Falling Away

by Jasinda Wilder

  "Okay, thank you, Doctor." The doctor turns and leaves, and Brayden rubs his face vigorously with both hands, then looks at me. "Can I get a ride from you? My Jeep is still at the bar."

  "Sure. Come on."

  I drive him back to the bar and drop him off beside his old red Wrangler. Before he gets out, he glances at me. In this moment, he looks young, small, and tired. "She'll be okay, right?"

  I can't summon a smile. Don't even try. "I hope so. I really hope so."

  I go home, and collapse facedown onto my bed. I hear my door creak, and I know it's Mom, checking on me. "I'm fine, Mom. I don't want to talk about it. A...friend had an...emergency."

  "Is she okay?" Mom's voice is quiet, compassionate.

  How does she know it's a her? I roll to my side and glance at her. "I don't know. Maybe."

  "Being there for a friend who is going through a hard time is understandable, Benny," Mom says, perching on the edge of the bed beside me, trailing a hand over my forehead. "Just don't let it bring you down, okay?"

  "Doing my best."

  She smiles at me. "I know. Just...sometimes, we have to know when to walk away and let them find their own way."

  "I can't walk away. Not again."

  Mom nods, her eyes knowing. "Like I said, just...don't let it bring you down too, okay?"

  "Okay."

  I fall asleep and dream of sirens and ambulances, blood and vomit and hanging braids and Echo gasping, apologizing, Oz bleeding, a smoking, crumpled hood, Echo telling me goodbye, Kylie's face as I walk away...I dream of everything, of hell and pain and all the things that haunt me.

  Waking up is a relief.

  FOURTEEN: No Man Is An Island

  Echo

  Waking up consistently sucks. More mornings than not, I loathe the moment consciousness floods through me. Waking up brings pain. Emotional pain, mental pain, physical pain.

  I don't want to wake up. I keep my eyes closed and plead with whatever the fuck is out there--or isn't--to let me back under, to let me stay under where there's no pain.

  But there's only waking up, my head throbbing, a viciously raw throat, a stabbing pain in my stomach. I'm dizzy, sore, confused, sluggish. I'm awake for a long time before anyone shows up to check on me. I use that time to try to remember what happened, why I'm in the hospital.

  I remember being at home, drinking hard. Hating myself. Hating being me, hating my life, hating being awake. Wanting to sleep, just...sleep. Not think, not feel. I remember not caring that I had a gig. For the first time I can remember, I didn't want to sing, didn't want to perform. I just wanted to sleep.

  I remember going to the bathroom and happening across a bottle of Vicodin Bray had left at my place, a while ago. I remember how I'd taken a Vic and then had a couple drinks, how tired I got, sleeping for twelve hours straight. If one pill and a couple drinks could do that...

  Oh god.

  I remember downing all of them, one by one, chasing them with the Beam. And then Bray showed up and physically dragged me to the gig. By which point I'd already finished the fifth, my second in two days. But he didn't know that, or that I'd taken the pills. It was all starting to hit me, I remember that, too. He dragged me to the show because he knows under most circumstances that getting on stage and singing it out will cure what ails me. Temporarily, at least.

  I remember getting sleepy, so tired, being pulled under, feeling sick...

  I thought I saw Ben, but I don't trust that memory.

  A doctor sweeps into my hospital room, then. He's tall, dark-haired, and stern, anywhere from thirty to fifty years old. It's hard to tell, being clean-shaven with a youthful face, but his eyes are hard and tired. "Miss Leveaux."

  "Doctor." I have no desire to talk to him, to hear his recriminations and faux-concern.

  "How are you feeling?"

  "Shitty."

  He nods as if this is exactly how I should feel. "Well, I suppose this is to be expected, under the circumstances."

  "Yeah? What the fuck do you know about my circumstances?" I sound hostile, because I feel hostile. I can feel him judging me, even before he opens his mouth.

  "I know you recently lost your mother which, understandably, has led to some...emotional distress, you might say."

  I just stare at him, knowing I should hold my tongue, because he's just doing his job. But does he have to be such a pompous dick about it?

  "Emotional distress," I repeat. "Yeah, you could say that."

  "And, sometimes, when we're under extreme duress, we may find ourselves making decisions that--"

  "Don't lump yourself in with me, asshole. You don't know shit about me, and you don't know shit about my emotional duress or whatever the fuck you just said. When can I get out of here?"

  He frowns at me, but doesn't seem fazed by my outburst or my profanity. "Well, we'll have to do a few tests to make sure you didn't do any lasting damage to yourself. Can you tell me how many pills you swallowed, and how much alcohol you drank?"

  I sigh, and try not to snap at him. "I wasn't really counting the pills, but...nine or ten, I guess. As for how much I had to drink? That day? Or...?"

  "I see. Yes, how much did you have to drink yesterday?"

  "A fifth, or most of it. I don't remember. They're all starting to blur together at this point." No sense in lying about it, right?

  "I see."

  "You see, do you? You know what, I really don't think you do fucking see, Doctor."

  "Loss affects us all differently, Miss Leveaux." He sets the chart down on his lap, clicks his slim silver pen closed, and regards me for a moment. "For example, when my wife passed away from breast cancer some years ago, I worked double and even triple shifts every single day for three months. I barely slept, barely ate. Eventually the hospital director had to have me forcibly removed from the hospital. So you see, perhaps I do, after all, see. Just a little bit, at least."

  "I'm sorry for your loss, Doctor. And maybe you do get it, but don't sit there and act like you get me, okay? Because you don't. No one does." Why am I saying this shit to him? He's not even a psychiatrist. He's just some ER doctor.

  "You know, it's in times like these that I remember John Donne, who wrote in his seventeenth meditation that 'No man is an island.' People quote that a lot, but they always stop at that first part. The rest of it makes it all so much clearer, you see. You need the quote in its entirety: 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.' We're all a part of a whole, whether we want to be or not, whether we think we are or not. And, you know, the phrase 'for whom the bell tolls' that Hemingway made famous also comes from that same writing of Donne's."

  The doctor leans back, crosses his legs at the ankle, and pokes at the corner of his mouth with his pen. The hardness of an ER doctor has faded, replaced by a softer and more introspective philosopher. "He opens the meditation with a bit of Latin: 'Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris', which translates to: 'Now this bell, tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.' Donne then elucidates upon that phrase, saying, 'Perchance, he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him.' It's all subjective, of course, but I've always taken this to mean that we often don't see what's right in front of us, we don't see our own afflictions for what they truly are. He writes much on affliction, Donne does, and how it not only glorifies God, but strengthens us. We often fail to see this, though, and we even more frequently, and sadly, fail to see the help that lies waiting for us, so close to hand. And I'm not speaking of God, Miss Leveaux. There is always help to be found. Donne's point in the bit about no man being an island is that we are not alone. We aren't each of us this disconnected and disconsolate dot of dirt in a sea of misery. We think we are, but it's just not true. 'Any man's death diminishes me,' Donne also writes, 'because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'"

  I just stare at him, unable to process the sudden influx of seventee
nth-century poetry, or whatever the hell. I just stare at him, because even though I refuse to show it or admit it, even to myself, his words have a profound effect on me. I swallow hard and keep my gaze level, even, keep my emotions tamped down.

  "Thank you, Doctor." It's all I can manage.

  He nods, prepares to stand up, and the philosopher has vanished, replaced by the brusque, efficient doctor. "Because you're classified as an attempted suicide, a psychiatric assessment is required before I can discharge you. Part of your discharge process will include referrals to qualified mental health professionals in the area. Seek help, Miss Leveaux. There is no embarrassment in needing help, every once in a while. It doesn't make you weak, it merely makes you human, just like the rest of us."

  I say nothing, do nothing, and he leaves.

  The evaluation is fairly standard, and I cooperate, if only so I can get out of this damn hospital. Seek help, he says. Right. It's not about weakness. That's what I didn't say to him. It's not about being afraid of being seen as weak, it's that help is a fallacy. An illusion. There is no help.

  And I am an island. I always have been.

  When the hospital shrink finally leaves, I sit in silence for a long, long time; it's unmitigated hell. Silence is my enemy. Where there's silence, there are endless thoughts, the cycle of guilt and grief and heartache and regret, all unending and spinning through me until I can't breathe or move or speak or get out from under the weight of it all. It's why I drank, and it's why I took the pills. Not because I wanted to die. It wasn't about death, or ending it all. It was just about wanting to silence the noise, needing to stop the cycle in my head and my heart. I'm not suicidal. I'm just fucked up, and don't know how to fix it.

  The door to my room swings open, and Brayden walks in. He's such a beautiful boy. Tall and slim and sleek, brown hair and such uniquely dark blue eyes, such killer fashion sensibility. He's always put together. Brayden's constant presence has been a reassurance to me in the past few years. He's always there, and he's always handsome and sophisticated, and so talented; those delicate, manicured hands of his can make a mandolin sing like an angel.

  Yet, as he enters my hospital room, he's not put together. He has dark circles under his eyes, he's unshaven, and he's wearing the same clothes as yesterday. He looks haunted, exhausted.

  He drags a chair over to my bedside, and he sits down, stares at me without speaking. When he does, his voice breaks, and his eyes waver, shine, fill with tears. "Fuck you, Echo Leveaux. Fuck you for doing that to me."

  That is so not what I expected from him. "Bray, I--"

  "You what? What can you say to me, Echo? After all we've been through, you...you try to kill yourself? What can you say to me? What can you possibly say that can erase what I just went through? Watching you collapse, watching you make a fool of yourself in front of a hundred and fifty people? Watching you vomit all over yourself, all over Ben? Watching you puke blood? Watching you--watching you stop breathing? How could you...how could you be so--so fucking selfish?" He shouts that last part so loudly I flinch backward, shocked and horrified. Brayden is not a loud or angry person, making this so, so much worse.

  "That ride to the hospital...that was the longest ride of my life, Echo. You're all I have left. You know that. You know that! You were there when I told them, Echo. You--you heard what they said. 'No son of ours', they said. 'Never show your face here,' they said. And you heard it. I've never pushed you, Echo. I always let you have your space. I let you push me away when you're hurting. I let you drink yourself into a stupor because, god, I know how bad you need to do that sometimes, and I fucking get it. You can't trust anyone, and I get it. I don't trust anyone either, except you. Except now...can I even trust you anymore? I don't know. You--you fucking O.D. on my goddamn Vicodin? How could you?"

  I get angry. "It's not about you, Brayden!" I shout.

  "That's just your problem, Echo! You don't realize that it is about me!" He's shouting back. "You just don't see that there are people all around you who care, who want to be there for you, but you just won't let us! You don't see that all of us in the band love you! And you don't see that we have our own drama to deal with, no, you only see yours. Vance? His dad is an alcoholic, and beat him bloody every single day of his life until he finally got away. Atticus? His brother offed himself last year. But you didn't know that, did you? Because you're so sucked into your own head all the fucking time! Mim is the most normal of us, and she's so fucking insecure about herself that she dresses like a guy to disguise her body, and god only knows what happened to make her that way. Will does coke, did you know that? He snorts mountains of the shit. He's gonna be the next one to O.D., I'm guessing, which is just super. And me? The one who can't figure out if he likes girls or boys better? My parents disowned me, and my brother hates me because his best friend fell in love with me, his male best friend, and we won't even go into my sister.

  "Didn't know any of that, did you? And oh, wait! There's Ben, who you didn't fucking tell me about! Ben, who sat out in that waiting room for six hours, who you vomited on, who was fucking sobbing over you. I don't even know what the deal is there, but I can guess. He likes you, but you just can't have that, so you push him away because god forbid you give anyone a chance. God forbid you let anyone in, even a little bit. Yeah, I've been hurt and betrayed and cheated on too, and that's by guys and girls, and I still take a chance on people. But you...oh no. You just shut us all out, and when it's all too much, instead of letting us help you, you pop a bunch of Vicodin and wash it all down with a bottle of whiskey. Because that's better than trusting me, or Ben, or anyone, apparently. But yeah, you're right. It's not about me, is it?"

  He stands up, moves toward the door. "I love you, Echo. I want to be there for you. I have been, and I will be. But I will not sit by and watch you do this to yourself. This is your last chance with me, babe. Do this again, and I'm gone. And if I go, so will the band. It's not an ultimatum, or a threat. It's just...the facts." He gives me one last sad glance. "Get help, Echo."

  And then he's gone without a goodbye or a backward glance, and I'm trying to cry, but I just can't, because it's all stuck inside me. Just...stuck.

  Moments later--or maybe it's minutes, or even hours--the door opens again, and Ben comes in. I groan and slide down to the horizontal, cover my face with the thin white scratchy blanket. "It is you," I say. "I was hoping you were a hallucination."

  "Wow. What a welcome." He sounds bitter, unsurprisingly.

  "I don't want you to see me like this."

  "Too late. I've already seen you at your worst, Echo, or did you forget how we met?"

  I'm not done being self-destructive, clearly, judging by my next words. "Go away, Ben."

  "So it's like that, is it?"

  I shake my head. "No, I--" I fight a sob. "You deserve better than this, Ben. I--I regret how I ended things. But...I just...I need some time, okay? I need--I need to get--" It's too hard to even finish. It's all a hot wet hard knot in my throat, Brayden's righteous, justified anger, my embarrassment, my regret, my guilt, it's all too much.

  "Okay, Echo. It's fine. I get it." He stands up, and I notice he has a new cane, a polished length of shiny brown wood with a curving silver handle.

  I reach for him, grab at his arm, desperate to make him understand. "No, Ben, please, just wait a second."

  "You just told me to go away, that you need time--"

  "But I'm not...I'm not pushing you away, okay? I just--I fucked everything up. I'm a mess, an awful shitty mess, and I want to--clean myself up, I guess. I don't want you to go away, not forever. I just want you to see me when I have something to offer besides..." I choke on my words, my tears, "besides what I am right now."

  "But Echo, don't you get it? I care about who you are right now, regardless of what you think you have to offer or not."

  "That's because you're a better person than I am." I breathe slowly and deeply in an attempt to sound halfway intelligible. "Maybe this is me still being selfish, b
ut I don't want you to be with me when I'm like this. I want better for you from me, for myself. God, that doesn't even make any sense. It sounded better in my head."

  "No, I get it." He grabs my hand, his big, rough, tanned palm engulfing mine. "I'm here, though, okay?"

  "You'll wait?" I pull at him, wanting his proximity, now that he's here and he's real and he doesn't seem to hate me. "You'll wait for me?"

  He nods. "I'll wait."

  I gaze up at him. I feel so needy, all of a sudden. Like all the years of holding myself rigidly strong and never needing anyone have left me empty inside and hungry for whatever I can get.

  "Kiss me?" I ask, feeling small and hopeful.

  He stares at me for a long moment, and then his brows draw down and his expression shifts to reflect some inner pain. "No, Echo. See, I'm selfish too. I want all of you. I don't just want one kiss because you feel bad about yourself."

  He crouches at my bedside, and I roll to face him, and he has both of my hands in his. Tears stream down my face. "Ben--"

  He ignores me and keeps talking. "I want more than one kiss. I want more than one night, more than one tumble in the sheets."

  "But I don't know how--"

  "It's simple, Echo. You just have to learn how to be totally vulnerable, that's all."

  I laugh. "Is that all? Just bare all my secrets, just like that? Just...be totally vulnerable?"

  "That's all."

  I sniff and roll onto my back, stare at the ceiling through blurry, red-rimmed eyes. "Let me just rip my chest open real quick, then." I say it with a laugh, but the laugh turns to a sob, and then I'm sobbing hard, and then I have to twist to the side so he doesn't see how terrified I am. I'm crying because it's impossible, because I just don't know how to do what he wants.

  "Do it, Echo. Rip your chest open, and let me in. Let me see you bleed. I can't promise I can make it all okay, because I can't. But I can promise to be there when it's not."

  I look at him over my shoulder, my body still facing away, and my hair obscures my vision, so I don't see him coming, I smell him first--soap, shampoo, cologne, and that otherness of Ben-scent--and then I feel him, an all-consuming presence over me, fingertips brushing my hair away, hand cupping under my neck and lifting my head, and his lips touch mine softly, briefly, gently.