After my third miscarriage, finals at the university were approaching. COVID was approaching. The shifts at my job were approaching, and I had no more hours to call in sick—or excuses to invent on the fly.

Aaron was seeing a movie with his dad, Bob. I was lying on the couch, staring at the pills reflected behind the inactive television in front of me. I knew that getting up would mean walking toward them and taking every one I could find. There was nothing overtly dangerous in our household, but there had to be some point at which a mixture of pain medication and anxiety pills simply wouldn’t mesh.

There was an odd stillness in the choice. I wasn’t scared. I didn’t hear competing voices telling me why I should stay alive. I felt an unusual acceptance, a settling into the belief that everything had led me to this point.

The nonchalance of it sparked something in me—begrudgingly. A might as well, last-resort impulse urged me to call the suicide hotline.

I don’t remember exactly what I said, or what they said. I remember their words feeling hollow, and I remember feeling there was no point in continuing the conversation. While the person on the phone tried their hardest to keep me in the moment, I had already decided it wasn’t worth it. I gave half answers, grunts, and silence.

In the middle of one of their sentences, I hung up. I tried to find the will to get up and take the pills, but even standing felt impossible. The twelve feet between me and the medication had become too much distance to cross.

A minute later, my phone rang. Seattle Police Department.

I looked at it impatiently, waiting for it to go silent so I could return to the task at hand. I still don’t know how they found my address. I still had my old phone number, linked to my adult life in Port Townsend.

I’m not sure how much time passed before the ambulance arrived. When they knocked, the blinds were wide open and lights flashed through the windows. I reluctantly looked at the men and woman standing on my doorstep. Then I looked back at the pills, defeated by the realization that my choice was no longer mine to make.

-Natasha Malia