Something inside me clicks. It's like I've spent my whole life fiddling with a complicated combination only to discover I was toying with the wrong lock.

I bet if you cut open my stomach, the black slug of depression would slide out.

What people never understand is that depression isn't about the outside; it's about the inside. Something inside me is wrong. Sure, there are things in my life that make me feel alone, but nothing makes me feel more isolated and terrified than my own voice inside my head.

He knows what he'll find if he digs deeper. there's no rush to unpack my insides. he understands there is nothing special about emptiness, nothing interesting about depression.

I spend a lot of time wondering what dying feels like. What dying sounds like. If I’ll burst like those notes, let out my last cries of pain, and then go silent forever. Or maybe I’ll turn into a shadowy static that’s barely there, if you just listen hard enough.

What people never understand is that depression isn't about the outside; it's about the inside.

My breath catches when I reach the last page, the drawing of me. The girl I'm staring at is not me, but she is me. Her large eyes are focused away from the viewer, but there's something in them I don't immediately recognize: hope. Her posture looks straighter than mine, like she's stronger, more resilient.

FrozenRobot of all people should know that there is nothing beautiful or endearing or glamorous about sadness. Sadness is only ugly, and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t get it. I think what he means to say is that he and I are ugly in the same way and there's something familiar, comfortable, about that. Comfortable is different from beautiful.

I think about his drawing of me. That girl he drew, she was beautiful. That girl wasn't a gray sky. She had hope. Hope is beautiful.