Death Pact

Dustin had a darkness to him, beautiful and frightening, most of all, familiar. He was so open about his trauma and suicide attempts. He created a safe space for me to be open about my past and tendencies as well.

Dustin never judged me. Nothing was too weird, too scary, too crazy. He embraced my idiosyncrasies.

We talked about our will to live. I told him mine had never been strong, but since my mother died, it was almost non existent. Same for him, never strong, non existent when his mom died.

I told him I had two main reasons for not ending my life: the very small Catholic part of me was too afraid of hell, and I was too afraid of messing it up or it hurting. I didn’t want to end up physically worse off than I was mentally.

At that time, I had one suicide attempt and he had two. One attempt being just 2 years prior to us meeting. That attempt went wrong, it caused him physical issues and exacerbated a seemingly dormant tumor which would later cost him an arm, literally.

He told me when I was ready, he would do it for me, make it painless and sure. Then he would go with me. If our animals were alive they would come too. A family affair.

The plan was to give me sleeping pills so I would drift off on his chest, safe and peaceful. Then he would shoot me, and turn the gun on himself. Quick and painless.

I asked him how would we know we were ready. He said, “when there’s nothing to look forward to, nothing on the calendar, that’s when we will know. Right now, we have the Misfits concert. I’m not dying before seeing them perform, it’s not time yet”. Ok, fair enough.

We kept our calendar full. Always a new place to try, music to see live, dog to help explore the world, something to look forward to.

May 5th, on the way home from our Friday night date night, we got pulled over. This triggered a PTSD episode for Dustin, who was driving. He had been in and out of facilities his whole life and was terrified of going back. Before the warrant could be confirmed, he slit his throat. Somehow, after fighting to die, he survived. He said “if I shot myself in the head I feel like I would wake up with half of a face”. The defeat in his voice was heart shattering. He was tired, full calendar or not. But he also knew we had a pact. He wasn’t going to go without me, and I wasn’t ready. So he kept on.

September 3rd, I found him in our apartment. He had been dead about a week, a concoction of pills and alcohol finally did him in. My first reaction was relief that he finally succeeded, then I was panicked that he finally succeeded, then I was pissed that he broke our pact. He left me behind. He left Luke behind. He broke our pact and now I’m stuck here without him, with a fear of suicide and a full calendar. No peace. No safety.

He broke our pact.