Regretfully
Page 7
If she didn’t know how turned on I had been before, she now knew without a doubt. Continuing my pivot, I had to back up a tad so that I wouldn’t whack her with, well, me.
Looking down, she bit her lip and shout-whispered, “Fuck.”
Laughing quietly, I responded, “Impressed?”
“You suck. I need to leave, like five minutes ago. I should be a good friend right now. She shouldn’t be alone right now. But— what kind of girlfriend would I be if I left you hanging? Or hung?” She burst out into laughter at her cheesy joke. I didn’t even care. I could feel blood pumping fiercely, needing her perfect touch to provide me relief.
Dropping to her knees, she gave special attention to me, making sure I wouldn’t be suffering while she was gone. After, she licked my release off her upper lip and smiled as she headed to grab her purse.
My girl.
She had such a motherly instinct. Always taking care of others, putting their needs before her own. I respected that. I loved that about her.
I was on auto-pilot at the grocery store. I had forgotten to order an arrangement from a florist so I went to find something that would work, something worthy of being next to her name. I picked up a nice bouquet that Jamie would have loved with lots of bright pinks and yellows throughout. I smiled at the thought of her picking out this arrangement from all the rest.
Carrying the flowers in one hand and my basket in the other, I made my way down a few of the aisles, trying to remember what I needed while I was there. I picked up a few lemons, some brown sugar, more body wash, and a candle to light while I took a bath later that night. The smell of tropical breeze always relaxed me, and I knew I would need it later.
As I laid my items on the conveyer belt, I did a double take when I saw a girl walking out of the store. She was built like Cami, but this girl was a little heavier and had a newborn in a sling across her front. The baby looked itty bitty and the woman looked void of emotion, as if she was lost. My mind must have been playing tricks on me. One, she was dead, and two, she didn’t have a baby.
“Ma’am? Cash or credit?” I was thrown back into reality and realized the girl was already gone and I was staring at the exit as the cashier impatiently waited for payment.
Quickly swiping my card, I grabbed my bags and receipt. My mind was messing with me. Next, I’d probably see Jamie pass by. I needed to get a handle on life. I did not want to make a habit of seeing people who were dead.
Once I made it to the cemetery, it didn’t take me long to find her grave. They put her close to a shaded tree and close to another girl her age. Plopping down beside her gravestone, I laid her flowers down and the tears began to flow freely. I ran my fingers over the chiseled letters. The granite was strikingly cold underneath my touch.
Beloved by family, cherished by friends
Jamie Elizabeth Tyler
June 8, 1990 — January 11, 2004
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor touched but are felt in the heart
It took me a few moments to gather my thoughts. This was the tenth anniversary of her death. Replaying it all in my head, it seemed like yesterday.
I was so dumb. I blamed myself for it all. No one realized she did it because of me.
She always wanted to be like me. I would catch Jamie trying on my clothes when she thought I wasn’t home, chitchatting with my friends when they were over about clothes and boys, and talking about who the hottest boys were. Granted, the boys her age were just now going through puberty, the clothes were my hand-me-downs, and she would try telling my friends she was really sixteen and had just been held back twice because she was a troublemaker. She wanted to be grown up and hated being four years younger than me.
I should have been a better role model for her. It was my fucking fault, and she had to pay the price. We shouldn’t have been drinking that night. We were all underage but figured since we were all staying the night at my house, that it’d be okay. Making our amateur concoction of rum punch, we poured a bottle of fruit punch into a bowl along with generous amounts of Malibu, peach schnapps, and vodka. After stirring it together, we poured it into as many water bottles as we could find and left them in the mini-fridge in my room to get cold. We each grabbed one a few hours later and drank them while watching a movie in my room along with popcorn and snacks.
What we didn’t realize was that after the five of us grabbed a water bottle, there were still some missing in the fridge that we hadn’t grabbed. I woke in the early morning to go to the restroom and as I walked by Jamie’s room, I took note that she wasn’t in her bed like normal.
Back then, I loved the fact that my parents never checked up on my friends and me when we were hanging out. We’d pop downstairs periodically for food, but other than that, we were holed up in my room for hours on end. No questions asked.
When I got to the bathroom, the light was already on. I figured one of my friends had left it on when they had gone in there but stopped dead in my tracks and screamed when I saw her body, curled in the fetal position, holding her stomach with her small hands. Vomit was everywhere. Besides her mouth and surrounding her face, it was in her hair and on her hands. Her skin was pale, so pale.
I quickly ran to her and bent down beside her, shaking her gently with my hands to wake her up. “Jamie! Jamie, wake up! What happened?” I was freaking out. Her skin was cool to the touch, much unlike her usual warm body. Her body was unresponsive. When I saw the vomit near her mouth, I knew something was horribly wrong. I screamed for my parents to come upstairs. I couldn’t leave her alone.
She was barely breathing, but I could hear a gargling sound that terrified me. I could hear my parents hustling up the stairs and my friends stirring in my room, but I was alone with my little sister. It felt like hours while I waited for someone to come into that confined room. She wasn’t responding to anything I said or did. I didn’t know what to do.
My mom made it to the bathroom first, screaming at my dad to call nine-one-one. Everything was a blur. She shook Jamie, beating her back to try to clear her mouth, and talked sweetly to her, hoping it was all just a cruel joke.
I sat in the corner, watching helplessly. She didn’t have any cuts or bruises from what I could see. She had on yellow cheerleading shorts and a white camisole that was hiked up, exposing her stomach and lower back. Had she hit her head? Was she sick?
My mom was hysterical, trying anything to get her to wake up while my dad was trembling in the doorway. My friends were behind him but didn’t make their presence known. From the looks on their faces, they knew something bad had happened. When the medics finally wheeled her out into the ambulance, I walked into her room to try to figure out what had happened. She was healthy as could be from what we knew.
I saw them. Two bottles of our fruity concoction, along with the extra bottle of vodka that we ended up not having to use to make the drinks. My heart dropped.
She was always imitating me. She was always watching me, mimicking my actions. I had put a lot of effort into being a good role model for her ever since I caught her four years ago in my bra, belting out the latest Britney Spears song that was on the radio. I had made a conscience effort to be a positive influence for Jamie. That night, though, I just wanted to be a normal teenager. I wanted to have fun with my friends, to rebel.
She saw my friends and me making our drinks. I recalled her asking to watch the movie with us, but we denied her request and told her to go watch one of her movies. My friends and I had been gossiping about Josh Atwater, who had just moved into town and apparently already had three tattoos that were only visible with his pants and shirt off. I had the biggest crush on him and when Jamie came into the room, I remembered yelling at her, telling her to find friends of her own and to leave us alone. Normally, I didn’t care if she watched movies with us since she was quiet and normally passed out before the movie was over. That night, I had neglected her and tossed her aside.
I swiped up the empty bottles from the floor
and threw them away in the recycle bin outside of our house. I couldn’t tell my parents. They left me at home as they went with Jamie to the hospital. I was told to get my friends home, and then head up to the hospital myself. When I walked into my room, my friends were all dressed and had solemn looks on their faces.
“You all need to leave,” I choked out as I looked down to see what I was wearing. My thin t-shirt didn’t hide much, and I would need to change before going to the hospital. “Now!” I roared when I saw their perplexed faces staring back at me, not moving. They all filed out the door, muttering their apologies and making their way to the car they came in. None of us had even finished our bottle because the sweet punch was so potent.
Jamie had finished what looked like two bottles. My chest hurt and the guilt was crushing me. Tears trickled down my cheeks as I slid on a pair of jeans and a bra before putting a sweatshirt on and heading out to my car. She had to be okay.
Walking through the automatic doors to the emergency room was like a nightmare. Children were crying and people were scattered, holding their ailing body parts, and one old man was moaning in pain.
“I— I’m here to see my sister? Jamie Tyler? She was brought here by ambulance about an hour ago.” I spoke in a timid voice, praying that the girl behind the desk could help me. I needed to see my sister. To know she was okay.
“You’re family?” she asked. I simply nodded since I could feel the lump in my throat growing. After pulling up her records, she stood and walked around to the visitor side of the table.
“I’ll take you to your family. They haven’t been allowed to see her yet. The doctors are working on her right now and once she’s stable, they’ll move her to the ICU and you may see her then. Your parents are in the emergency waiting room, ma’am. It’s just down this hallway.” She led me quietly down the stark white hallway, pushing open the automatic double doors as we made it further into the core of the hospital. Her hand laid on my lower back, guiding me and maybe trying to comfort me.
Why hadn’t they been able to see her again yet? What was wrong with her? Was she in surgery? I mean, the ICU seems pretty serious. The questions swirled around my head, but I hadn’t dared to vocalize any of them. Her non-answer would probably terrify me just as much as her providing me with all the details regarding my sister’s status.
Upon making it to the waiting room, I took note of three families in there. One seemed to have been there for days. Blankets, empty coffee cups, and chairs pulled together for their comfort made it look like they had set up camp in the corner of the room. I wondered how long they’d been there. Another was just a mother and her baby, sleeping in her infant carrier. The young mother had her knees drawn up, and she was nervously biting her nails. She seemed so lonely, so terrified. I hoped everything would be okay for both families.
When my eyes met my mom’s, her lip trembled, and she broke down crying. She shuffled over to me, still in her nightgown and house slippers, and enveloped me into a tight embrace, softly running her hands through my hair.
“Oh baby, I’m so glad you’re here.” She kept petting me, feeling her way down my arms, as if making sure I was really there and okay.
“Mom, what happened? What’d they tell you?” I needed to know. I pulled away just far enough to see my dad. Always the rock in our family, he held his head in his hands and shook slightly as he cried.
“She-she had a bad seizure in the ambulance and stopped breathing. Aria, it was devastating and terrifying to watch! Your sweet baby sister’s body, convulsing like that? Us not being able to do anything but watch? It was the worst thing I’d ever seen in my life,” Mom responded through her tears. She was holding a Kleenex, and I noticed it was drenched.
“She stopped breathing?” My heart stopped at the realization of my mother’s words.
My baby sister was gone?
“They were able to resuscitate her, but it took them a while. That’s what they’re doing right now, tests to find out what’s wrong. They worry that with the lack of oxygen for some time, there might be severe brain damage. We’re just supposed to wait for news now.” Mom plopped down in the chair next to Dad, leaving me standing in the middle of the ICU waiting area.
She had a seizure? No one in our family had a history of seizures, so I didn’t know a thing about them. I wished I had paid more attention in the medical class I took the previous semester.
Walking over to grab the Kleenex box, it slowly started to sink in. I had been unpleasantly mean to Jamie that night and I could only imagine how hard she took it. She was sensitive when it came to fitting in and being wanted. I knew that, and I was a bitch to her.
She drank both bottles, from the looks of it. After a few small sips of our drinks, we all just laughed at how poorly we made the punch and ended up pouring our bottles down the sink. It must have been at least half liquor in there.
Had that caused her to pass out?
Hours passed before Jamie’s doctors came in with news.
Bad news.
She had very limited brain function, and she was unresponsive. They told us that my sister has suffered another seizure while they worked on her and stopped breathing again. Her blood alcohol level was really high, and they said that, although rare, it can lead to seizure activity. It was because of the seizure and need for resuscitation that she suffered severe brain damage. My sister was on life support and wasn’t breathing on her own. My parents were in denial that their little girl had a drink and acted as if they hadn’t heard that part of the news at all. It was like if they acknowledged that part, they were accepting that she wasn’t their perfect little angel anymore.
The doctors told us all we could do was wait and to pray that she showed signs of healing. Two weeks later, the plug was pulled.
She hadn’t gotten any better. Attempts to wean her from the ventilator hadn’t worked and her brain function was still poor. We were told the chances of her waking up were almost none and the chances of her having any type of quality of life was even lower. To keep her on life support would only be prolonging the inevitable— there was no coming back from this.
We all spent time with her, alone and together, talking to her, letting her know how much we loved her and would miss her. How proud we were of all her accomplishments and how life would never be the same without her.
I couldn’t be in the room when they turned off the machines. I sat on the floor outside, curled into myself, as I heard the distinct alarm for a few seconds, followed by my mother’s wails and the hospital chaplain comforting my mother as she second guessed herself about turning the machines off.
It was my fault. They had no idea, and I was now their only child. How was I supposed to tell them the truth? I didn’t think I could handle the blame, so I kept it in. It almost swallowed me whole.
The distinct giggle of a child pulled me back to the present. Looking behind me, I watched as a father held his toddler in his lap, seemingly sharing with the little boy a happy memory of someone they had lost. I gave a slight smile, realizing how they didn’t have that sadness on their face that I thought would never go away. I wondered how long their loved one had been gone. Would I ever get to a point in my life when I would come here and not break down? I hoped so.
Every time I visited, Jamie and I had a talk. Obviously, it was only me talking, but I got out everything that had happened since the last time I was there and let my thoughts run wild and uninhibited while I spoke to her. She was always my sounding board when we were younger; when I had a crush on a boy, when I was in a fight with my friends, or when our parents weren’t being fair.
I smiled at the thought of her looking down on me, seeing how I’ve been acting the past few months. Going after a guy who just lost his girlfriend? All the while I have my own relationship that was going well? Jamie would have been honest about how dumb and selfish I was being.
“Hey, Jamie. Sorry it’s been so long. I miss you. A lot. I haven’t spoken to Mom or Dad in a while, but last I hear
d, they were doing well. I’m sure they’ll be out here today, too.” I wiped the tears with the sides of my pointer fingers, drew a deep breath, and steeled myself before continuing on. “Sutter’s been good to me and work keeps me preoccupied, but there’s something else on my mind that I don’t know who else to talk to about. His name is Tristen. His girlfriend passed away recently, and from the moment I saw him after her memorial, I felt this— pull toward him. It’s crazy and it’s ridiculous, but I know he feels it, too. He’s the one with the rational head on his shoulders, but I feel guilty about my feelings for him. We’re just friends, and I love Sutter, but I catch myself thinking about him all the time.”
I felt like such a disappointment at that very moment by vocalizing it— me admitting that I was thinking about another man other than Sutter. After Jamie passed away, I kept to the straight and narrow and did what was seen as the “right thing” to do and never strayed from that. I felt myself slipping off that edge, and I was intrigued by the consequences.
“Jamie. I think about you every day. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could have taken your place. You didn’t deserve this. You deserved to finish out school and meet boys and have fun in college, to make mistakes and learn from them. It was my mistake, but it took you down instead. I’m so, so sorry, baby sis. I love you, always and forever. Of all my regrets, that night is at the top of my list.”
My makeup was probably all over the place from the excessive tears that I expelled while visiting with Jamie. It was life; I wasn’t going to hide my feelings while visiting with her at the cemetery. I sat there for a while, not talking, just thinking about what could have been.
Solemn bystanders passed by, some looking to see who I was paying my respects to, while others avoided eye contact and kept to themselves. I smiled at an older man who kneeled down a few spots over.
“I’d love to tell you it gets easier, and the pain does eventually dull, but that hole will always be there. My recommendation? Let their memories and love for you fill that space. Don’t give up on life. They wouldn’t want that.” The man spoke so matter-of-factly.