Remember to Breathe

Okay, I haven't told many people this yet and it's difficult to find the right words.

I am mainly saying this now because I have been pressured to do so, and I feel I need to get it out into the open. Why do I bother? No one will read it. I would post a photo with this but they deleted when my parents cleared my computer without backing anything up.

If you are not prepared to read this plain and rather self-centred blog, don't.

His name was Jeff Wilson. I loved him.

At six years old, I met a girl named Lydia. At seven, she introduced me to her cousin, Jeff, and from there we became best friends, though he was older than me.

When I was ten, she moved to Melbourne. His parents divorced and he moved to Sydney with his Mum. I stayed in this shithole town.

I still talked to him though, every day over the phone or internet, and I saw him atleast once a month when he came to visit his Dad.

Late last year he attempted suicide. I was on the phone to him all night. He called me at 10-11 and i could hear him crying. I asked him why and he told me he was dying. I had to keep him awake. We never stopped crying. "...remember to breathe.."
His mother decided it was his dad's influence and they moved to California.
I saw him before he left.
We stole a padlock and key from the hardware store. He wore the lock as a necklace and I wore the key. I still do.

I saw him in February this year when he and his mother came to visit relatives. We spent the night locked in his room (although my parents didn't notice I wasn't home) and we made a mistake. It wouldn't seem so big to most people, and at the time it didn't seem to matter, I didn't care, but now that I remember it, it was a bad idea.

April 2008. We were on MSN. He asked me how about my family, school, my boyfriend. He’d always been cold towards him. He told me his mum had been fighting with her boyfriend... a lot.

He said he loved me, and told me to understand, and that I was "the reason for all of this".
"reason for what?"

"Remember To Breathe"

His sister found him on the bathroom floor.


Lydia stopped talking to me. Jeff's mum invited me to the funeral, but I was told by my lovely parents that I couldn't go just for "some kid". They now just laugh about it and my father oh so admirably calls him a "slasher". Nice guy.

Before he died, he put an SMS on timer. I got it last month:

"I love you forever. Please understand this."


His name was Jeff Wilson. He was 17 and I loved him.
And I miss him.
And there isn't a day that goes by that this doesn't kill me.

my darling.