Jen Ashley

© Erin Wright 2012

She's been sat at the computer at home for about six hours, and has refreshed the news page about six times in the last minute. She keeps clicking back to her forums.

She looks at the ceiling, sighs, kicks back on her chair and stands up. Somewhere in the flat, a phone is ringing. She tells it to fuck off and goes to the kitchen instead. It goes silent as she makes coffee; she doesn't really care that the clock says it's the middle of the night, no one cares if she wakes up in the morning or not anyway.

The thought drifts through her mind. She has to get out of here. It's late. She could just walk, but she's on the edge of a rubbish part of town and it's not safe. There's no public transport. She doesn't drive, and even if she did, she doesn't know where she'd go.

The phone starts ringing again. She wishes she'd just left the thing off. She hangs it up and switches it off, then tosses it onto a pile of things piled up on a desk.

Even if they did have anything to say to change her mind, she's always come back to this. Not that they really know that they keep stopping her. So not this time. This time the phone is off.

This isn't the way things are supposed to go, her thoughts reminds her. She looks in the mirror, and sees a tired and exhausted woman in the reflection. She wonders where the enthusiastic and hopeful one went. She was more fun. No, it wasn't supposed to go this way at all, she tells her thoughts. She swears again as the woman in the mirror starts to cry. She needs to stop that. She already looks distressed enough.

The flat is a mess. She'd tidy it but it doesn't matter. As long as there's room on the bed to sleep, it doesn't matter how cluttered the living room is or how high the washing up is piled in the kitchen.

She goes to her bedroom. She puts the coffee down on the table. She takes off her trousers. She remembers this routine well. Open the drawer, take it out, close the drawer. No one will ever know. She puts on the TV and starts a film. She's not going to pay it any attention, but it makes the process go more smoothly.

She doesn't feel it to begin with, but eventually it starts to hurt. She worries that she's running out of space to keep doing it.

She knows what she wants to do. It won't be messy, or at least it won't leave her looking a mess. Her bed will probably be ruined but she doesn't care.

She lines it up and wonders if this is the time she actually does it. She's shaking slightly. She asks herself if she's scared, but she already knows the answer. Of course she is. She lays down on the bed properly and takes a deep breath before sitting up.

She lines it up again, takes a deep breath then exhales in a sigh.

She feels it this time, and laughs. She laughs until she can't laugh any more. Then she laughs in her thoughts until her thoughts stop. She feels cold and she knows what's happening now.

She feels it happen, and she doesn't get to react to it or do anything about it.

It's over.