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by Christina Kilbourne


  “But I don’t want another chance.”

  A hot sensation at the back of my eyes surprised me.

  “You haven’t been thinking right, Anna. We’ve been putting a lot of stuff together and the doctor thinks you’ve been … suffering from depression. You need to be on medication.”

  “That’s ironic,” I said. The joke was new to him, but he didn’t appreciate it at all.

  Joe frowned. “Yeah, I guess.”

  A nurse came into the room and checked the machines around my bed. I was hooked up to a bunch of equipment through all sorts of probes and patches.

  “Ah, you’re awake!” she said energetically. “It’s nice to see you with your eyes open. Just ring if you need anything.” She pointed at a buzzer attached to my bed.

  When she left it took us a minute to look at each other again.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  Joe took such a long breath in, I thought he might blow up like a balloon and float away.

  “I mean, after I swallowed the pills. I know that part already.”

  “Well, Sherlock started barking. I guess he knew you were in trouble. The doctor said there’s a chance you had a seizure and it might have triggered him. I guess he barked so much the Rodman’s got worried and came over. They heard the TV on and the phone ringing, but they couldn’t get you to answer the door so they used the spare key. When they found you unconscious, they called 911. It was the paramedics who figured it out when they saw the empty cough syrup bottles.”

  So Sherlock was the hero. Somehow that didn’t seem so bad. At least he wouldn’t be all over the news for the next three months.

  “That’s all?”

  “Once you got here there was a bunch of other stuff. They pumped your stomach and gave you something to reverse the effects of the pills. You were on a respirator for a while because you weren’t breathing on your own.”

  “I guess you’re wondering why I did it?”

  “A bit. But mostly I’m concerned about making sure you don’t do it again.”

  I turned away. I was afraid he was going to try and extract a promise.

  “Anyhow, Dad really wants to get in here and talk to you too, so I’ll come back later.”

  They must have all been briefed by the same shrink because Dad said the same things as Joe and Mom. He said they could never be angry, just grateful I was alive, and we were all going to work together to make sure I got the treatment I needed. I would have peed myself when he said treatment if I wasn’t hooked up to a catheter.

  “When do I get to go home?” I asked after he’d stood looking at me for a few minutes without saying a word. There’s nothing worse than someone standing above you, watching you lie in a hospital bed when you’d planned to be dead.

  “I’m not sure, honey.”

  “Am I going to be okay?”

  “The doctors say your body is recovering. Luckily they got to you before there was any permanent damage. Your brain seems to be functioning normally and they’re confident your liver is okay.”

  “So, then probably pretty soon?” I asked hopefully.

  Aliya

  The news of Anna’s suicide ripped across Facebook faster than a tornado across the prairies. Kyle contacted me a couple of hours after I talked to the neighbour on the phone. Somehow I’d managed to finish watching Thelma and Louise with my mother, which in hindsight was not a good choice of movies. Then I’d taken myself to bed in a show of sleepiness and turned off my light while my mind raced and my heart shattered, in the dark, in slow motion.

  Have you been on Facebook? he texted.

  Yep

  It was after midnight and I hadn’t taken my eyes off my phone even for a second. I was trolling Facebook, email, and text messages for information, for updates, for hope. Nothing had turned up on Joe’s profile, but there were text whispers among Bachman students about an ambulance and an overdose from someone who knew someone who lived on Anna’s street.

  Do you think it’s true?

  Dunno, I lied.

  I couldn’t have this conversation by text with tiny words and insufficient emojis that had no connection to reality.

  Probably just someone wanting to trash her reputation. Wouldn’t be the first time someone was supposedly pregnant or dead.

  Can you get out of the house? Like now? I felt desperate. I needed to see someone real, someone alive who I could talk to and who loved Anna as much as I did. I needed to be near someone who wasn’t my mother sleeping five feet away in the next room, oblivious to the fact that my best friend was in the hospital, at best, or in the morgue, at worst.

  I knew I looked like crap in my baggy PJ pants and an old sweatshirt of my mother’s, but I crept through the living room and looked at myself in the hallway mirror. My eyes were beyond puffy and as red as tomato juice. I looked like I should be in bed, like I had a contagious disease, maybe pink eye or Ebola.

  “Are you sick?” Kyle asked when he found me at the twenty-four-hour doughnut shop sipping on a hot chocolate. I had one waiting for him as well. He sat down and fiddled with the plastic lid, but he didn’t take a drink.

  “I’m not sick,” I said and wiped my nose with the sleeve of my mother’s sweatshirt.

  The place was practically empty, just a couple of loud, blinged-out cougars eating apple fritters at a table in the corner, and some sort of construction worker in an orange vest paying for a tray of takeout coffees. The girl behind the counter looked like she wished she was in bed.

  “It’s true?” Kyle said in a voice so stunned and quiet it was almost a whisper.

  That’s when I watched reality crash into Kyle. He looked like he did the time he missed his back flip in the Christmas recital and landed on his stomach instead of on his feet. For a second he couldn’t breathe.

  “It’s true,” I squeaked. “I’m so freaked out I can’t stop crying. I think I’m losing it.”

  “She’s dead?”

  I don’t think he actually said the words aloud, but I must have read his lips, or his mind.

  “I think she’s still alive.”

  “She’s in the hospital?”

  I nodded and rested my head against the wall.

  “When did you find out?”

  “I read her Facebook status earlier and thought it was weird. Something about Cherry Coke and Skittles. I tried to Facebook and text and email her, but she wasn’t online. Then I tried to call the house and the neighbour picked up, thinking it might be her parents. I think he called the ambulance.”

  “Have you talked to her parents?”

  “Nobody’s answering at home and her brother hasn’t been on Facebook all night. I called the hospital, but all they would say was that she was admitted to the CCU. I had to pretend to be her cousin to get that much information.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Neighbour didn’t say.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t do something sooner.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had a feeling something was wrong. Remember I told you guys she was acting weird? But you all thought I was being a drama queen.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I really didn’t think …”

  Talk about too little too late. Kyle lowered his face to the table. I saw his shoulders start to tremble so I shifted to the seat beside him and wrapped my arms around him.

  “You want to get out of here?” I asked.

  He nodded and sniffled. “Let’s go to the hospital.”

  “They won’t let us see her, but at least we can be nearby.”

  Kyle and I walked out of the doughnut shop a few minutes later. I figured if my mom woke up and noticed me missing, I’d deal with it later. Kyle texted Sam and begged him to run interference with their parents, which was an e
asy ask since Sam owed him about a hundred favours anyway. Then we caught a late-night bus downtown.

  When we arrived at the hospital we got cups of coffee from the cafeteria and sat together in the far corner of the waiting room. We didn’t say much, but being there felt like the right thing, at least at first it did.

  I’ve met Anna’s parents hundreds of times and her brother enough times to know he has a birthmark the shape of New Zealand on his back and that one of his ears is lower than the other. I’ve slept in their house and done cannonballs in their pool. I’ve eaten dinners and breakfasts and lunches in their kitchen, and sat at their table so many times I have my own place-mat. But that night, I didn’t recognize her mother or her father, or even Joe. I saw three people huddled on the opposite side of the waiting room. I registered fear in the set of their shoulders and the tremble of despair in their hands. But it took me by surprise when I finally heard Joe say her name and start to sob.

  I nudged Kyle.

  “That’s her parents and her brother, Joe.”

  “Should we go say hi or something? At least ask how she’s doing?” he asked. He sipped his coffee and stared straight ahead with a freaky intensity.

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to decide if they’d feel better knowing we’re here or if they’d rather be left alone.”

  “What if they have bad news?”

  “It can’t be totally bad if they’re still here,” I pointed out. It was a grim observation, but at the moment I had my mind wrapped tightly, like the arms of a terrified child, around hope.

  We watched them while we decided what to do. The only time Joe sat still was when he cried. Then he got up and paced the room. Then he left altogether. Then he came back. Then he sat down to bury his head in his hands again. Every atom of his being was in utter agony and he never once glanced our way or looked at any of the other people hunched miserably in the waiting room. Anna’s father looked as stunned as I felt. Sometimes he left the room and Anna’s mother would shadow Joe. She was pale. In fact, she had so little colour she looked almost transparent. Her skin seemed to glow with fear. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I’ve never seen anyone look as much like a ghost as she did. I hated being there watching them, but I didn’t know what else to do either.

  Finally a doctor came to the edge of the waiting room, but he paused too long after he confirmed they were Anna’s family, then pulled them around the corner, just beyond where Kyle and I were sitting. I strained to listen but all I heard was silence while he searched for the right words. If he’d ever had to deliver bad news before, it sure didn’t seem like it. Or maybe there is no good way to deliver bad news. Either way, my blood pressure soared while he took a deep breath. I thought I was going to pass out and had to put my head between my knees.

  “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Anna’s mother said quickly, before the doctor could muster the courage to speak.

  “There’s no misunderstanding,” he said quietly. “Based on the contents of her stomach, it’s obvious what happened. We’ve done what we can, for now, but she’s in critical condition.”

  The word critical came out like a whip and I shrank into my shoulders.

  “All we can do is wait and see what happens. And hope she has enough fight in her to get through the next few hours.”

  His last line knocked me completely off balance. I felt like I’d dropped from the edge of the planet and was free-falling through space.

  Kyle and I sat there for a few more minutes, and cycled up and down through our emotions so fast I think we used up a decade of energy. You know how they say your life can change in an instant? I get that now. Nothing is ever going to be the same for me, ever. Nothing is ever going to be guaranteed again: not the ground I walk on, not the fact that I will wake up in the morning with nothing more to worry about than my next exam, and especially not the fact that my friends are happy, safe, and just a short bus ride away. The cup of coffee I brought into the waiting room was like something I’d never tasted before. I’d probably sucked back forty gallons of it in the last year alone, and yet the bitter taste on my tongue was suddenly unfamiliar. Everything felt lopsided, like in one of those funhouses you see at fairs. Nothing lined up and the pieces didn’t fit together. I couldn’t get within a thousand miles of a reason why my very own best friend would want to hurt herself. I felt like I was being punished for something I didn’t do.

  After a while Kyle stood up and paced a circle in front of me. I thought he was just jittery from the coffee. But then he said, “We’ve got to get out of here. Let’s go.”

  “Why?”

  “I dunno. I just feel like we shouldn’t be here suddenly. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  I didn’t understand, but I was too scared not to follow. I knew Kyle needed me more than Anna did at that point. When we got outside, Kyle sat down on a bench and took a huge breath of fresh air.

  “I wanted to say something. Just to let them know we’re thinking of her or something. But I couldn’t think of what to say. Nothing seemed right. I mean, what if I said the totally wrong thing?”

  I knew what he meant. It felt as if my brain had quit working. I couldn’t find the right words to say, or think of the right things to do either. I felt numb with disbelief. Nothing made sense. The harder I tried to think of a good reason why Anna might have wanted to kill herself the more I realized the world was a random place, and it scared the crap out of me.

  Anna

  I begged them not to put me in the loony bin. I even managed a few tears. But they both looked at me and Mom said, “We love you too much to get this wrong.”

  “I’ve changed my mind. It’s okay now,” I said. “I think I was just upset about Granny and Gramps. I mean, if that stupid drunk hadn’t been speeding …”

  “We can’t take a chance. It won’t be for long. Once the medication takes effect and they think you’re stable enough, they’ll let you come home.”

  I was being transferred later that day. My new best friend, my shrink, was going to escort me because nobody thought Mom and Dad would have the guts to go through with it. If I didn’t change their minds in the next five minutes, I didn’t stand a chance.

  “I promise. I won’t try it again. I promise!” I said over and over.

  “We know about the other times, sweetheart. We’ve been piecing things together. This wasn’t an isolated incident. I hate to think where we’d be right now if just one of those five times …” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  I sat stunned. I knew they didn’t have to be Einstein to figure out the river incident and perhaps even the hanging. But how could they have pieced together my walk across suicide bridge and the time I scoped out the busy highway? I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to defend myself, say that the bridge and highway didn’t count, but I wasn’t sure how much they knew and I didn’t want to give anything away.

  “We found your list, Anna,” Dad said. He has a way of boiling things down. This time reality crashed down like a tsunami. I felt the weight land on me and threaten to flatten me to the ground. Mom finally cracked and started to cry.

  “I’m sorry. I promised I wouldn’t cry. I’ll come see you next week and you can call us once a day,” she said, then gave me a short, tight hug and left the room.

  I stared at Dad. I couldn’t very well throw a fit and accuse him of invading my privacy, but still, I was shocked they’d found the list and I wondered what else they’d found. Dad was pulling out all of his psychic tricks.

  “We found Granny’s ring too. Actually, Joe found that. And he did something with your laptop so we could see the websites you’d been to. That’s what convinced us to talk to your friends, and I’m glad we did. It helped us put everything together.”

  I slumped into a plastic chair and buried my head in my hands.

  “This is only going to make things worse. I know it. At least I h
ad some sort of routine before. I won’t be able to handle it in there with a bunch of psychos.”

  “They know what they’re doing,” Dad said firmly.

  From the tone of his voice, I knew he was about to leave too.

  “I love you, honey. I really do. Maybe I should have said that more …”

  “It’s not about being loved or not being loved,” I said sullenly. It was the first time I’d let myself consider what it was about.

  He didn’t answer, but he kissed me on the cheek and then lingered a moment with his chin on the top of my head. I heard his breath catch in his throat before he turned to leave. He didn’t dare look back as he went through the door.

  Maybe this is rock bottom, I thought.

  The loony bin was like a hospital and a jail rolled into one. There was no privacy and I didn’t have control over anything. I got told when to wake up, when to wash, when to exercise, when to eat, when to take my medication, when to sleep. When I wasn’t in group therapy or talking to the shrink, I was basically eating or sleeping or trying to avoid the other crazy people who actually belonged there. The place made me feel like I was nuts, and if I wasn’t depressed before I arrived, I was a prime candidate after one day. But there was no way to hide or make excuses and there was definitely no way to kill yourself. We were supervised while we ate so we couldn’t construct weapons from our cutlery. There were no knives and the dishes were made of some heavy-duty unbreakable plastic. They didn’t let us wear jewellery, scarves, or belts and we couldn’t wear clothing with any sort of strings or ties. I couldn’t even wear a bra or underpants. And they definitely didn’t let us have shoelaces, so everyone sort of shuffled and clomped around in sloppy running shoes. The noise was enough to drive me mad. I had to be supervised even when I went to the washroom. I don’t know what they were afraid of me doing. There wasn’t enough alcohol in my acne wipes to kill a fly and I doubt I could do much damage with a toothbrush, which was about all I was allowed to have.

  When Mom and Dad came to visit the first time, I freaked out. I told them the antidepressants weren’t working.

 

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