by Lauren Dow
Her fourth glass of wine turned into a fifth as she finished the remains of the bottle. She popped the cork on the next, this time drinking directly from the source. She stumbled into her bedroom to grab a notebook from the nightstand drawer, pulled out a pen, and started to write. This time it wasn’t to write a tale of a child running through the woods to find a magical swing that brought her into a different universe. It wasn’t a poem about the woman she hoped to become.
It was the final chapter of her story. Her final memoir to the remaining people she thought deserved to know the truth.
She wrote her own suicide note.
Chapter 11
Her hands vibrated uncontrollably. Amelia grabbed her wrist with her left hand to try and steady its pace and allow the pen to do its final job.
Dear you,
I’m sorry I caused you pain. I’m sorry I failed you as a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to make it out the other side. I just need you to know that it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. You’re probably wondering why, and for that I want to try my best to explain. I constantly revert back to my younger self. I miss her, that radiant beam of light and joy. I miss the girl who had goals, purpose, desires, wants, drive, ambition, and freedom. I’ve been trying so hard to fight the war inside of my head every day and find her again. But I’ve realized that she no longer exists. The vessel in which I live is nothing more than a reminder of everything I once was and who I will never become. Now, all I want is to be free. Now, I can be one less burden for your heart to carry. I love you, please don’t forget that.
She didn’t know what more she could possibly say. There weren’t enough words to condense the reality she lived every single day into a letter that would even come close to articulating what she felt. Her mom, dad, siblings, Sara. She just needed them to know she was sorry, she loved them, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault but her own.
All she had to show for her life were a decade of journals tainted with laundry lists of things she was going to do, but never did. Amelia was afraid of the person she was becoming, teetering over a line of destruction that would disappoint her mom’s desire for Amelia to find more in this life.
She folded up the piece of paper and wrote on the back, to you, hung it on the fridge, and stumbled into her bathroom, carrying the remains of her wine. Amelia shut the door behind her and heard the click of the doorknob.
Crumbling down onto the familiar, cold, tiled floor of the bathroom, she laid her back against the wall with her legs spread open, deadweight in defeat. Her third bottle of merlot stood almost empty between her legs while she stared at the plastic container of her antidepressants. She was prescribed Bupropion, a drug typically meant for people who were trying to quit smoking to help ease the depressive side effects of nicotine withdrawal.
Her primary care doctor, Dr. Martin Stephens, thought this would be a good initial stepping-stone towards managing her depression. Instead, the medication made her even more anxious and paranoid. She always felt sluggish, unable to focus. Amelia had become a medicated zombie. Dr. Stephens started her on one hundred and fifty milligrams. When that didn’t work, he bumped her up to three hundred milligrams, escalating the side effects.
Amelia had weaned herself off of the little white pills a few weeks prior. She’d rather feel out of control with her emotions than feel nothing at all. But the repercussions of not consulting her doctor about it threw her even further off balance. She wondered if she’d made a mistake by not taking them anymore. She’d focused even harder on her eating disorder and wasn’t satisfied with the pace at which it was working. Her slow, agonizing suicide via her eating disorder wasn’t happening fast enough. Her lack of eating hadn’t yet shut down her heart.
Unscrewing the top of her pills, the warmth of wine coursed through her body and her eyes struggled to maintain their focus. Like a painting that was melting right before her eyes. Amelia laid out the pills on the floor, giving each one their own tile square. She locked the door so Luna wouldn’t find a way to sneak in.
Amelia left Luna’s dog food open and available for her to eat as she wanted; hopefully there was enough so she wouldn’t go hungry. She was a ravenous, growing puppy so there was still a chance she’d eat it all in one sitting. Eventually someone would have to figure out that Amelia was gone.
She pondered the notion of her laying on the floor dead. How long would it take for someone to find her? How long would it take for someone to come check on her and take Luna? How long would Luna survive?
Her head swirled as she tried to find a focal point to bring balance back to her vision. She sank lower to the ground and sprawled out on her back with the pills beside her. It was just her and her few dozen admission tickets to the next life. She turned her head towards the door, the wine causing her to see double of everything around her. Amelia dug her fingernails into her thighs, deeper and deeper until the skin broke, releasing blood down her leg. It was as satisfying as popping a pimple. The first time Dominic saw her puncture her own thigh, he shot up from the couch and threw his hands in the air.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Dom said to her for the millionth time, seeing the scars along Amelia’s legs. “I cook for you, I clean for you, I listen to you, I try to fix your problems, and this is what happens in return!” All Dominic ever did was treat her like a patient; all she wanted was to be loved.
“You need to do better, Amelia.”
“Go be someone else’s problem, Amelia.”
“I’m too selfish for this, Amelia.”
His voice couldn’t be the last thing she heard in this life. She needed to shut him up. Amelia picked up a pill as a single tear trickled down her cheek.
This could be the end of it. This could end all of her pain and suffering. This could fix the need for one more person to destroy the Earth, take up space, and provide nothing of substance to anyone or anything. This could end her compulsions, her need to never eat and then to eat everything all at once. This little pill and its friends could end her manic episodes and her days of debilitating depression.
She grabbed a handful more and placed them in the palm of her hand. Touching each pill one by one with the tip of her finger, caressing them as if they were a tiny mouse. Ugly at first sight, but only wanting to find warmth with you if you just let them. Amelia sobbed, unable to see beyond the glaze of tears.
Did she really want to die? Did she really want it to be all over with? Of course not. Of course she wanted to have a life. She wanted to get married, have children of her own, and have a job she actually cared about. Of course she wanted to buy a house with enough land to let countless dogs roam about while she hosted weekend barbecues and birthday parties. She longed for family vacations and bonfires on the beach, to talk about life’s existential questions over cheap beers. She yearned to give her parents a grandchild from her own healthy body. She wanted to have her nieces and nephews in her life playing with their cousins.
But Amelia knew better. Amelia knew that this would never come to fruition for her. Her younger self was more optimistic and more naive than she’d realized. The woman she wanted to become, the life she wanted to have, was nothing but a fairytale to be told at bedtime. And Amelia was ready to sleep.
She could hear Dom’s demoralizing and passive aggressive scoff in her mind saying, “I told you so.” Amelia closed her eyes and began the final countdown, starting from ten, building the courage to watch the ball drop for the last time.
Ten. That’s all it will take.
Nine. Only a few more seconds and it’ll be over.
Eight. I’m making this a bigger deal in my head than it actually is.
Seven. Stop being a pussy and stop crying.
Six. Come on, Amelia. Stop shaking.
Five. You’ll never have the life Mom wants for you. This is your only option.
Four.
A loud, wailing bark came from outside the bathroom door. Amelia opened her
left eye first, then her right as she attempted to reorient herself in the bathroom. She rolled over and put her ear to the door. Luna was crying, but not her usual puppy cry for attention. Amelia propped herself onto her forearms and stretched her hand towards the door to unlock it. Luna came rushing at her, licking her face with a force so strong it knocked Amelia back to the ground. She kept whining and crying and panting and licking. Licking like it would be the last time she’d ever get to experience Amelia’s face against her tongue.
This wasn’t a normal cry. This was a cry to stop. A cry for help.
Amelia exhaled deeper than she’d ever thought possible, as if she were exhaling everything she’d ever felt with that one single breath. She realized for the first time in years that she wasn’t clenching the muscles of her abdomen. She folded into Luna with her arms wrapped tightly around her, weeping with fear.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Amelia cried. “I’m so, so sorry I almost left you like that.” She was disheveled and trembling throughout her entire body. She continued to apologize to Luna as if she could understand the words she was saying through the croaking in her throat.
Amelia shook her head in terror and shot her eyes as wide open as they could go. She cleaned up the pills, brushed them back into the bottle, closed the lid tight, and put the bottle in the back of her medicine cabinet. She crawled on all fours towards her nightstand to find her phone. She had the numbers, all she needed to do was dial.
Her thumbs scrolled through her list of contacts searching for Emmett’s name. She paused and looked out at the empty room.
She couldn’t call Emmett. After everything that happened, it would be just another disappointment to add to the list. She was already enough of a burden on his aching heart, she couldn’t let him know that she’d almost given up entirely, that all of their talks had been for nothing.
Besides, Emmett needed space. Which was exactly what she was going to give him.
She kept scrolling through her phone, past her mom, past her sister, past Sara, and stopped at Corey’s name. A person she couldn’t disappoint because she’d already done so. She tapped on the screen and within two rings he picked up.
“Hello, gorgeous. How are you?” Regardless of the story that had transpired between them, he still answered the phone like they were together.
“Corey, I need help. I’m not okay.” Amelia’s raspy voice slurred through her story of the pills, of drinking wine, of sobbing on the floor in defeat, of Luna crying.
“Where are they now?” Corey asked.
“I put them back in the bottle and away in the cabinet.”
“Okay, have you thought about flushing them?”
“I did, but I haven’t done it yet.”
“Okay, that’s fine. Why don’t you do it now with me on the phone?”
Amelia wiped the dripping snot from underneath her nose with her shirt and stood up to collect the bottle. She pulled them out from the back of the medicine cabinet and unscrewed the lid. She stared at the bottle as she tipped it over the edge of the toilet watching them fall in slow motion.
Amelia flushed the toilet as every last pill cycled down the drain. “It’s done.”
“I’m really proud of you. Can I come over? I don’t want you to be alone.” Amelia melted onto the bathroom floor, unable to stand erect for a second longer.
“No, no you don’t have to come over.”
“I know I don’t have to.”
“I know, I know. You don’t have to do anything. You want to. And I appreciate that. But honestly, you are the last person who would understand any of this. I just wanted to hear a voice. To know that someone would pick up on the other end. That if I died, laying on the bathroom floor, that it wouldn’t be weeks or months before someone found me.”
Corey the fixer. He couldn’t just sit there on the other end of the line knowing Amelia was hurting, fearful for her life. And Amelia knew this, too. She continued to reassure him that she was going to be okay. That Luna stopped her in time, that she was the only one Amelia wanted to be with. Despite feeling so unbelievably lonely, she couldn’t bear for anyone else to witness her in that state.
“I’ll give you a call later this week. Thank you for answering the phone.”
“Anytime. You know I’m just a phone call away. Always. Okay? Always.”
“Thank you, Corey. Seriously.”
“Just promise me you won’t do anything you can’t take back. Promise?”
“I promise.”
Amelia hung up the phone and stared off into the distance in a state of shock. She needed to be somewhere she felt safe. She dropped back onto all fours and crawled into bed. Luna didn’t wait for her usual invite. She jumped up and buried her face in Amelia’s armpit, pushing harder and harder until she flopped on top of Amelia’s stomach.
Looking up at the ceiling, nearly swallowed by the deafening silence as she matted down Luna’s soft fur, she wondered what was next. The shaking of her body and the spin cycle of her vision made it impossible to comprehend what had just happened, let alone what would come next.
But if she wasn’t going to die, if this wasn’t the end, what would the rest of her days look like? There had to be something, anything worth living for beyond the small scope of her world. Something that gave her purpose and drive every day. Something that made her remember why she was on this planet. She closed her eyes, clasped her hands together, rested her arm on Luna’s back, and began to pray out loud. One final attempt to have God hear her eager prayers.
“God, I know I’m not the best Christian. I know that I don’t go to church or pray or read the bible like I should. I know that I don’t add any value to this world, and I know that I don’t deserve anything from You. I really don’t. But I’m at the end of my rope, and I just feel so lost. I don’t know what to do, who to turn to, what to even ask for. Please God, just help me. Help me find a way out of this. I’m begging You. I’ll do whatever it takes. Just please, help me. Make it stop, please. Amen.”
Chapter 12
Amelia glanced at her phone to check the time. 7:31 a.m. It was the latest she’d slept in months. It was no surprise her body wanted to remain in a coma. She was still teetering on the edge of intoxication. The smell of alcohol seeped from her pores as she became cognizant of the hangover.
Last night. I can’t believe…
She rubbed the palms of her hands heavily down her face, stretching her cheeks as if she could pull them right off. There were no words to describe the feeling of lying in bed with Luna curled up next to her, knowing she was still alive. God gave her a second chance for the hundredth time.
Her upper lip was raw from the constant drip of her nose. She didn’t think it was possible to cry that much. Barely able to see through the foggy lenses of her eyes, Amelia rolled herself slowly off the bed and onto the floor. Luna popped her head up and cocked it to the side, confused at seeing Amelia as this old rag doll plummeting to the ground.
Although Amelia’s inner monster yelled at her for not following through, she was able to exhale a sigh of relief at the fact that she had indeed failed at something as significant as this. It was a bittersweet feeling, and one she had no clue what to do with.
On the one hand, she’d stopped herself from ending her life. On the other, she was still in the exact same position as when the pills grazed her fingertips. There would have to be a change. She said this to herself every day, but after last night—when she’d seen the absolute deepest part of the world’s oceans and managed to swim back to the top—she had to be able to do something about it today. There had to be a lesson behind this pain.
The only thing she knew for certain was that the moon and sun would come and go. A rotation that would continue even if Amelia wasn’t around to greet them. Only on this day, she was.
It was Saturday and in just a few short hours, group therapy would start. She hadn’t gone in weeks, not since she’d relapsed. How could she show her face to them when she was so ashamed? After mont
hs of talking about how well she was doing and how there was no way she could possibly fall off the wagon, she was back at square one. But Amelia was ready to face her peers and confront her truth.
In a daze, Amelia conjured up the last remaining ounces of her energy to prop herself up onto her feet. She turned on the shower ready to scrub away another layer of alcohol, cigarettes, and regret before she had to leave. She felt like she was somewhere in between Emmett’s surviving and striving, an uncharted gray area she wasn’t sure how to navigate.
Emmett. A dark cloud soared above her head. It was still too hard for her to think about him and their nascent friendship. She needed to stay focused. Even if she didn’t take her turn to speak, she could still be in the presence of people who could come close to understanding her darkness. With one cigarette left, Amelia put Luna’s harness around her chest and headed to the store.
She stepped through the front doors of her building. Everything looked new, like she was seeing it for the first time. The wind felt more intense brushing across her skin. The effervescent colors of the flowers stood out in ways she hadn’t remembered since Machu Picchu. The tops of her feet could feel the warmth from the sun through the webbing of her sandals. Life, on this day, was vibrant.
One block to the right onto 14th Street brought her the long way around—an attempt to avoid seeing Emmett on his usual morning smoke break. One more block on Pearl Street and they arrived at Capitol Convenience.
A young man in his early twenties worked there most days. Amelia had heard his name once but could never remember what it was. Instead, she called him Louisiana because he came from a place just outside of New Orleans and had a thick Southern accent. For some reason, she never felt ashamed or embarrassed walking into the convenience store as a complete train wreck. He always had a smile and a sincere, welcoming demeanor that made Amelia feel more invited than anywhere else she’d been since moving into the neighborhood.