Guide My Steps - A Zak Bagans Story

I'll Be the Angel if You Be the Demon

 “Things were all good yesterday, and then the devil took your memory. And if you fell to your death today, I hope that heaven is your resting place. I heard the doctors put your chest in pain, but then that could have been the medicine. There you are lying in the bed again… Either way I’ll cry with the rest of them…” – Afire Love by Ed Sheeran

*

Six hours. Six fucking hours. Six hours I blew up Bagans phone – call after call, text after text. I left rather aggressive and fear-inducing voicemails, sure to get me arrested or slapped with a huge ass fine for the amount of threats in one breath. I demanded to know where he was and several times, I’d just lost my temper in the midst of it and just gave up.

Which was what I was doing now… Giving up.

My once soft, plushy bedspread now felt like a sharp rock. The silky sheets were nothing close to their “ascribed” elegance…coated and smudged with tears of anger and plenty of black eye makeup. If I moved the wrong way, I could have sworn I felt each and every spring supporting my back against the mattress.

Six hours…

Left a person thinking. Me? I thought about what I had done wrong. What could have possibly done to have deserved a life like this? I never asked for anything, and I probably gave more than I received...bu that wasn’t the point. Gradually reduced to tears in a place that I was supposed to be loving, on a trip that was supposed to be a joyride across the States. Suffering in paradise. Suffering in such beautiful mountain country. Nature soothed the mind – especially mine. But how was I going to enjoy something when I was always aware of the things in my life that were completely hopeless?

Love complicated everything, destroyed people even. If what Bagans had for me…was love…we were never going to make it through the journey alive. Or me, at least. Bagans would make it. He always had…

Four times someone tried to come into my room, a different person each time. Four times they were denied.

With spaces of hours between their disruptions, I grew more and more anxious. My boiling rage had somewhat died down and misery was taking a U-turn right onto Emie Avenue. Misery loved my company (excuse the Three Days Grace song reference).

I wish I could have told you that I was thinking about “getting over” the paranormal investigator, but I wasn’t. Every second that ticked by…my desire for him only grew in leaps and bounds. Gigantic leaps and bounds. The barriers diminished – wall after wall, tumbling down to reveal what was left of Emeline Callele Gold. Everything was in view, all ready to escape and float just from my grasp. I wanted to grab everything and shove it back in. Rebuild the walls that had been my home for years to come and pass. Brick by brick, stone stacked on top of stone. All my memories, thoughts and wishes hidden once more.

That was the true Emeline – everything just in sight but tucked behind supports and sheltered by what was left of my own dignity.

Sad songs whispered their lyrics in my head as I just laid out across my bed for however many hours – I had lost count after two or three. I stared at the ceiling most of the time, almost asking aloud why I was dealt these terrible cards. The dealer wasn’t taking folds, just slowly biting into my emotional fortune with outrageous blinds and nonsensical bets.

Midnight chimed sooner than I expected, and the moon peered in through the window’s drapes, stars dancing across the dark blue sky with their tiny white lights. It would have been absolutely breath-taking if I hadn’t been laying up in bed, feeling sorry for myself.

A week. That was all the time I had left until I went into a coma again. Months would pass me by, as would the people who I’d come to know and love. They’d leave me just like Bagans had. They had no idea how much pain I was in. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. Misery was opening its door to me, welcoming me inside its lovely embrace as it always had.