Page 21 of Needing to Fall
I shrugged.
She sat on the bed next to me, not saying anything for a long time. Finally, I broke the silence.
“What?” I prompted.
“I tried to take my own life when I was sixteen.”
I sat perfectly still. This was not what I had expected to come out of her mouth. At. All.
“I had wonderful parents.” My gut twisted as she continued on. “But they were killed by a drunk driver. I was in the car with them and the only one who survived.” Her voice broke as she continued. “I saw them: their bodies, the blood. I still see it at night when I close my eyes.” She shook her head. “The driver of the other car lived, actually walked out of her car while I was on a stretcher.”
I really didn’t know how to feel about that situation. I had enough pain of my own without trying to process someone else’s. As she spoke, though, the words penetrated somewhere deep. Thoughts of Drew or even Andi in the same situation collided, and I felt it. I felt the pain for them, for Nurse Hatchet. I had been too caught up in my own head to see it, so it hit me with the force of a wrecking ball.
“I hated that woman. I had to sit in court and watch her cry because of how sorry she was, because she was stupid enough to get behind the wheel of a car that night. I had to listen to her sob that her life would never be the same and that she lived with it every day. I even had to listen to her beg the judge for leniency because she didn’t want to go to jail.” Tears rolled down her eyes, and for some strange reason, I wanted to reach out and wrap my arms around her, but I refrained. Instead, I listened.
“The judge determined that it was her first offence and granted it to her. She was charged with vehicular homicide and got five years in prison. The kicker? She was out in twenty-seven months and two days for good behavior.”
Damn.
I scooted a little closer to her and tentatively placed my hand on hers. It was like she knew it was all I could give her, and she gave me a soft smile in thanks without a word about it.
“I was down a rabbit hole, as I called it. I had to move in with my grandparents, go to a new school, plus deal with everything else. I didn’t fit in, and I had so much weighing me down I felt like I was rooted in cement.”
I could totally relate to what she was saying. I never fit in at any school. I never had the right clothes, hair, makeup, nothing.
“Anyway, one night, I’d had enough, so I downed a bottle of my grandfather’s heart medication. I had no idea what it would do to me; I was just hoping everything in my head would stop.” I understood that. “It did until I was brought back. I spent two years in a place like this. Because I was a minor, I had no say so.”
She turned to me. “Reign, being in that place was horrible, having to relive things over and over and over again every day. I hated it. I hated my grandparents for putting me there. I hated the world. I hated me. I mean, why did I have to live while my family died? I get it,” she said, putting her other hand on top of mine.
I started, breathed deeply, and left my hand where it was.
“I learned something during my time there. I learned I had control of what I did with my life. I had none when it came to the woman who destroyed my life. I had none when it came to my parents being alive, but I could control what I did with me. That was the point in my life when I picked myself up from the ground and began to take control of my life.”
I said nothing. I couldn’t. I was stunned, shocked, and just in awe of everything she had said.
“Enough of that. Let’s go to your appointment.”
Nurse Hatchet felt it. She felt the darkness. She understood it, lived it, and she was there right then, helping me. She broke through it to become … happy. She tried to end it, just like me, to end the pain, but look at her. She was helping others, and I never would have guessed she had lived that past.
Something twitched in my soul, but I was too afraid to put a name to it. Afraid of that “H” word that meant there was a way to get through it, to see the light, just like Nurse Hatchet had done. Was it possible?
The walk down to Dr. McMann’s office was spent with thoughts of Nurse Hatchet and the wordspowerandcontrolbanging around like drums. I wanted them both. I needed them both. I had never had either, at least not fully. Even living and working, I never felt like I was in control of anything. I always felt that everything could blow up at any minute, and I would be dragged back into physical hell.
Lynx sat in his chair, his tattooed arms crossed over his wide chest, legs outstretched, looking like he owned the space. Dr. McMann sat behind his desk as usual, and I took my seat as Nurse Hatchet left me.
Power and control. Power and control.
The doctor inspected me like looking at me would show him the window to my soul. “How are you today, Reign?”
“Fine.” I used the universal language of women. Fine meant so many things it needed to have three pages in the dictionary.
He turned to Lynx, “You?”
“Great.” His voice was utterly sarcastic, and that little spot inside me wanted to smile again.
Before the doctor asked any more questions, I turned to Lynx. “Knowledge is power. How would knowing why my parents treated me the way they did give me that?”
Lynx smirked, tipping up the side of his mouth that had the scar. For the first time since Drew, my stomach did a small spasm, although I ignored it.
