My mother was also clinically depressed, smiling when necessary and encouraging us to leave the house often, but leaving me to raise my sister alone. She never wanted us to see her break, but I was old enough to see the signs. One day, I had to physically pour every drop of alcohol we had in the house down the drain. While Skylar and I were at school, she would be home, drinking, and we thought she was working.
My mother was laid off from her job at a foreclosure company, forcing her to take a “temporary leave” with very little pay. With the money she did have, she began to spend frivolously, leaving next to nothing for bare necessities. She became much less “mom” and much more “mother.” Our grandfather did everything possible to keep her from falling apart, but the day I came home from a camping trip and found her sprawled on the couch, naked, next to a random shady-looking guy and a whiskey bottle, I had had enough.
I grabbed whatever clothes I could fit into my backpack, and one-hundred dollars from the emergency fund- which was selfish of me- and ran out of the house, car keys in hand. I had my license for barely a month, but I was so lost in a fit of rage I didn’t care. Slamming the car door, I saw nothing but red flames of anger pulsing behind my eyes and the wide, open highway that stretched in front of me.
In the oblivion I slipped into, it was easy not to notice Skylar climb into the back seat. In the corner of my mind, I felt her tiny fingers wrap around my shoulder, but I threw them off, fighting the tears that threatened to trickle down my cheeks. I had had enough of our mother, and in my despair, I was accelerating towards eighty miles an hour.
Barely five minutes into my drive is when it happened; a Ford truck lost control and spun in my direction. Frozen, I stared as the hundred-thousand pound piece of metal continued flying towards the side of my vehicle. My foot couldn’t find the gas pedal, and I found myself coming back into my body. Anger completely faded, I noticed Sky in the car for the first time. She was looking at me, eyes wide, not seeing Death barreling towards us.
The last thing I heard was her scream before everything went black. One week later, I woke from the coma in the hospital, feeling scared and alone. No one was visiting me, but there was a lone card on the desk next to me. It wasn’t signed, so I couldn’t tell who had left it here. The doctors told me that I was lucky to be alive; that the car had been so destroyed that the “jaws of life” were used to get me out.
Then I remembered Skylar. Frantic, I started to interrupt Doctor Colson’s spiel on how lucky I was and how his quick thinking saved my life. My head was thumping, and he urged me to lie back down, but I refused. The doctor was too pleased with himself to feign sympathy for my condition, so he left the room in haste, sending in a young nurse that had a tattoo on the side of her neck. I remember thinking about how wrong the ink looked on the kind woman, but her next words shattered everything insignificant in my brain.
I killed my sister. Baby Skylar, so young, so full of life, was lying dead in the ground because of me. Hell, I wasn’t even at her funeral! That explains why my mother isn’t here; she probably never wants to see me again. I remember feeling no pain, no shock; I remember feeling nothing at all. Simply numb, I lied down on the hard bed in the hospital, staring at the holes in the ceiling tile, counting them aimlessly.
Two months later, feeling hadn’t yet returned to my left leg, or my brain. I walked around in a shell, completely cut-off from the person I used to be. The scars on my body were already beginning to fade, but those in my memory were as fresh as ever. I remember thinking to myself, “She’s dead. You killed her. It’s your fault entirely,” over and over again, but feeling nothing.
They say people grieve in different ways, but I would have preferred to be a sobbing mess of a boy instead of being the empty cloud I was. Literally, I remember nothing in those two months. I passed every test I took in school, but retained none of the information. My “friends” were no help or comfort, and the only thing I had left in this world was… nothing.
My hopes, my dreams, my thriving ambition all died that night Skylar was plucked from my hands. She was gone, and our mother soon followed. Not in the literal sense, but my mother became an even more distant stranger when Skylar died. From the outside, we seemed like a struggling family; on the inside, we were already broken beyond repair.
This is the time I spent with Rachel. She took me in, helped me get off the drugs I clung to like a baby. She helped me dump the nameless, faceless girls and try to find my way again. But I never was able to on my own.
I decided to end my soulless existence on July 4th 2010. Now, it seems like a foolish mistake; “a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” they say. At the time, it seemed like the easiest way to avoid the unavoidable. Everywhere I looked, Skylar’s presence screamed at me, “Why did you do this? Why are you so selfish? Wasn’t my life important to you?”
Her bedroom remained untouched, like a tomb of sorrow in the middle of our house. Her school pictures remained on the walls, her drawings on the refrigerator were collecting dust and becoming shriveled, and her closet was still filled with the dress-up clothes we played with so many times.
I had come home- from where, I don’t remember, - and found my mother’s car gone and the house eerily silent. At one time, there would have been a dancing little girl bounding around the living room, calling my name before running into my arms. I can almost see it for a moment until her ghostly memory fades from my mind.
I used to be able to tell you exactly what she looked like; every freckle on her pixie face, every miss-matched pair of socks in her closet… But with time, my memory faded, and I found myself slowly cracking. This is what you need, Tristan. You need some closure, my mind sang, but I didn’t want closure.
I wanted Skylar. I wanted my grandmother, my father, my mother back, my life back. Waiting for the dead to be reborn is like waiting for snow to fall in the Sahara; a fruitless, pointless effort. I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to be unfeeling. I didn’t want to be at all. The decision was made unconsciously, like all my decisions were those days.
Walking up the stairs, I grabbed Skylar’s photo off the wall, and that is when I broke. I didn’t just break, I shattered. The unfeeling glass wall that was my soul exploded, but I tried to force it back, afraid that regaining feeling again would weaken my resolve. With each step I took, I felt the crash of emotions overtake my body, turning a depression-ridden, wreck of a man into a blubbering mess of a boy.
Our tea parties, cookies at grandma’s, her laughter, my laughter, mom’s laughter, dad’s smile, grandpa’s hugs, my lacrosse career, Skylar’s singing, mom dancing with dad, me dancing with Skylar… Skylar, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa… dead, dead, dead, dead…
My heart broke, pouring out sorrow as if it were physical blood. I screamed, filling the house with the horrible sound until I reached my destination; my moms’ bathroom. I paced, letting the despair fill me more, as a punishment to myself. A punishment for killing my sister. A punishment for not coping with her loss. A punishment for losing myself when I was supposed to be strong.
I opened the cabinet and pulled out my mom’s bottle of prescription pills, poured them in my mouth, and chugged water to chase them down before I lost my nerve. I took another bottle out and repeated the motions, tears streaming down my face. Unable to control it any longer, I lied down in the cold, tile bathroom floor and waited for Death to find me.
My eyes sprung open, and I found myself sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Looking at my hands, I saw that the scars from the car accident were gone; the long, snake-like one that once ran up my forearm had disappeared. I smirked, pleased that I was once again unmarked.
“Tristan,” said a voice I couldn’t place, but sounded vaguely familiar. Looking up from my fresh hands, I saw a tall man standing beside… me. My eyes grow wide, realization flooding my mind. I’m dead. I killed myself. Now what?
“Tristan, do you realize now how foolish you have been, son?” The man continued, looking at me with such disap
pointment that I feel the need to bow my head.
“You had so much in store, Tristan. I would ask why you performed this act, but I already know. You and I are not as close as we should be,” he continued.
For a flash of a moment, I wonder if the man is my father, but he looks nothing like the man who perished in the fire all those years ago. Confusion settles in, twisting the world into a contorted mess.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice deeper than it had been when I was alive, which shocks me.
“You should know that, Tristan. You do know. Who am I?” he asked, holding his arms out to his sides.
My mouth opens of its own accord, voice escaping through my lips. “God,” it said. Mouth snapped shut, my eyes widen, hand flying to my throat in surprise.
God smiled, and I felt a peace flow through my heart. Around his head rested a halo of green light, and his entire body seemed to be emitting a strange green glow. With long blonde hair, styled like mine was, his blue eyes were kind and inviting. His clothes were the only thing that would signify him as from a different era, a different country. The white robe he had was dotted with green specks, and his bare feet seemed to barely touch the ground as he stepped closer to me.
“Yes, Tristan, you do know me. You also know that you have made a mistake,” he says, walking towards my body lying on the floor, crumpled into a ball. “Do you feel that, my child? Your mistake?” he asked, looking up at me.
I did feel it. My soul felt it; that it was not right for me to be standing here. It wasn’t my time to die, and it wasn’t my decision to make. It was His; He gave me life, and I foolishly took it away.
I began to feel like I was choking, so I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I began to grow panicked, but God looked unalarmed. Without warning, black smoke rose out of my throat and wafted through the air like mist, hovering for a few seconds before making a rapid descend towards the floor.
An enormous weight lifted from my heart, and I began to see something playing behind my eyes. They fought to close, but I refused to look away from the man standing before me.
“Close them, Tristan,” he said calmly, walking towards me and placing his hand on my head.
I closed my eyes, but they still saw. A scene played behind my lids like a movie, and I watched with fascination. A beautiful girl with blonde hair emerged from a doorway, a look of pain and extreme sorrow painted on her face. She set a notebook on the counter before turning around and pulling off her shoes. Suddenly, she walked towards a bathtub and calmly turned on the water, which was so hot the steam floated to the ceiling almost immediately.
I saw myself in the mirror, standing beside the girl in the bathroom. She looked at our reflections for a moment, and I could see the dullness in her sea-foam-green eyes; a dullness that told the story of a tortured soul. The pain in them made me ache, and I reached forward, trying to touch her, to console the beautiful girl. She pulled a small pocketknife out of the drawer and climbed into the bathtub, fully clothed.
Wincing, I was forced to watch her slice her wrists open, cutting so deep blood spurted out and dropped into the bathwater like food-coloring. She didn’t cry out, she simply watched with a bored expression as her blood left her veins. I reached out, wanting to help her, but my hand hit the notebook that was resting on the corner of the sink and it fell to the floor with a thwack. Time passed and eventually she looked up, eyes hazy and face drained of color; I stood there, helplessly watching the girl die in front of me.
“Is this what you want?” says God, who appeared right beside me. He gestures to the girl in the tub, each word hanging in the thick air like the steam around us.
A tear slipped down my cheek as I watched the girl’s eyes close. “No! No! I want to help her! I need to help her! Please,” I beg, beginning to cry harder as the bath water began to darken further. I stumble over to the side of the tub, wanting to vomit at the amount of blood that was leaking from the girl’s wrists. “Please,” I whisper, sobbing. I need to help her, she needs me, my soul shouted. I need her, she can’t leave. We weren’t meant to end like this; not separated so soon. “Please!” I scream.
The bathroom disappears, and I’m in an unfamiliar living room. There is a man and a woman arguing. Shouting at one another and I can only make out bits and pieces of conversation. Someone named David, someone named Rachel, something about Canada, something about stupidity and wanting a new life. Then the woman shouts something back, but I don’t understand what she’s saying, because I’m watching the blonde girl cry. She’s younger here, maybe fifteen years old, but there is no doubt it is her. An ache in my gut tells me it’s her.
The man strikes the woman across the face with something, and the girl runs into the room, flailing her arms. The man strikes her, and she falls down. Then the scene changes again, and I am sitting in the backseat of a car, the blonde haired girl in the front passengers seat and a stocky, dark haired boy in the drivers’ seat. He makes my stomach churn. I am forced to watch as he kisses her, and I want to rip his arms off his body. “Get away from her,” I said aloud, but it was lost in the lyrics of the song playing.
The girl shoves the boy away and he slings shameful words at her, instantly bringing tears to her eyes as she flees the car. Instead of following her, I remain glued to the seat, watching the boy as he proceeds to drive to a party, get drunk, leave, and then turn the car into scrap metal. His dark eyes remain open, even in death.
Immediately, the scene changes again, and I see flashes of images. It’s like I’m being sprayed with a hose of memories; pictures and moments untouched by time as they wheel out before me. Laughter, tears, emptiness, and loss fills me to no end, and I clutch at my chest to stop the pain. I see words, surrounding me, filling my head with their giant letters.
I hear a sweet voice whispering in my head, “greed, jealousy, hatred, lust, bitterness, grief, fear, shame, blame, regret, remorse, apathy, refusal…” The words cross my vision in an orderly array, branding themselves into my heart for eternity.
“Tristan,” I heard my name being called, and my eyes flung open. I fell against the wall, gasping, in my own bathroom once again. “Tristan, you are not supposed to be here right now, son. This is not your future,” says God, pointing to my body on the floor. “Katherine is your future, Tristan. You can feel her, can’t you?” he asks.
Something I hadn’t felt before begins to fill me up from the inside out; a fire, burning my chest as it tries to rake its way outward, flooding my veins. It’s extremely uncomfortable, so I release my hold on it and let it fill me. An image of the blonde girl flashes in my mind, and I feel at peace for a moment. Then, God places his hands on my shoulders and the girl is gone. Katherine, her name is. I feel her inside of me, her light burning, her heart beating and her feelings.
“She needs you as much as you need her, Tristan. You are not only hurting yourself, but hurting her, too. Without you, she won’t survive. You see, Tristan, every one of my children has a protector, an angel sent to this Earth to make them happy, to make them strong. You were blind to this fact, Tristan, as are all the others. If you wish to return to your earthly body, you may have a second chance,” he says, pausing.
“Please,” I beg, falling to my knees. I need this angel- this Katherine- in my life. I need my life. I need her to heal my soul. “I am sorry, Lord. Please, I need this,” I say, feeling despair fill me.
“You need to accept my will; without it, I will not let you return,” God says. I nod, feeling a lightness fill me as he smiles. “Tristan, this act will not go un-punished. You defied me; turned your back on me when I could have helped you. You will search for Katherine, but you will find her wounded. Your Punishment requires you to face the reciprocations of your Earthly actions. Also, your own feelings will be dulled, but you will feel Katherine’s, and hers will be heightened. Her fate is sealed, Tristan. You have watched her kill herself, and you will have to feel her struggle to stay together.
“Because you accept my will, Katherine
shall live. The vision I showed you, of her death, is from the future; two years ahead of our time. Until then, she will feel what you should have been feeling for the past two months, for she has been punished as well for her future act of defiance. When you feel your emotions returning, that is when you should pay extremely close attention to those around you. Tristan, I am a loving God, but turning your back on me is the most wretched kind of blasphemy, and this is your Punishment. This is what you need to heal your soul. This is what you need to make things right,” he finishes.
I wasn’t sure whether to cry or jump with joy; she’s safe, I’m safe, we both get second chances. I was still confused, not quite grasping the information being hurled at me, but nevertheless I was elated at the fact that I would return to find her.
* * *
I stare at Katherine’s shocked face, not sure whether to say something or just shut up. She makes the decision for me as tears pour from her eyes, spilling onto her pale cheeks and dripping off the sides of her face. About to open my mouth, I watch as Katherine sits upright and buries her face in her hands, releasing a sob so fierce I feel an ache in my stomach.
“Katie?” I say, sitting up and moving to face her. No response, just heartbroken sobs. “Katherine?” this time, I try grasping her hand, but she pulls away from me and my heart drops into my stomach. Did I unload too much on her? Too soon? Desperate for her to acknowledge me, I say, “Please don’t cry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
She cuts me off with a look so disbelieving it shocks me. “You think I’m mad at you?” Katherine shakes her head, tears flinging off her cheeks like salty rain. “I can’t believe you- you would think that,” she lets out another sob, covering her face with her hands again. Before I have time to say something else, she sits up straight, hands traveling forward and grasping my face.
Pieces of a Mending Heart Page 7
