[The book about my life]

"When I was a kid, I was never like my classmates. I was always sitting in the corners of the classrooms, writing in my little leather notebook that my mother gave me on my birthday when I was 12."

"Dad was...a normal man, although he had the habit of always going to the woods on weekends to fish. For sport. I remember going with him; we were at a river, him with his fishing rod. Me? I was sitting with him, I remember there was a pretty big fish that pulled hard on Dad's fishing rod, causing Dad to cut his hands. It wasn't a serious injury, he just got a scrape."

"But I...when I saw Dad's blood, I felt something inside me awaken, so I grabbed Dad's razor and... Just jumped into the river. I don't know why I did it, but I'd never swum so fast before, until I caught the big fish...and I kill it. And doing that...gave me incredible relief, it was like waking up from a long, annoying nap."

"When I turned 15, I met my mom. Dad said she was a little sick and that's why she couldn't be at home with us. So every Sunday we visited her in a very big hospital. The hospital inside was very white, with red lines on the sides of the corridors; sometimes being there made me nervous, even restless. In that place, Mom was always in her room, she didn't talk much, and she always seemed to look right through me as if she sensed something in me."

"As Dad explained to me at the time, Mom used to be a librarian, which explains all the books in our house. And that's where I learned that sometimes... Silence can be just as powerful as a speaker blasting at full volume in your eardrum. And Mom's silence...it was louder than I'd ever heard. Maybe that's why they never let her out. And maybe that's where I got that trait. I don't know, I don't care now."

"Ah... my 18th birthday, how could I forget that. I learned so much during that time. I remember I had a girlfriend, was her name Jane or Elizabeth? I can't remember, but I learned a lot from her."

"She was like seeing a shooting star, I never understood her. Even less now. Not because of that cliché about men not understanding women. But because I never understood why she loved me. I think... I loved her too. in my way at least. Sometimes I think about her when I'm alone, not because I miss her, but because of the way she looked at me and said "I love you," even if it was a foreign language to me."

"Dad was proud of me. He had a strange illness; his wounds didn't heal easily. One day he was fine, and the next he seemed to be feeling the pain for the first time. He taught me to be strong, to be social, and to make decisions before others made them for me, even when those decisions were a mystery to me."

"Two years had passed since then; now I'm a 20-year-old adult. My girlfriend and I broke up; it wasn't messy. She sat with me, took my hands, and told me how she felt. I listened to her."

"She told me she felt suffocated with me, not because I stole the spotlight, not because I was selfish or toxic, but because of a lack of genuine emotion. She loved me, but sometimes I scared her. A lot."

"I still feel nothing when I think about her leaving my apartment."

"At that time, Dad had brain cancer. The guy was a vegetable in that hospital bed. Seeing him intubated, with machines keeping him alive. I would just visit him every night, grab a chair and I stay close to him. I felt...confused. Because I didn't feel anything for him. Seeing him so vulnerable, unable to even move...disgusted me. I didn't understand why. He was my father."

"Mom... I almost forgot about her. She killed herself by biting her tongue in a psychotic episode. It was 10 AM, I think. I never really got to know that woman."

"I didn't go to her funeral. The thought of seeing so many people in one place made me uneasy for no reason."

"I don't visit Dad anymore. I think it was the only time in my life I didn't have the courage to disconnect him from those machines. And I think Dad would be proud of that. He always wanted to finish things on his own terms. And I don't think he would have wanted his own son to end his life."

"I'm 26 now, I'm the man I am today. There are people who are looking for me because of bad things I did recently. I don't regret it."

"I would do it again without hesitation"

"I'm running out of pages in my leather-bound book from when I was 12, so let me ask you something, dear reader."

"If you were in my place...would you do the same, or would you pretend to be better than me?"