I am running. Running fast. I don’t know where I’m going, but I just need to get away. I run like my life depends on it.

Maybe it does.

I reach a dead end. A cliff. I look down. I can’t see the ground.

I sit on the edge, somewhat defeated. I catch my breath, wondering where else I can go. Is there anywhere I can go? I am a failure everywhere I go. Will this be any different? Will I be able to survive behind out in the world? Alone?

I start to panic. _Maybe I shouldn’t have run away_, I think to myself. _Maybe I should have listened to my dad and toughened up. Acted like a man…_

But could I survive that?

How long would it be before I broke?

How long can I exist in this world before losing sight of life altogether.

Maybe this doesn’t have to be a dead end.

Maybe I should end it all now…

I suddenly start standing up. I am standing on the edge of the cliff, fearless. Ready to risk it all. To lose it all.

Not like there is much to lose anyway.

I think about my friends who, I would assume, all hate me. They think I’m annoying and obnoxious. Self-absorbed. Too attached to the past. They are right.

I would like to think that I have made improvements, but if they think I haven’t changed, I haven’t changed.

Typical of me.

I think about my family.

I think about my parents who, well, never loved the true me. They would be mourning the version of me that is dead in my mind. The version of me that they themselves crafted. The perfect young man.

I’m obviously not that person. I never was.

Then, I think about my younger sister.

Huh… weird. I feel like she would actually miss me.

The _real _me.

Even after all that we’ve been through. After all of the times I bullied her. I learned this from my parents. I was the golden child, the favorite. She was the one they picked on.

She could never fit into the mold that my parents wanted her to be in. She refused to.

She has always been stubborn. She never follows the rules.

Sometimes, I wish I had her courage.

I hear footsteps. Quick ones. Someone is running towards me.

_Shoot_.

Funny, it is my sister. She stops running and catches her breath.

I think about jumping right then just to piss her off.

That’s the type of thing siblings do. Right?

She is yelling. She is yelling at me because I am stupid. Because I have lost my mind.

Because she loves me.

Because she doesn’t know what she would do without me.

Because if I am jumping, she is jumping too.

Silence. I think for a second. A few, actually.

_If heaven was a real place, I would want her there with me. I would want us to be there together. Free from this messed up society. Free from our family’s twisted ways. Free from acting like the fake versions of ourselves._

__

__

I think she will agree with me.__

__

__

I decide to respond to my sister. “Okay. But I’m still jumping.

“So it looks like you’re coming with me.

“Let’s jump together.”

She gives me a yearning look. It is almost like she has been waiting for this moment.

I grab my sister’s hand and pull her towards the cliff edge with me. She nods slowly in my direction.

Then we jump.

**BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.**

****

****

I wake up.

I take a deep breath…

Thank God that was a dream.