Tranquil Falls

Find a Reason to Live

I had my hands in my sweatpants while I slowly shuffled into the activity room. My brain was still foggy with sedatives, everything looking fuzzy and lopsided. I'd heard the doctor tell my parents that I was still a threat not only to other people but to myself. Once I was able to be off the sedatives, I was going to a facility. No negotiation. My parents were standing their ground for once.

The nurse directed me to a table with a checkerboard on it, but I wasn't there to play checkers. Collins had his hands clasped together on top of the table. I let my head drop so that I didn't have to look at him.

"You don't look the best, Gatlin," Collins said after a moment of silence.

I shrugged. "Not trying to impress anyone."

He chuckled, reaching over and grabbing a stack of checkers. "I suppose not. The nurse offered to let us use one of the empty offices, but I didn't figure that was what you would want." I didn't respond. I watched as he laid the checkers out on the squares. "Look, Gatlin, I came here because I thought you might want to see a friendly face."

I rolled my eyes slightly and looked away to watch as a nurse knelt to speak with a woman staring blankly at the wall. Was that what I looked like? Was that the person I was going to eventually become?

"You'll be able to walk across the stage with your classmates if you get out of the facility in time, but you'll need to make up any schoolwork you miss this summer. It's not something you'll need to concern yourself with while you're trying to heal."

I looked at him sharply. He didn't flinch. I held his gaze. Who had filled him in on everything that had happened? How many other people knew? Did they know why I had broken again or did they just think I was the crazy kid now who was never going to get better, so just forget about him?

"I had my suspicions, Gatlin. Dr. Rouche did as well, but we had no proof until you let us in. Just know that you have people who are here to support you. It doesn't matter how long it takes for you to work through your issues and to get onto the path of healing. It doesn't matter if you graduate and move on. You're always going to have people here who support you," he said, reaching for the red set of checkers now and setting them out.

"I understand that you probably have a lot of emotions that you've been suppressing for a while, so it's difficult for you to figure out how to deal with those emotions. How to handle what you knew about Taylor before and after."

He paused in putting the checkers out and looked at me now. "He was your best friend, Gatlin, and while what he did to you is an unforgivable thing, that doesn't mean he isn't worthy of your forgiveness. He was broken as well. He just didn't accept the help that was offered to him."

I looked away. I'd tried to help Taylor. I'd acknowledged that he was hurting and I was his release. That had been okay. Not really okay, but it had been bearable until the night of the bonfire. That night, something had broken in both of us. Taylor had broken and then he had broken me. I'd had a lot of time to think in the hospital and I'd realized that there was more I could have—should have—done for him. If I had spoken up sooner, he probably would have still been alive.

"You have a chance that he didn't. You can either go through the motions like last time," Collins said as he went back to putting the checkers out, "or you can decide to start making some changes. What happened to you was awful and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone, but you need to make the decision as to rather or not it is the thing that is going to control your life. Are you going to allow it to eat you from the inside out or are you going to allow it to make you stronger because you survived it? Your choice."

I took a deep breath, wishing that my head was a little less foggy. "I didn't have plans to do it that day, to...to try to kill myself." I took a deep breath, frowning as I tried to clear my head a little. "I didn't go to the cabin thinking that I was going to tell my story because I was going to die. I went there to try to figure things out, but I guess being back where it happened and thinking about it just...made it feel like it was happening again."