Final Chapter

Note: This is the letter that Sofía wrote to her mother the day she left.

It is a shame I could not be with you when it all happened, Mom. But I could not stop it. Was this my destiny? I am not sure. Did I really want to do that? Definitely. Why did I do that? ...

Perhaps the last question is the one that is hovering in your head right now, Mom. You must feel as lost as a child starting school for the first time. You need answers and who am I to deny you the entry to the nearest hell disguised as a paradise? Exactly: nobody. Just a small, insignificant lost soul.

I had never fit in with the others, to begin with. There was constantly a slight buzzing in my ears wherever I was, feeling like I was being watched from a distance. Weird, right?

It was slight discomfort, like a stone in my shoes, so I made the first mistake of my life: I completely ignored it. That stone began to get bigger and heavier with the passing of the months and the years. It was no longer just the feeling of someone watching me, it had passed the limits of my sanity. If before I simply had to control my agitated breathing after hearing that annoying buzzing, then now I had to deal with the constant words that hurt me to the fullest extent. They were voices. Voices screaming in my direction every damn day.

I still remember the first appearance of those voices. I was getting ready for school and gently and carefully comb each of my brown strands while looking with desire at the presents that I had not opened since my birthday. There were too many for a party where not many guests attended, but that did not prevent me from feeling the joy on the surface. I was about to take my new white headband and place it in my hair when I heard uproarious laughter. I was scared almost instantly and ran my gaze as fast as I could around the room.

―Maybe it's my sister trying to play a prank on me. ―I whispered, trying to calm myself from the sudden shock.

But the laugh was heard again. This time stronger than before. More real. I assumed it belonged to an elderly man, but I did not know how to explain why that laughter was heard inside my room. There was no one around, there was no reason to hear that laugh.

I started hyperventilating without realizing it. Dark thoughts began to hit my head so hard that it started to hurt like never before. I rubbed my temples with my fingers, the way I watched you do it when you had a problem, thinking that it might save me, but it was not. The stupid laughter would not stop. In the middle of the uproar in my room, that husky voice finally spoke. I wish it had never spoken. Otherwise, I would not be dead and you would not be reading the letter your daughter left you. However, this is not how my story continues.

―You look so horrible in that skirt, Sofia. Do you really think that dressed like this you will make new friends? The only thing they will think of you is that you look like a freak. ―It said and laughed again near me. ―Seriously, you are very lamentable.

For a moment, I forgot that there was someone else there who was making fun of me in my room and I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the dresser. Did I look that bad for the first day of school? That was when I made the second big mistake of my life: believing everything those voices told me.

They always had something to tell me. That I am going to go so badly at school that no one will come near me, that I would be the dumbest student in the whole class, that if I went with such a hairstyle everyone would make fun of me, that no one would love me to be their partner of the school dance, that my family would only take me into account when I had good grades, but if I did not, then they would hate me and disown me. Anyway, so many things that could occupy the whole paper talking about this, but this is not the point.

I believed that I could not be so unhappy having such a life and constantly living in fear of hearing all those voices hurting me, but I came to discover that I had erred again. The person I loved the most in life, that small but smiling girl who brightened my mornings every day, had to go forever. Emma's death was the trigger for the bomb that would explode in a few more years when I was completely alone in my apartment and could start my catastrophe.

That day at the funeral I felt as if my blood was slowly draining onto the grass and the flowers on top of the tombstone. As if with each sigh I was losing a little more life until I passed out in the cemetery. And as if that were not enough, I listened ―almost breaking my eardrums― the laughter of those disgusting voices. I hated them! A part of me believed that they had taken my sweet sister from me, leaving me completely alone in the world. She meant for me a refuge where I could support myself if I wanted to, where I could unload all my sadness and daily worry. Where I could feel free and loved.

When she left, life ceased to have a meaning for me. It was just work and work, as you get older and someone else replaces you in the process. No pinch of love, not even compassion, because people are as unpleasant as where they live. All full of garbage inside and out. All rotting.

Tired of the direction my life was taking, I decided to reconsider a little the situation that had been haunting me for as long as I could remember. I went to a bar near my apartment and ordered vodka. Sip after sip I could visualize the person responsible for all the chaos that lived with me every day.

The voices. The hideous voices.

But how could a mortal like me get rid of that hell? There was no cure for this. Even when my sister gave me her help during my adolescence, they consumed her and deprived me of what would have been my salvation if they had not murdered her in cold blood. Complete madness, but it was what I thought. From one moment to another, without even trying, I could understand it. And I smiled to myself about that crazy idea.

―If you can't fix the machine, then destroy it. ―I said more to myself than to the boy who was trying to flirt with me, remembering what a college professor had said years ago.

I left the bar and headed home. I had in mind what he had to do to find true freedom. This time nothing could stop me. This time they would find out who was in control of my life.

I am very sorry to have left in such an unexpected way, but all I ask is that you understand. I was not doing well at all these last few days. Life was a cage and I was the animal. How unfair, the truth. Never in my short life did I think I would write a letter like this to you, Mom. Do not suffer for us, because my sister and I will be waiting for you to return to being the beautiful family that we were before. There is always an opportunity, even for people who have completely lost hope.

―Sofia.