I almost hung up, scared as hell to say anything. “Maggie! Is that you?” My mom pleaded. I took a deep breath. “Yes mom, it's me.” I whispered. I heard her choking back a sob. “Oh my God, are you all right? Where are you?” She asked me.
“I'm fine, mom. Clay and I are in North Carolina...” “North Carolina! What are you doing there?” I didn't answer her- not sure what to tell her. My mom seemed to make an effort to pull herself together. “Please tell me he isn't keeping you there against your will.” My mother asked as calmly as she was able.
“No, I left willingly.” I assured her. My mom sighed in relief. “Okay. Well, that's something, I suppose. Clay's parents have shared some things about Clay that have your father and I worried sick. He isn't hurting you is he?” My mom asked and I could tell she was crying.
“God, no mom. Clay would never hurt me! What have Clay's parents told you?” I asked coldly. “That Clay has a history of violent and suicidal behaviors. His mother said he needs to be back in treatment but he refuses to go. Then she told us that he....that he tried to stab them.” I blew out a breath. “It wasn't like that, Mom. Please don't believe everything they tell you.” I urged.
“So you're saying there's nothing to these stories they told us? That they're making everything up?” My mother asked in disbelief. Here was the moment of truth. Do I lie, like I've been doing for months? Or do I finally come clean?
I was silent for awhile, prompting my mother to say my name again. “Maggie? What is it?” She asked. I felt the tears slide down my cheeks and suddenly I was sobbing. I cried and cried until there was nothing left. And then I told my mom everything. Every last bit of Clay's story. This was the second time in as many days that I had shared what was going on. And it felt good to do so. I had been holding onto this stuff for too long and I couldn't shoulder it alone any longer.
“My god, Maggie May. Why in the world didn't you say something?” She asked, her voice quiet and hurting. I sighed after I had calmed down. “You would have just told me to stay away from him. I know how you feel about Clay. You haven't tried to hide it. And he needed me. I couldn't turn my back on him like everyone else had. I love him!” I struggled to keep my voice down, not wanting to wake Clay.
My mom was quiet for awhile. “You're right. We would have judged him. I would have told you to never talk to him again. And that's wrong. I'm sorry.” My mom's words surprised me. “You're sorry?” I asked, needing clarification.
“Yes, Maggie. Because maybe if your father and I hadn't been so narrow minded, you would have felt you could talk to us. Because we know Clay isn't a bad kid. But he needs help. And we'd like to help you both. If you'll let us.”
She said exactly what I needed to hear. I wanted my parents. I needed their help to figure out what to do for Clay. “I want to come home too. I'm worried about him. But what about his parents? The charges? I can't walk him back into all that.” I argued. I looked back at the motel door, making sure I was still alone.
My mom sighed again. “I know sweetie. I don't know what will happen. But I do know, being on your own, trying to deal with all of this by yourself, is not the way to handle it. Clay needs help, serious help. I'm scared for you. And him. I know you love him, but there's no way out of this but coming home and facing things. And I swear, darling, your father and I will help you both in any way that we can.”
My mom had officially broken through all of my arguments. And I was tired of fighting them and everything else. My heart hurt to think of what would become of Clay. But what would happen if we stayed on the run? And he continued to fade away. What would happen to him then? Or me? It was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. But one thing was for sure, I needed my family. Maybe more than I needed Clay at that moment. Because I was in way over my head and I was scared to death of making the wrong choice.
“Okay Mom. I know you're right. Clay needs help. I'll get him home. One way or another. I'll let you know when we're on our way.” I said. I heard my mom's relief. “Oh thank God! Please be careful! And call us!” I told her that I loved her and hung up.
“I'm not going back there!” Clay growled from behind me. I whipped around, to see him standing in the doorway. How much had he heard? How did I not hear him open the door?
He looked livid. “How could you do this to me? I trusted you!” He yelled at me, the betrayal on his face stinging me. “Clay, please. Just listen!” I begged. Clay's eyes flashed at me and I saw how hurt he was underneath the anger.
“After everything I've told you. You know what they'll do to me if I go back. And you're trying to hand me over like a goddamn birthday present! They'll lock me up! I thought you loved me! What a fucking lie!” His voice became dangerously quiet.
I tried to reach for him but he yanked his arm away. “I do love you, Clay! I'm just so worried about you! I just think you need help...” Clay's bitter laugh cut me off. “Help? Help?” His voice rose. “You don't know a damn thing about what I need! You're just as bad as them. No, actually you're worse, because at least my parents never pretended to love me. I knew what I was getting with them.” My mouth gaped open, not being able to believe the hatefulness spewing from my boyfriend's mouth.
Clay gripped his hair in his hands as though he were going to pull it out. It was clear something in him had snapped. That I pushed him over the edge. “But you! I thought I was safe with you! But you were just biding your time weren't you, Maggie? Until you could get rid of me, just like the rest of them. Well, I hope you're happy, because you're about to get your fucking wish!” Clay bellowed at me, making me flinch. He was being completely irrational. How could he possibly believe the things he was saying to me? Hadn't I proven over and over again how willing I was to sacrifice just about anything for him? If I wasn't so scared for him, I'd probably be seriously pissed off.
I didn't respond, choosing to silently let him vent his crap at me. When he wasn't getting the reaction he obviously wanted, he turned away from me. I tried grabbing him again but he threw my hands off of him with enough force to cause me to fall on my butt. The pain in my backside was instantaneous and took my breath away. “Clay!” I gasped.
He paused a moment but didn't turn around. Did he realize what he had just done? Well if he did, he was beyond caring, because he then disappeared into the room, slamming the door behind him. Shit! I scrambled to my feet and tried to open the door but he had locked it.
I banged on the door. “Let me in, Clay! Please! Will you just listen?” I pleaded as I slammed my hand against the hard wood. “Go away! You're a fucking liar and we are done! You've destroyed everything!” He screamed from the other side. I heard a smash and I started beating the door frantically.
“Clay!!! Open this door now!” The answering reply was the sound of more destruction on the other side of the door. I heard Clay yell and the sound of breaking glass. The horrible noises of Clay's tirade seemed to last forever. I kept banging on the door with my hands until they were bruised and raw. And then it all stopped and everything went eerily quiet. “Clay!” I screamed into the thick wood that separated us. But I heard nothing. Then I felt the fear.
I ran down the sidewalk and into the lobby. I forced myself to slow down and act nonchalant. The same kid that had checked Clay and I in was manning the desk. “Hey. I locked myself out of my room. Can I get a spare key card?” The pimply faced guy barely looked at me. “Room number?” He asked. “Room 43.” I told him. He lazily punched some stuff into the computer.
I stood there for 15 minutes as the guy moved through the required motions with the speed of a snail. I tried to control the urge to reach across the counter and do it myself. Jesus! How long does it take to get a new room key? My skin was crawling with the urge to get back to Clay. “Here. You need another one, it'll cost ya $25.” The guy said, already dismissing me as he turned back to the small, fuzzy-screened TV behind him.
I grabbed the key card and took off back towards our room. It had already taken too long to get back. I q
uickly put the key in the door and pushed. I had to shove with all my strength because something was blocking the other side of the door.
After four or five good shoves, I got through the door and I gasped in horror. It looked like a bomb had gone off. Clay had pulled over the television set and the screen had broken all over the floor. He had pushed the mattress off the bed and ripped and shredded almost all of our clothing.
The item that had been blocking the door was the ancient-looking arm chair. Clay had broken one of the wooden legs and it laid on its side. How could one person do so much damage? “Clay?” I called out, praying for an answer. But, of course there was none.
The bathroom door was closed but I could see light filtering out from the cracks. My stomach felt heavy with dread. The icy fingers of fear spread through my entire body. I turned the handle of the bathroom door, slowly opening it. And then I screamed.
Clay had shattered the mirror and glass lay all over the sink and floor. But what made me scream was the sight of Clay curled on his side in a fetal position on the grubby tile floor. A slowly expanding pool of blood blossoming out around his prostrate body.
I hurried to his side, slipping in his blood and falling hard to my knees. I rolled him onto his back. His eyes were open but glassy and unfocused. His skin was ashen and I had to swallow the vomit rising up in my throat as I took in the sight of his wrists.
He had used glass from the shattered mirror and slashed deep into the skin below his palm in a vertical line, almost all the way up to his elbow. Blood flowed from the injuries at a rate that terrified me.
“No, Clay! No, no, no!” I wept as I ripped the towels from the rack on the wall and wrapped his arms. My tears mingling with his blood on the floor. I pulled Clay's cell phone out of my pocket and dialed 9-1-1. The dispatcher picked up and asked me to state my emergency. “Please! My boyfriend has tried to kill himself! We're at the Motel 6 outside of Glass Lake, near the highway. Room 43.” I gasped out as I tried to staunch the blood that just would not stop flowing out of him.
“Ma'am. How did he try to kill himself?” The lady on the other end was to the point, yet calm. I picked up the jagged piece of glass from the bathroom floor. It was coated in Clay's blood. “He slit his wrists. With a piece of glass.” The dispatcher began to reel off advice on how to slow down the blood loss. To put pressure on the wounds and to try and keep him alert and lucid by talking to him. She assured me the medics were on their way.
“Clay! Please. Talk to me.” His eyes slowly moved to my face, but I wasn't sure he even recognized me. Their expression was dull and practically lifeless. I pressed my hands over his injured wrists, trying to ignore the fact that the towels were slowly soaking in his blood. I wrapped his arms with another towel.
“Don't you dare leave me, Clayton Reed! Not after everything we've been through! How could you do this to me?” I sobbed as I cradled his body to my chest. My hair fell into his face, creating a curtain.
I felt his lips move against my cheek as he struggled to speak. I leaned down and put my ear right in front of his lips. “Sorry. So, so sorry.” He said, over and over again.
His words just made the tears come faster. So I sat there, on the nasty bathroom floor in the middle of nowhere, holding my dying boyfriend as I told him repeatedly how much I loved him and needed him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Finally, the ambulance arrived and everything moved way too fast after that. I was pretty much shoved out of the bathroom as the EMTs took over. They made me leave the motel room and wait outside while they treated Clay. I gnawed at the skin of my lips and paced back and forth in front of the door.
After five minutes or so, the three EMTs came out with Clay on a stretcher. I noticed they had bandaged his wrists with gauze. I could tell he had lost consciousness. Two of the medics loaded Clay into the back of the ambulance while the third turned to me.
“You're the girlfriend?” He asked. He was a large guy with kind eyes. I nodded. “You can get in the back with him. I need to get some information on our way to the hospital.” I jumped up into the back and took a seat beside Clay's motionless form. He was so pale and still that he looked dead already. “Will he be alright?” I asked the EMTs as they hooked Clay up to a million monitors and read out numbers that were meaningless to me.
I heard the siren turn on and we sped away at a lightening pace. The medic with the kind eyes looked at me sympathetically. “It's too soon to say. He lost a lot of blood. How did this happen?” And I just unloaded it all. I told the two EMTs about Clay's history. His previous hospitalizations as well as his unwillingness to stay on medication. I told them about his erratic moods and even about his family life. I wanted them to have a complete history. Hell, I'd tell them about his childhood fear of the dark and the fact he hated brussel sprouts if I thought it would help. The man and woman medics alternated asking several questions pertaining to Clay's medication and how long he had been off of it but other than that, they just listened.
Once we got to the Emergency Room of the local hospital, everything was a blur. Doctors and nurses came as soon as we arrived and whisked Clay away. I tried to follow but, because I wasn't family, I wasn't permitted to go in the back with him. A nurse brought me some soap and a towel and showed me where the bathrooms were. I thought that was quite odd until I got a full on look at myself in the mirror. Oh my god, I looked like I had just survived the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Blood was caked on my face and neck. My jeans were almost black from the knees down with dried blood. My hands were coated with the sticky, flaky stuff and I had to dig it out from underneath my fingernails. I used the soap to wash my skin and then I tried sticking my head beneath the faucet so I could rinse my hair. I felt sick at the sight of the pink water as it swirled down the drain. Thinking that was Clay's life gurgling down into the pipes.
When I was finished, I went back to the front desk where I was directed to the waiting room. I joined twenty other people as I sat in my own personal hell. I alternated between pacing the floor, and hounding the nurses about Clay's status. They never had much to tell me.
Finally around 5:30 in the morning, a nurse came out and called my name. I had been crunched up in the most uncomfortable chair on the planet for the last hour, and I thought my back would break from the crazy position I had put myself in. I jumped to my feet and rushed over to her.
“I'm Maggie Young.” I said a little breathlessly. The nurse gave me a once over. “You're Clayton Reed's girlfriend?” She asked. “Yes. That's me.” The nurse put her hand on my shoulder and pulled me off to the side. “We need to get in contact with Clay's parents. They have to be notified. Do you have a way to reach them?” I started to protest, knowing Clay would hate that. But the nurse, whose name badge read Kelly Burke, RPN, cut me off.
“Maggie. He is a minor. We have to notify his family of his condition.” I felt the tears spill down my cheeks. “Can you please just tell me how he's doing? I'll give you the number. I just need to know what's going on. Please tell me if he's gonna be okay.” I pleaded with her. I saw Nurse Burke waver. “I'm not permitted to share medical information regarding a minor with anyone but his family. But...” She looked around and then back at me. “You saved his life.” She said quietly.
I put my hand to my mouth and tried to stifle the sob that rose up in my throat. Kelly Burke patted my back. “Clay is in ICU and is listed in critical condition. He lost a lot of blood. We had to give him three pints. He's still unconscious but we anticipate he'll be waking soon. We're not sure of the impact his blood loss has had on the rest of his organs and won't know until he wakes up.” She cleared her throat and dropped her voice even lower.
“Aside from the physical ramifications, there are the psychological impacts that factor as well. The staff psychiatrist has been notified and will be in to see him once he regains consciousness. I don't anticipate him being released into general population for awhile.”
I tried to stay on my feet, but I felt
myself wobbling. I was exhausted. I hadn't eaten in almost twelve hours. I just couldn't take anything in anymore. Nurse Burke must have seen the look on my face because she gripped my arm and walked me to a chair. “Let me get you some juice. You look like you're about to pass out.”
Nurse Burke returned a few minutes later with a foil-topped juice cup and paper-wrapped straw and placed them in my hand. I opened it and took a few sips and felt a little better. I pulled out Clay's phone, which I had grabbed before leaving the motel, and went through the contacts until I found his parents' number. I gave it to the nurse. She thanked me and then left to make the call.
I sat there, numb. I felt completely empty. After another hour had passed, Nurse Burke came back out to let me know that Clay's parents were on their way. I simply nodded and thanked her. I pulled out my own phone and called my mom. “Maggie? Are you on your way home?” She asked as soon as she picked up. I took in a shaky breath and felt the tears start again, completely unbidden. “No mom. We're at the hospital.”
“Oh my God! Are you okay?” She demanded in a panicked voice. “I'm fine, Mom. It's Clay. He tried to kill himself.” “Oh, Maggie! Where are you? We're coming to get you!” I told her the hospital name and she assured me that she and my father would be there as soon as possible.
I hung up and dropped the phone onto the table beside me. I stared blankly at the TV mounted on the wall, unable to move. How did things get this bad so quickly? How could I have allowed it to get so out of hand? I blamed myself entirely for Clay being here.
I should have stopped him from leaving town. I should have forced him to face what was going on with his parents. But most of all I should never have ignored how badly he needed help. I was the biggest culprit in the enabling category. My “love” had only made things worse for him. Because I had refused to see what was right in front of my face. My denial had failed Clay. I put my face in my hands and cried.
Find You in the Dark Page 29