"You're not alone!"
Because there is an Allie in every corner of the world
“You're not alone!”
I stare at the words on my laptop screen, the title so bold it covers it whole. The colorful letters send something unfamiliar inside my chest, something light vibrating through my body and sending a minor jolt to my cold heart. It's a real feeling nonetheless. The first I had in years. My eyes burn, but it has nothing to do with the screen.
This is my third bottle of wine. An excessive number to anyone else, a habit to me. It’s almost funny that wine became like my daily dose of water, rarely affecting me. As though even alcohol is despising my company.
I take one last sip and throw the bottle across the room, sending it crashing against the wall. The sound disturbing the deep hush in my apartment and sending echoes through the walls.
As for me? Unshaken.
If someone comes to my home, they’ll say it super calm. They’d see it as a tranquil refuge, bearing a serene soul within, and they’d often relate it to peace , they'd say I'm composed too. People think silence means peace, they don’t know how loud it gets when no one is listening. They don't know that this is the kind of calm before the storm, not the one that settles after it passes.
I used to believe that nothing is louder than sadness when it announced itself. Frantic sobs in bathrooms. Crashing of furniture. Breaking down in public places. Hiding bloodshot eyes behind glasses. Ugly cries to pillows. Empty stares at the surrounding walls.
Yet since the moment my sorrow changed its form into something more quiet, it became way more alarming and heavier in my chest —and shadows bluntly swallowed me under the blazing sun— hence it became lighter to the world.
And as long as you don't bother the world, the world doesn't bother to see you. It simply pretends that you don't exist.
My current situation is louder than anything I've been through, it pushes me into blocking my ears and curling myself to sleep despite the lack of my screams.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and scroll down under the title to check the rest of the page.
More small titles and more phone numbers:
“Your life matters!”
“Call us! Available 24/7 for you!”
“We're here for you! Don’t dare hesitate to press the button!”
“Only a call away!”
I chuckle at the words. God I’m so pathetic, laughing at the home page of a crisis-help organization while those people are trying so hard to stick back the pieces of our splintered hearts.
My eyes land on a number of an assistant called Marry next to her picture —a sweet, old woman with brown hair— and before I can think of it, the phone is in my ear.
The endless questions: what to say, how to explain the harshness of daylight on me, how to justify the endless tears that come with no warning, how to describe the loneliness when I’m far from being alone, die in my throat when the call is answered by the second beep.
“Thank you for calling the suicide and crisis lifeline. My name is Marry, I'm here to listen. What's your name, my dear?”
The counselor starts talking immediately, her tone calm and warm like a magical cure to my broken, hoarse voice.
My vision clouds in an instant, and the screen blurs in front of me.
I close my eyes and take a very deep breath.
This is it; the time for words to trip over themselves before they reach my mouth.
“Hello? you still there?” she asks again.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me what's your name, please?”
“Al-,” I clear my throat and swallow the burn in my throat. “Allie.”
I could feel her smile behind the phone, thinking that making me talk is a triumph.
“How are you feeling, Allie? Can you tell me what's on your mind, sweetie? It doesn't matter how insignificant it is. Just talk.”
Here we are again, faced with the question I hate most, or rather the question that has the power to shatter me and drown me in a wave of wordlessness. I hastily wipe the wetness of my face as if it’s going to help. I take a minute to steady my quivering tone and calm the storm in my mind in order to form a word out, but again, all I could make out is a bitter scoff.
There are no words, and yet not enough at the same time.
“Are you thinking about hurting yourself right now, Allie?”
I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling, feeling a rush in my head. “The world around me already took care of it.”
“Sweetie, can you tell me where you are? in case we get disconnected.”
her voice is slightly more worried than at the beginning of the call, I genuinely smile to myself and fall silent.
It must be good to have someone caring around you, asking about you, loving you unconditionally, and accepting the fractured version of you.
She begins. “You don’t have to have the right words. The pain is real but it doesn’t define you, doesn’t define the rest of your life, it isn’t permanent even if it feels endless.” She continues, her voice steady yet urgent. “And you are allowed to have a future you can’t imagine yet and you don’t have to be hopeful right now, you can use me, let me hold hope for you. Believe me humans heal in ways they don’t expect. You can call me every day.”
Humans also break in ways beyond repair. The future at this point will be just another dose of poison to a dying body in despair, and I was tired of explaining why living hurts.
This call gave me the answer.
Hearing such a comforting speech is something I longed for. It didn't matter if it was from a stranger who’s going to forget me after the call ends. It didn’t matter that these carefully chosen words are only used as a glue to repair people like me, or that these counselors speak beyond their knowledge. All that matters is that I’m able to feel a caress of fresh air across my skin before my feet slip from the cliff, and I've come to realize that this was what I needed after all.
Maybe in another life, I'd feel the breeze sooner. Maybe in another life, I'd be kissed by the sun and hugged by its light.
Maybe in another life, I'd live.
Because I want to. I really want to.
“Thank you, Marry. Thank you for this significant moment and for giving me a chance to be heard. Thank you for wanting to be here for me, even if it's too late.”
I don’t care if I didn’t talk, I'm sure she heard me loud and clear.
I end the call, cut off her next words and place the phone next to my laptop and near the empty pillbox.
The last words my eyes lie upon before they close and the laptop screen disappears from my vision are the same words I had seen first.
But now they’re just an unreal, absurd lie rather than an anchor, and this very title marks the ending phrase to my book of life.
“You're not alone!”
