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   He caught it, but when he curled his fingers to seize it he turned the blade toward his palm. It gashed across the  meat of his thumb, and deeply. He raised his hand quickly in pain, dropping the knife as he did so, and surveyed the wound. It bled steadily, and several trickles of red ran down his wrist and forearm. It was beautiful.
   Suddenly it was all very real. It was happening. No longer an image suspended in his dark, cloudy imagination. No longer a last resort, or a hypothetical. No longer a threat. It was time for his escape. He picked up the knife again, in his shaky, but unwounded, left hand. Stepping into the bathtub, he sat down and began searching his right hand and arm for the blood vessel that looked largest. Unsure which one to target he resolved to play it safe and cut vertically all the way down the inside of his forearm.
   The point of the knife was hard - harder than the unfeeling words echoing in his memory: Freak. Faggot. Loser. Idiot. Weird. Creepy. The entry of the tip into his skin made him wince and jump, and he ultimately stuck himself three times attempting to begin the incision. This hurt enough to make him falter, and drop the knife again. It lay benignly in the bottom of the tub as he began to sob.
   He had failed. It hurt too much - he couldn't hold the knife steady. And the relatively small cut he already had was bleeding very slowly now. He knew immediately that he wasn't going anywhere. That was worst of all. He had one way out and he couldn't even do it. The perfect failure. It was with this realization that he remembered his parents. The only people that ever really loved him. They thought he was in Breckenridge for the weekend, skiing. He couldn't do this to them.
   The 911 call began with eight feeble, trembling words: "I need help ... I'm bleeding. But I'm alive."