The Suicide Diary

by Rees, Kirsten

  "And just how many times did you make that mistake exactly?" I asked.

  He had the decency to look ashamed for the first time.

  "I don’t get it - you've spent your life working so hard to prove that you’re better than our Father - university, a great career, a good relationship and then this, how could you?" I asked.

  "Don't make me out to be worse than him. He walked out on our Mother and he left us. I made a mistake." he said "I screwed up but I'm sorry for what I did and I'm trying to make amends. But what do you expect, I didn't exactly have the best role model did I!" he said.

  "Don't you dare blame him for your mistakes; you're an adult so take some fucking responsibility Matthew." My heart was pounding in my chest and my fists were clenched so tight my nails were digging into the palms. I stormed out of the room.

  I had fucked up badly in my life over and over and I really wasn’t in a position to judge, but it wasn't so much that he had made a mistake. He never let go of the blame or anger towards our Father and made a huge deal about being a better man than him. He had fallen off his own pedestal and tried to blame his upbringing for the bruising.

  As the months passed and my Mother’s strength began to improve again I dared to let a little hope take hold. Adam was still in my life and I my guard began to relax just a little around him. Every time my phone rang or if I lost the signal and couldn’t keep in touch with home I panicked and yet he was patient and understanding.

  The first night my Mother went out with her friends after leaving hospital, I sat in the house trying to read a book and feeling on edge. I asked Adam not to call me to keep the phone line free. So when the house phone rang I jumped up to answer it.

  Abruptly it stopped before I got more than a few steps and I heard mumbled conversation in the next room. I listened for any signs of anxiety, but as soon as I heard Joshua’s laughter I slumped back into my twisted slumber.

  The next day Adam and I spent an afternoon in the park enjoying the first day of real sunshine that year. It had been an easy, comfortable afternoon but as we sat enjoying the warmth, a couple strolled by holding hands the mood seemed to change. I didn’t want to face him but he moved so I had no choice and I saw the resolve in his eyes.

  “I let you leave me before but I’m not giving up on you this time. I was young and I didn’t realise what I had right in front of me.” he said.

  After the last few weeks it might have been easy to believe him. “Adam, I don’t know many people that would stick around with all this misery and I’m grateful to you.” I said.

  He ran his thumb across my cheek and moved a little closer. “I don’t want you to be grateful, I didn’t spend all this time with you so that you felt like you owe me. I want you feel something, anything for me. Even if we decide that we were right the first time around and we only really need closure, how will we ever know if we don’t at least try?” he asked.

  I watched as he closed his eyes and pressed his lips and held them to mine. I sat still trying to relax into the kiss.

  Since that first kiss in March, I had kept him at arm’s length so we hadn’t progressed any further and it wasn’t for his lack of trying. He was never insistent in a physical way but this wasn’t the first time he had had a talk with me. And yet until recently ‘I have to get home to my sick Mother’ kinda put a dampener on anything more.

  Maybe it was seeing that couple walk passed hand in hand or the feel of the sun on my skin or his words had resonated with me finally, but this time I kissed him back with equal measure. Despite all our talks and the hours we had spent together, I still didn’t know all that much about him. He was as private about his past as I am, but it was more than that. And yet kissing him still felt familiar to me, and it was almost too easy to slip back into what we had all those years ago.

  We hadn’t slept together in our previous almost-relationship so this was new territory. It is a terrible thing that it is easier for me to fall into bed, than it is to open my heart to someone. But even as I lay down on his bed later that evening something in me questioned how he felt.

  The next morning I woke when a shaft of sunlight shone through a gap in the curtains and the inside of my eyelids shone red. Adam slept quietly beside me, the sheet across his middle and mine and tucked under me as if I’d sub-consciously covered our decency and not moved all night. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected and I guess I’d been avoiding the subject in my head. It hadn’t been rushed or awkward and it felt nice to be held and be able to focus on something other than my life.

  It had taken some persuading on my Mother’s part but I had moved into a flat only the week before. Since I’d come home from Italy, I’d spent every night either in our family home or in the same hospital ward waiting for news. So for the first time in a long time I was spending entire nights in unfamiliar surroundings. My Mother had insisted I take Oscar with me at least for a few weeks until I settled in and got to know my neighbours.

  Before our night together, Adam and I had spent our free time together going for coffee together and when the weather was good we lay sunbathing in his garden. I would try my hardest to relax and enjoy the warmth of the sunshine. Our brief relationship before had never reached intimacy and yet it felt more secure than this did. This time we had had a sort of friendship and then we crossed that line in to something else. Did it make us a couple or were we just ‘friends with benefits’. I wasn’t sure I felt comfortable with either of the options and so I was too afraid to ask.

  One day in the garden, we lay next to each other in the early afternoon talking and kissing. A phone rang from inside and Adam jumped up to answer it. His face was a picture of stress when he returned.

  “I have to go into work to sort some minor emergency, I’m so sorry babe but there’s no one else. I’ll be an hour at the most and then we can have the rest of the day together okay.” he said.

  It wasn’t a question but I nodded anyway. I watched him pick up his car keys and head swiftly out his garden gate to his car in the driveway. I almost called to him when I noticed his mobile phone lying on the little table by my sun lounger but something stopped me. Ten minutes after I’d heard the sound of his car engine disappear I sat up and looked at the sleek, black gadget.

  Password protected – this is wrong but if fate wants me to read this then it’ll let me in. I tried his date of birth – wrong. 1,2,3,4 then 1,2,8,9, his birthday date and month, his favourite number 8 in repeat, his card pin number – all incorrect. I entered the numbers from his private car registration plate that was his pride and joy and finally the phone light up to welcome me. I only realised then how strange it was that he trusted me with his bank card number, but not his phone pin.

  I hit messages and it showed one hundred and seventy two in the inbox – all of them read and on skimming through the outbox I saw most of them had been replied to and the majority of them girls. The last few were to me so I skipped them and looked through the others and found various conversations with different girls. There was one conversation with a girl called Kim who had invited herself over on several occasions and the most recent was the first night I had spent with Adam – at least I took priority which was something I tried to find positive in the situation. She wasn’t the only one interested by the looks of the other messages and reading through the outbox most were fairly casual responses but it looked as if at least a few of the feelings were reciprocated.

  If we were worth trying again then why was he keeping his options open even after we had slept together? To be fair to him there was little to indicate he cared for any of these girls beyond feeding his sexual appetite and until recently I hadn’t felt ready to fulfill that role yet so perhaps he’d had to satisfy it elsewhere. But I was done with making excuses for other people. I left the phone purposely on my sun lounger and made sure I got all of my things before leaving. I had no intentions of coming back.

  We were so careful. So how could this happen. It must be wrong; I reread the instructions agai
n and checked again but the pink cross was still there. I was pregnant. I stumbled from the bathroom to my room and collapsed onto my bed.

  Staring at the ceiling I willed myself to wake up but the sharp pain in my foot from falling onto my bed confirmed I was awake. What happens now? It was another three days before I found the - is courage the right word - until I had the guts to see the doctor. I had to be tested again for it to be certain.

  “Mr Fairchild, I’m sorry is my class interrupting your reading. It must be a fascinating story; please won’t you be so good as to tell us what has you so captivated. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you look quite so focused in my class before.” demanded the lecturer.

  There was a ripple effect of laughter through the class. Alex looked up and his mouth hung open for a few moments until he found the ability to speak. He wasn’t sure if it was the revelation in the diary or the shock of being called out in the middle of class.

  “It’s eh…just a notebook sir. Sorry I was just reading some notes.” he said.

  He felt a nudge from behind and turned to see his friend DJ with his eyebrow raised in an amused fashion. Alex shook his head and mouthed ‘later’. The rest of the lecture passed unbearably slowly. As soon as the second hand reached the twelve on the clock, he was up and out of his seat, running towards the door.

  It was pouring down outside and he shot across the car park to his car. He didn’t make it any further. Within a few minutes the car park grew quieter as his classmates drove away. It was beginning to get a little dark outside and he flicked on the interior light and sat in the car with the notebook in his hands.

  It all felt so clinical as I left the sample with the nurse and went back to my flat to wait until I would receive the call to confirm what I already knew. Something - literally - inside of me made me realise that. And yet I wished it wasn't true, aside from the fact that I had never once saw myself as a Mother in my future, I was also completely incapable of looking after a child. I was irresponsible, untidy, disorganised, accident-prone, I drank too much, and I was so emotionally disconnected that I wasn't even sure how I could learn to love and care for someone new.

  When I returned to the clinic, the straight faced nurse ushered me in to a tiny room. My head was spinning as she discussed my options – or rather she talked and I sat on the edge of the seat, gripping the sides and staring at the various things on the table. Some information leaflets, a small metal dish with some paraphernalia and a form with my details.

  My name, date of birth and nine weeks gone. But that's not the whole story, there's more to me than that. Shouldn't I be crying, hysterical or at least showing some kind of appropriate feeling? The nurse gently informed me I didn't have long to make my decision. I left the small office and made my way home to my flat. My fridge had more alcohol than food and yet I couldn’t bring myself to touch a drop. I went to bed and stared at the ceiling until the sun came up and I still didn’t know what I was going to do.

  Nine days later the decision was made for me. I stared at the white ceiling and tried to block out the pain in my lower area of my stomach. I had been bleeding for hours and it didn't seem to be stopping. They said the pregnancy wasn't going to come to term, I had miscarried. After that the nurse carried on talking but the words became muffled and distant. The fetus I hadn't even wanted to be real had given up its chance at life. Even though I was in agony, the guilt I felt was more intense than the pain I was suffering.

  The nurse had been in to check on me several times and I managed to keep my face smooth and politely answered her questions as quickly as I could so she would leave the room. I declined the painkillers twice; I didn't deserve to have the pain relieved. But it wasn't just that, I was scared that they would numb the pain and if that went away I would feel nothing. Or worse I would only be left with only the guilt. At least if the pain was there, I could feel like I deserved it, appeasing the guilt somewhat. If the pain and the guilt were numbed I would have nothing. I couldn’t feel that unspeakable litany of loss.

  Instead of the denial, the hopelessness, the anger, I only felt numb. It was like I had lost control of my own body, it had failed to do something that was supposed to be inherently natural for a woman’s body. It felt like I had a huge, gaping hole in my heart and my stomach felt hollow.

  Adam had called and sent messages at first, but I begged him to stay away, insisting my Mother was unwell again and she was the reason since I couldn't find the words to explain. I couldn't bring myself to tell him what had happened even now when it was all over. Talking about it only made it all the more real.

  The only thing worse than guilt, is the lack of it. When I woke a few days later, I felt nothing, no guilt, no relief, just a deep numbness with no light at the end of the tunnel. I began losing so much weight and it didn't go unnoticed. I just brushed off the comments and the constant black under my eyes was the only sign that I wasn't sleeping at night.

  I woke with a start to find myself curled up on the seat and the TV on standby. The room was filled with an eerie glow and was silent apart from the sound of wind outside. My neck ached since I’d dozed off sitting up and I felt a little disorientated. I hadn’t eaten in days and my cupboards were empty so I made myself shower and dress and went to the supermarket in the town.

  The one closest to me had already served me two bottles of vodka in the last week and I really didn’t want to deal with the less than subtle looks from the staff. “Nina?” I looked up and recognised the girl next to me as one of Anthony’s cousins. I would have walked straight past her if she hadn’t already spoken to me.

  “Hi, Jenna. How’re you?” It was hard not to return her smile although mine was considerably less sparkly.

  “Yeah I’m really good thanks. Just picking up a few bottles here for a party, while my friend takes forever clothes shopping! I adore her, but she thinks that finding that one perfect outfit will turn her into a goddess.” She laughed and rolled her eyes and I remembered liking her when we’d met once at Anthony’s birthday party.

  “It’s a shame Chris and Anthony are away, you could have come along and caught up with them. I’m sure they’d both love to have seen you again.” she said.

  There was nothing but genuine friendliness in her face so I guessed she didn’t know the truth about the not entirely mutual ending of my relationships with her cousin and his apparently no longer ex-best friend.

  “The pair of them are away on some stag weekend up north so no doubt it’ll be a quiet party for us without those two terrors.” she continued.

  She had no idea how appropriate her little pet name was. I tried not to let it sink in just yet that they were friends again. I would deal with that thought later when I could be alone.

  “Oh well, it’s been so long now anyway. I better get going, hope you enjoy your party!” I said.

  “Bye.” she called and waved after me.

  I could barely hold it together until I got to the end of the aisle and turned the corner. It felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest and I thought I was going to be sick. I don’t know why I was even surprised, at least Chris was consistent. His charm had worked on Anthony and they had patched up any differences they may have had over me.

  It made my eyes burn to think what they may have talked about when they mended their friendship. I wondered if they even blamed me for their fall out. I was the Jekyll and Hyde and Chris had helped create that monster instead of me.

  Thankfully the store was quiet and I stood facing one of the shelves until I managed to calm my breathing again. I had been standing there for so long that my hand reached out and grabbed several of the packets of crisps and shoved them in to the basket I was carrying. It wasn't long before I had a basket full of food, chocolate, fresh bread, chips and dips, I couldn't stop. I had hardly crossed the doorstep except to go to the shop for sustenance or something to block everything out.

  In my flat I played my music, watched DVD’s, and read book after book just to keep myself f
rom thinking. I began piling on weight and suddenly no one was commenting on my figure anymore. I think they were too embarrassed to point out that my face had filled out and my figure was losing its definition.

  I ate until I felt sick and then I would curl up in my bed alone, hugging the little food-bump in my stomach. I dreamt of myself as a child holding Joshua, and then the image flipped and I was grown and the child was unfamiliar. I wake every time with my sheets twisted around me and soaked with sweat.

  And just as I struggled to get to sleep, it felt equally impossible to get out of bed in the mornings. I wasn’t in any physical pain, but I was exhausted with the effort of holding myself together and I wasn’t sure I could keep going for much longer. What little energy I had was being used for the simple tasks of climbing out bed, getting dressed, walking in a straight line and just trying to stay upright.

  I guess I’m lucky that I’ve never really been one of those people who lie in bed at night worrying. Until recently I had at least had a glimmer of clarity and found myself grasping at the need to make some change in my life. I would always wake in the morning riddled with uncertainty and self-doubt. I spent the days struggling to regain that confidence I’d had while laid in my bed when everything seemed like just maybe things might somehow get better. It’s like I’m struggling to remember a dream and can’t quite hold onto it. And so when I crawl back into bed the following night the cycle begins again. What was the point in trying to fight anymore?

  “Nina, how are you feeling? You’ve not been yourself lately?” asked my Mother. I looked up to see her concerned expression. Sometimes when I catch her watching me, I can see a sadness in her eyes. I can feel the silent terror she carries, afraid to speak of the hole in my heart for fear of unsettling me.

  I immediately forced a smile but she wasn’t fooled and I knew better than to claim all was well so I lied. “I think I’ve been coming down with something, just can’t seem to shift it.” I replied.