Chapter 9
Jennie was 19 years old when the pain became too much to bear…
Jennie opened her eyes, body trembling and heart racing. She turned to look at the glowing numbers on her alarm clock, the only light that could be seen in the otherwise pitch-black room. She sighted when she saw it was a few minutes to three in the morning. It seemed like she never made it pass three anymore before being shaken from her sleep. She sat up in her bed and turned on the lamp on her night desk, knowing she would never be able to go back to sleep that night. Not when she knew the images of Lisa's bloody face would be waiting for her the second she closed her eyes.
She hugged her knees and hid her face in them as she waited for the trembling to stop. She knew today was going to be a bad day. Not that there were any other kind of days really, but today was going to be an especially hard one. Today marked the one-year anniversary of Lisa's death.
She couldn’t believe it had already been a year. A whole year in which she barely left her room. She curled tighter into a ball as the familiar overwhelming sense of pain enveloped her now that she was awake once again. She was so tired of feeling this way. Every day was a struggle to get out of bed. To keep on living.
It hadn’t been this bad while she was still taking the medicine a doctor had prescribed her shortly after the funeral. The pill she took every morning had left her practically numb to everything, going trough the motions of the day almost robotically. Unfortunately, her mother had decided that she had been taking them for too long and had recently cut her off. That had been almost two weeks ago and Jennie knew she was getting close to her breaking point.
She clutched at her chest, wishing for a respite from the pain. She was just curling tighter into a ball when she heard it. “It’s your fault. I can’t believe I ever loved you”. A voice that sounded scarily familiar to Lisa's echoed in her head.
The voices that haunted her dreams had now followed her to the world of the living. It seemed like there was no escaping her guilt. She brought her hands to her ears, trying in vain to escape the voices that existed only in her head. The voices only grew louder in response until all Jennie could hear were accusation after accusation, blaming her for letting her best friend die. A small, rational part of her knew that it was probably her exhaustion and guilt that had caught up to her and were making her hear things, but the larger part just needed the voices to stop.
She was still shaking in her bed when the images that haunted her dreams started filling her head. Image after image of Lisa, bruised and bloodied, begging her not to leave her there, blaming her, came to her mind, one after another. It was too much. She just needed it to stop. She could feel a panic attack coming on. She had started getting them shortly after her death but they had stopped once she started taking those pills. They hadn’t made an appearance again since she stopped taking them. Until now.
Blood pounded in her head as her heart thudded in her chest. Her hands shook and her chest started getting tighter as bile rose up her throat. She clutched desperately at her throat, trying to get oxygen back into her lungs. She could feel herself starting to hyperventilate as the pain in her chest grew bigger.
Jennie was getting desperate. She needed to go back to the numbness she’d felt when she was still taking a pill every day. She’d foolishly thought that nothing could be worse than feeling empty but she’d been wrong. She’d rather feel nothing than this pain that seemed to be eating her inside out.
She managed to lift herself off her bed and stumbled her way to her bathroom. She opened the sink cabinets, desperate to find the medicine bottle she knew her mom had stored there. She swept everything out in her search for the small orange prescription bottle, ignoring the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her. Her eyes closed in on it just as her stomach started churning. The bottle was sitting in the very back, hidden from plain view.
She grabbed and hurriedly twisted the cap off, taking out a pill and swallowing it with sink water. It made no difference. Jennie could still hear the voices. She was still overwhelmed by so many different emotions at the same time. She knew the pill needed a few minutes to take effect but she couldn’t wait a few minutes. She needed everything to stop now. She took a second pill and quickly washed it down, hoping the numbness would return.
Seeing no immediate response, she shook the rest of them out of the bottle and swallowed them in one go, not caring about the possible consequences as long as it helped her stop feeling this way. The last thing she felt before darkness overtook her vision was relief as the voices were finally silenced.
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Jennie was awoken by an annoying beeping sound. The strong smell of disinfectant immediately filled her nostrils. She felt disoriented and confused. How had she gotten here? Her head was pounding. She slowly sat up, looking around the hospital bed. Her mother was sleeping in a chair next to her.
Piece by piece, her memory started coming back. The pain, the voices, the overwhelming need not to feel anything. The worst part was, she wasn’t sure if she felt relieved or disappointment at having woken up. Her heart ached when she realized her mom must have been the one to find her, laying on the bathroom floor. She couldn’t believe she had done that to her mother, after everything she’d done for her.
She was shaken out of her thoughts by a sudden gasp. Her mom had woken up and seen her finally awake. Before she could say anything, a pair of arms were thrown around her, pulling her into a crushing hug. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please don’t do that ever again”, her mom whispered into her hair, her arms refusing to let go. Jennie felt guilt coal up in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t believe how selfish she’d been. She kept forgetting that she hadn’t been the only one who lost Lisa. Her mom had loved her as a second daughter, and now, Jennie had almost made her lose another daughter.
She suddenly heard a voice in her head that sounded a lot like Lisa. Except instead of blaming her, like the other voices had done, this one was scolding her for her reckless behavior. Jennie closed her, making a silent promise to herself.
She would get better. And she would live. If not for herself then for Lisa. Even if she knew with certainty that she would spend the rest of her life missing her.