Heroines always have tragic deaths. Although I’m no heroine, mine will be no different. I walk onto the soccer field several blocks away from my house late one summer evening. As I’m a middle-class, neighborly teenage girl, nobody will be concerned. If I was in a group, they’d think I was doing drugs. Thankfully, nobody will stop me tonight. They won’t notice, until the aftermath. I stop walking for a minute, remembering all of the memories that I’ve shared in this place, and the ones that brought me here. My friends never liked me, but when I was younger I thought they did. Several years ago, I found out I was wrong. Depression truly sucks, I’ve found out. I kicked at the grass. Should I do it here? No, it would become too gory, and what if the little kids in Blackhawks found me here? That wouldn’t go over so well, plus, I’m sure they’d have nightmares. God knows I did.

I walk over to the playground. This was where I had played tetherball and stayed up too late and broken my arm. This is loaded with memories of friends who no longer cared, who didn’t want to be there for me. It couldn’t happen here. I imagine the newspaper headlines, “Teen found dead on playground, caused by exam stress.” Ah, tests, the scapegoat of everything horrible that happens. I’m mad? Oh, I’m stressed from exams. I’m depressed? Oh, it must have been those exams, or that ACT I took a while back. It’s so convenient to simply label everything so you don’t have to think. Of course, I’d then feel bad for the kids who came here tomorrow morning to play, and found a dead girl. I need to do this, I tell myself, and this was the only place. I brush my hair back and glance around the empty playground. I have all of the time in the world. All of the time on this dark Friday night, anyway. It's a ghost town here, the bright plastic slides half-illuminated by fading streetlamps. The grass seems to whisper of the children who weren’t here. I shiver, and grip my pocket.

I walk over to the swings, where I’d jumped so many times, laughing and being carefree. I push one back, and it makes a creaking sound. I close my eyes for a moment, not wanting to see the vacant hollows in the ground. Ah, the irony was unmistakable. Here I was, trying to die by my own hand, and I was scared of an empty playground? I get scared easily sometimes. I look down. Whoever decided that wood chips were a good thing to install beneath a swing set? I have a fierce longing to get hurt by the wood chips, but also to escape their pain. Yes, I could die here. I grip my pocket, the one that has a knife. I lay down, and spread my hair out among the wood chips. They dig into my back, but I don’t care. Nobody will remember me, after all. Nobody will care. I take the knife out, its chrome surface glinting in the faint light among the shadows. You can do it. You can do this, at least.

I hold the blade over my heart. I shut my eyes tightly. I don’t want to see this. I feel its sharp tip on my skin. I press down, and it hurts more than I thought. I keep going. If I’m going to do this, I should follow through. I winced and bit my lip. It’s just like a tampon, I tell myself. Except tampons are used to stop the flow of blood and my knife is being used to assist it, the logical part of my brain tells me. I’ll be better off, and so will everyone else. I bite my lip before a moan escapes my throat. I’ve always been afraid of many things, whether it was going fast on my bike or making new friends. I hate that about myself. I push the knife in harder, and my lip starts to bleed. I was a coward many times before, but not now. Now, at least, I am a heroine. I push the knife into my skin harder once more. In this respect, I will be fearless.