was to jump.

But a girl said, “When you finish your exams, I’ll wait for you.”

I finished them.

She didn’t wait.

For the next two years, I shut myself in my room until I became severely depressed.

A friend messaged me: Still alive?

I replied: Yeah.

They didn’t know that typing that one word had taken all the strength I had.

This book is for the person who pulled me back from the window.

And it’s for everyone still trying to stay.