Page 55 of Caged in Flames

Chapter Twenty Five

Blue and red.

Screaming.

There’s someone calling my name over and over.

Why can I see the lights? How come I hear the voice?

It's supposed to be over. I ended it.

This isn’t right.

Is that my mom’s voice? I made her cry. Why? Hurting her wasn’t something that even crossed my mind.

What’s going on?

No, no, no. I don't want to wake up. I can hear someone shouting, but it all fades away. Just like it's supposed to be. Dark. Forever.

Waking from the nightmare with a gasp, I reach over to turn on the lamp by my bed. My hands shuffle around until they find my phone, checking the time.

Two in the morning.

I try to get my breathing back under control, but I can't quite shake myself from the nightmare. I can feel the water. I hear the paramedics trying to move my mom away from me. My arms have phantom indentions of her grip.

It's as if I'm watching the scene in some sort of snow globe, but I know deep down it's not a fake scene.

It's real. This happened.

Because I needed it to end.

While I can’t remember everything that happened after Mom found me, there are flashes of moments that I would rather not hang on to.

Like the grasp of my mom’s hand in mine on the way to the hospital.

I planned to take my own life, but I didn’t expect my mom to come crashing into the bathroom and being carted via ambulance to the nearest hospital.

I woke up to blue and red dots in my vision while riding the back of an emergency vehicle with my mom right beside me.

Words like “trauma” and “self-inflicted” were shouted.

Because of the blood loss, they kept me in an intensive care unit for trauma. I could see the words on the glass doors spelling out what I was. Trauma.

I never thought of it that way before. How our past can be this detrimental makeup that haunts our mind? A force that presents itself when it can do the most damage.

Like a tornado sweeping through a small town. Quick, but deadly.

It took several days to get me back to a stable condition. Days and nights of beeping sounds and constant observation. Machines feeding me liquids and medications.

Days and nights of hearing my mom ask question after question to every doctor that came in. Of her holding my hand until she was ushered out by the night staff. Of her fighting them every night over the visitation rules.

Some days I would wake up just long enough to remember what happened and have to be sedated before I would settle down enough to continue resting.

Those were the worst. I only woke up so I could escape the memories playing on repeat. Reliving the humiliation that I had experienced my entire life.

Seeing the evil eyes that occasionally haunt my dreams even now. I didn’t speak about what happened for days, too afraid of the judgement I would see in the doctors’ eyes. Or worse, my mom’s.

When I finally woke up, I didn't even want to look at her. I couldn't. I didn't mean to hurt her. But I did. She didn’t let it go though, and over time I tried to explain to her not only what happened at Blisshaven, but what it was like in my head all of the time.

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