“I know what the angel of suicide looks like. I have seen her several times. She’s around.”— Margaret Atwood, An Angel

My name is Yvonne. I’m 5'4, hazel eyes, a nervous system that never quite rests, and shoulders that remember everything I’ve carried. I live in my car now—surrounded by books, journals, a solar generator, a mini fridge, and the only things he didn’t take from me—though he tried. I used to think I needed someone to come back for me. But now, I just need someone to see me. Even if that someone is me.

I first saw her when Emma died. Emma—my best friend—stabbed by her husband, who then turned the knife on himself. Three kids left behind. Two of them walked in and found their parents before they died—forced to be the ones to run for help, to carry the shock, to witness the horror, while their mother used what breath she had left to say what she could. That was the first time I felt the chill. The shadow at the edge of the bed. That’s when the angel of suicide showed up—not as temptation, not yet—but as something unwillingly fused to me. A presence imposed quietly, but with permanence. I didn’t know her name then, but I knew she was real. She held us both in stillness while the world begged for motion—pleaded with me to surrender to its noise, to forget. I feared her then—deeply—and quite honestly, I think I always will.

Definitely not the classic looking angel we’ve all grown up with—soft, glowing, and harmless. Instead, she’s dressed in all black—form-fitting, almost sheer. Her hair’s pinned up with velvet bows, soft and absurd, like something from childhood. My kind of outfit, if I’m being honest. You’d almost think she was headed to a party or a funeral. Maybe she is. She’s never knocked—doesn’t have to. She instantly settled upon arrival, sinking into every aspect of my thoughts, a quiet presence I can’t shake—like a shadow waiting patiently in the corners. As if she belongs there—and we both know she does. Even considering her unannounced, unwelcome residency, she became my friend. But not until he chose to leave—until he gave what we built to someone else.

It wasn’t just heartbreak. It was heartbreak plus betrayal plus erasure. A man I loved—still love—chose to leave and chooses to remain gone. He’s the one who said “always”, “forever”, “I would choose you every day of my life”, “I can’t do this without you.” Yet, he didn’t stay, he left.

Though, now I see—and have always sensed—how it was a slow ending from the very beginning. He didn’t fall out of love. I don’t think he was ever in it. He was attached, dependent, comforted. But I carried all the weight. I was the ribcage, the anchor, the shelter. He just had to show up and let me hold it all. And for 13 years, he did. When I finally said, 'I can’t carry this alone,' he didn’t reach for the weight. He handed my life—the one I bled for—to someone else. And she took it like it had always been hers to hold.

People think angels are only for birth and death—maybe even some sort of protectors. But there are other kinds—like her. And she—the angel of suicide—isn’t here to steal you away. She’s here to offer an out when the pain becomes too heavy to hold, or when you’ve run out of lies to keep yourself going. Somehow—despite the disbelief and ache—I haven’t taken her hand. (I often wonder why.) It’s not because I believe in a better future. I don’t—I’ve never been able to picture anything. But even if I could, I don’t believe in some better future. Not without him. I know life will go on. It’ll change. It may even soften in places. But better? No. My soul died when he left—he took all of me—and I’ve come to understand that joy and peace might still visit, but happiness will not. Not for me. You can live a life that looks full on the outside and yet still ache in every moment. So I don’t stay because I believe things will get better or that he’ll come home. I don’t. I stay because I haven’t given up on telling—and living—the truth. Even when it feels impossible. Still, I think I believe in something even harder than dying. I believe in staying. In choosing the truth, even when it means you don’t settle into the world of noise. Even when it makes you the sad one at the table. Even when everyone else is smiling because they’ve forgotten what it means to feel.

My predicament isn’t whether or not I want to live. It’s that I don’t want to live—but I don’t want to be dead either. I don’t want to exist in a world that keeps trying to erase me, yet I have no other choice. That’s the world we live in. So, it’s either this... or I finally take her hand. And still, somehow—because my fear of being gone forever, though inevitable, outweighs my desire to disappear—I stay. I would love to live in a world where grief gets named, where love isn’t mistaken for obligation, where someone like me—loud, soft, strange—doesn’t get abandoned. For a while, I thought I was already in that world. But I guess I was wrong.

So the angel doesn’t visit. She lives here now—permanent residence. She’s the only one who’s kept her word about staying. Everyone else left. They left when I held the mirror and begged for growth, for partnership—for someone to see me, to hear me, to stay. They called it too much. Too hard. The source of their stress and anxiety. But not her. She doesn’t flinch when I rage. Doesn’t pull away when I cry. She stays through the silence, the chaos, the numbness. Not watching from a distance, not offering solutions—just staying. She does what those who claimed to love me never could: sits with me AND stays. I never asked to be carried. Just to be met. Seen. Heard. And she does—see me, hear me. She’s there as I weep, write, unravel. And honestly... I’m not even sure I’m still here. But she is.

He left. They all did. And she—she sits beside the pieces. Not fixing. Just staying. Not because I want to die, but because I haven’t figured out how to live with being left.