It’s late morning on a balmy September day. I try to summon the will to run from the bench where I’m sitting on Broadway and dive under the massive wheels of one of the trucks roaring past. Which section of my body, I wonder, should I hurl beneath the tires. Where would hurt the least, and soonest erase my suffering. I clutch my cellphone, hating its potential for rescue signals.

After nine or 10 trucks pass me by, an unkempt man in his mid-50s sits on the bench beside me, plastic cup of lager in one hand, half-smoked self-rolled cigarette in the other. He looks me up and down and grins. Go away, jerk, I think to myself, shooting him an icy glance. Leave me be.

“Are you waiting for a date?” he persists. “What are you doing?”

I want to kill him, but my resolve switches. I stand abruptly and head for my apartment, where, I calculate, I have enough medications stored to off myself. I ponder what to say in my suicide note. My phone rings: my mother, responding to the please call me asap message I had texted her. “What’s going on?” she says.

It is my mother who insists I call my therapist and my mother who, upon my therapist’s urging, drives me to the emergency room.