I couldn’t believe it; she’d actually tried to take her own life. Tried to end it all. She had felt so down and useless that she decided no one would miss her, and ended it.
But I did miss her. Like a piece of my soul had been ripped out. Although Aspen hadn’t succeeded at becoming just another body in the ground, I knew she would try it again.
Ashlyn caught my attention, her eyes lit like burning fire. She faced Aspen’s mother, her fists clenching. “She needed you!” Her voice was hard, like steel slicing through the air. “You really don’t get it, do you? She never showed you how she felt. She didn’t want you to know how much of a disappointment she was, how lifeless she felt.
“You never knew her. You might think you did, but you didn’t. And you weren’t there for her! You were always criticizing her, telling her what she was doing wrong, and she believed every. Single. Word. Do you get how cruel that is?
“Its not completely your fault, but don’t you dare sit here and tell me that you had no idea. You should’ve known, should’ve guessed. Why do you think she never ate, never took her jacket off? Wore thick bracelets, never changed in front of you, sat in the hot shower for hours on end? Its because she was lost, scared, and hurting herself! She was trying to make the pain go away! And you know what? She almost did.”
Her words were so true. I could see how hard they hit Aspen’s mother, for there were tears burning in her eyes. She didn’t know her daughter, and she knew it.