Free Breakthrough by Jack Andraka Page A

again. I challenged myself to go farther and farther. To cut deeper and deeper. I wanted to feel more pain. I wanted to see more blood.
    I was daring myself to end it. I always was a dare guy. And now I was daring myself to end it all.
    The thought of death didn’t scare me. Death felt like a relief. If I cut enough, it would all go away. That’s really all I wanted.
    Everything was becoming a blur. I was in a weird state between numbness and autopilot.
    Eventually, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to kill myself. The broken pencil wasn’t sharp enough. I walked out of the bathroom. Logan and another friend in the hallway saw the bloody marks on my wrists and went straight to the guidance office. A moment later, I was surrounded by counselors.
    Next thing I remember, my parents were there at school. After that, it all goes dark.

Chapter 4
THE KNOWLEDGE CURE
    After my botched suicide attempt, the school informed my parents that I wouldn’t be admitted back until I got some professional help. My parents were equal parts confused and horrified. They were determined to do everything in their power to help pull me out of this abyss.
    They found a local LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) meeting place. They thought it would help if I could talk to other teens who had shared similar experiences, but when I arrived, I was the only teen there. What happened next was a lot of me talking to some random old dude who didn’t know me or anything about my deeply personal problems. It’s hard to have any kind of healing when you feel awkward and uncomfortable.
    Truthfully, I was just sick of talking about it. I wasn’t even surewhat to say anymore.
    What would Uncle Ted say?
    He had fought so hard for those extra moments that I was ready to just throw away. If he were sitting next to me today, I thought, he’d begin by asking me about my next project.
    More than anything, I really wanted to get back to what I loved—science. There was another science fair coming up, and I had been working on a new idea.
    Drawing on my seventh-grade project, I had started on a new one that investigated the effects of metal oxide on certain forms of marine life. This is important because metal oxide is highly toxic and is found in everyday household items like suntan lotion, which often ends up being flushed down our shower drains and into our water supply. I specifically studied its effects on a kind of freshwater plankton called Daphnia magna and the marine bacteria Vibrio fischeri. My results showed that metal oxide behaves differently in marine and freshwater environments. The more we understand about how it interacts with the surrounding environment, the easier it will be to prevent more damage.
    But would I even be able to compete? Would I just walk around the rest of my life a damaged head case always in need of attention? As had become the case with seemingly every question, I just didn’t know. One thing I did know was that if I wasn’t able to rid myself of this heavy blanket of depression, that would mean no more sciencefairs, no more creek hopping, no more navigating rapids. Nothing.
    It wasn’t just science that I wanted to get back to. It felt like forever since I’d been on a kayak or white-water rafting. There were so many rivers I still wanted to explore. I had always wanted to kayak the Grand Canyon. Would I ever be able to do that?
    Then, out of the blue, my brother began to come around. Luke’s favorite lacrosse coach had overheard him making some snide remark about my sexuality and pulled him aside to tell him a personal story about his own experience in college when he learned that his roommate was gay. At first he had a lot of the same thoughts that were probably going through my brother’s head—What would people think about him if someone so close to him was gay? How should he act? But the more time the coach spent with his roommate, the more