Sheziss loves Zeshak

“He’s like you. Broken, but fixable.”


I knew that, only basing on the cover and the title, the book wouldn’t be for the faint of the heart. But the question was: would it be just about the topic or due to the ability of the author to make our hearts wrench? Because it’s one thing using a delicate theme and another thing altogether to manage to make something from it. The subject can be tough but if the form is not convincing, it’s just an empty shell for me.



I have a future in which I’ll look death at the face more than it’s comfortable to tell. Sometimes I’ll see happy endings, sometimes I won’t. Sometimes it will affect me, sometimes it will be routine. Yeah, it sounds bad: routine. But people are born and put to sleep forever since the beginning of times. And like so, death has been a mystery and a fear since the beginning of times.




If she is in a better place, why are the rest of us trying so hard to stay where we are?


But Death is unfair with the people She chooses. Death is so sure of its victory that gives us an entire life of advantage. Even it that life is prematurely short. Like Adam’s. Like Casper’s. Like Vince’s.

RoxWell has parents who don’t care.
Casper has parents who care too much.
NowhereMan has no parents at all.


It’s funny the reading of this book coincided with a case of a patient I didn’t give much thought about till then. This summer, during my holidays, I’ve been following some interns around the hospital for a month and once we were called to Psychiatry because of an oncologic patient who managed to grab a pair of scissors and stab himself between the ribs. Luckily, there was some spare room for the heart, so it ended as a minor wound, nothing comparing to his current disease. There is some doubt about it being a suicide attempt or not. On one hand, he was a doctor, so he knew exactly the space he had for the tip of the scissors to not to touch the heart, and he himself recognized afterwards doing it just to attract attention from the people surrounding him. But on the other part, he has been taking psych medication for a long time, and all this could be due to a confusional state, and his speeches sometimes make sense, sometimes not. In spite of everything, his family keeps saying he really wanted to kill himself.



We sit on the balcony, hip to hip, being sad together.


In any case, after being explored by the doctors, I got to be alone with him and asked him if he let me touch his abdomen, where the mass was easily palpable. He said immediately: “Of course, it’s a honor. I had been a student too.” At that time I didn’t give much thought to those words, and I very doubt it was his intention for me to do that, but while reading this book I remembered him and it struck me like a cold shower he could have said something more and it would have felt natural: “I was once in your shoes. Someday, you could very possibily be in mine.”

“Keep fighting.
You have the rest of your lives to fix what’s broken.
And the “rest of your live” is only as short as you make it.”


It’s foolish to think that those things that happen to other people can’t happen to us.

Harold twists in his seat toward me “It does make me sad, Vincent. It makes me really sad.”
“You don’t look it.”
“Just because someone doesn’t act or look unhappy doesn’t mean their lives are perfect.” He raises his eyebrows. “There’s this method of dealing with things that involves keeping your chin up. Knowing whatever crap you’re dealing with right now isn’t going to last forever. All things pass.”
I was with him up until this point. Because he’s wrong. “Not all things. Sometimes bad stuff does last. Sometimes it kills you.”


What would I have done in his situation? In Casper’s situation? Would I end my life before the cancer does? Maybe this is a very extreme scenario, but life can be complicated enough without an organic illness. That’s the case of Adam, a kid being ignored for the most time of his life, a soul erased by the perfection imposed by his parents. Or the case of Vince, whose parents gave up on him a long time before he remembers them and has been passed on from foster home to foster home.

Sadness is the rule of the day. And so much sadness drive people to do desperate movements.

"What've you got to lose? You're both miserable. Why not be miserable together?"
I guess she's right. Misery does love company.


Like login in a pro-suicide forum, for instance.

Once upon a time, Vince saw a girl jumping from a bridge. He begins to think it a good idea, too.

“What was the wish I made back when Maggie died?
That I wanted something to love. Someone to live for. Someone who would miss me.
Now I have it, and I’m going to lose them.


This tale has been smooth to read because it’s masterfully written. There was no lump in my throat because I read the book like if it were an ordinary thing, an everyday thing. And in truth, that is the issue. For Vince this apathy in living is an everyday issue. He doesn’t feel angry, he doesn’t feel sorry. He just is there. He has been one foot on the narrow way, one foot on the edge his entire life, but something happens that pushes him to the emptiness and he wonders what does it feel to die.

Once upon a time, I lost everything and I was so alone. The sadness, the hurt, it all seemed to infinite. When you’re wandering alone in a storm, you can’t see the end, or if there even is one, and how close it might be.
I’m still wandering, but maybe I don’t feel so lost now.
I’ll keep trying. I promise.


But in a stroke of luck (or misfortune) he gets to know two people who will give him food for thought for some months. He is not unfixable. He can have a future. And he is not alone. If he leaves this world, there will be people who will miss him, and just the opposite. He finds people he will miss if they leave this world.

“You guys don’t get it, do you?” She fixes her gaze on the ceiling. “You have forever. You have a choice.”
My hands drop to my sides.
“There are all these shitty things, and you feel alone, and you feel sad, and sometimes the sadness is this all-encompasing… thing, this monster that eats you from the inside out. Not existing is the less painful alternative. But you and Adam have the rest of your lives to make things better and find happiness, you know?”


There is no sex in this book. I didn't miss it, either. This is a story of a boy who is broken and wants to end his life but during the way he finds reasons to live and ways to do so, and a person with whom to do so. Nothing excessively melodramatic, just the right proportions of romance, friendship, angst and pain. I fell in love with the three of them. I’ll remember Casper’s vitality on the edge of death. I’ll remember Adam’s silences on the edge of lonesomeness. And I’ll remember Vince’s voice on the edge of emptiness.

Have a life with me.
Fight with me.
Fix things with me.
Everything will be okay because we’ll make it okay.