Heartburn (911)

Chapter 17

Ronnie had been up since seven in the morning and felt okay, she had had a yoghurt and fruit for breakfast with a berry smoothie as she worked out. After she had worked out and gotten the kids' lunches ready for school and their bags, it was eight in the morning and Carla was almost there. She said goodbye to each one of her kids with a kiss on the forehead before she had a shower herself and got ready to go to therapy.

She pulled on a pair of her denim shorts, a strappy top and one of Eddie's hoodies with her sneakers as she drove to the psychologist's office for her ten am appointment. When she got there it had just turned 09:57 in the morning, she was rushing in the office just as it turned ten. "I made it! I'm not late!" She declared to Ms Francis, or Natalie as she called her, who laughed at her antics.

"Do you know how difficult it is to get out of the door on time with three children? Chris lost his shoes, Jade wouldn't let Eddie do her hair whilst I showered, so I had to do it and Matthew decided to stay up all night so he was exhausted and threw a tantrum. Being a mom is so fucking difficult and I don't know how my mother coped with me. I was a fucking nightmare, especially in my teens, forever staying out and I had my issues." Ronnie sighed, wiping a tear away as her lower lip quivered slightly. "Maybe she got away just in time, I can't imagine how she would have coped with me if she didn't die."

Natalie's pen flew over the pages of her notebook with everything the blonde said, she made notes in her folder. "So, Ronnie, how has this week been?" Her calm tone having a soothing affect on the twenty-three year old. A huff escaped her lips, pushing her hair up as she sighed, running her hand through her hair.

The therapist looked at her expectantly, pen held in her hand at the ready to right down the comments made in the session. "Difficult, I just, I don't know how to feel anymore. My son thought it was okay to hit people because he saw me let his dad beat me and I just feel so guilty. He grew up in a household where he thought violence was okay, because I was too scared to leave an abusive relationship." A few tears dribbled down her cheeks as her lip shook.

"I don't know who to trust anymore, because anyone I let in either dies, hurts me or leaves me and I am sick of always being left behind and forgotten, but I'm also scared of being loved. And I love Eddie, I really do, but I don't know what being loved feels like, because Harvey never really loved me. I flinch at the smallest thing and I freak out at everything and I'm sick of it myself, so it makes me wonder how he's feeling. I feel like I'm hurting him and I hate it." Her hand shook slightly as she ran it through her hair, the therapist nodded her head as she wrote more notes down.

"How about we talk about your childhood? The bullying? Your attempts? Anorexia? Your family? The fire? The pregnancies?" She questioned, noticing the sudden but slight change in the blonde's demeanour, her breathing more irratic than usual, her hands clenched into fists and her teeth biting her lip. "What was she like, your mother?" A single tear made its way down her cheek and soon they came cascading down like a flood, as her silent sobs shook her body.

"She had a laugh that would fill the whole room and put you at ease instantly, and a smile that lit up the world and made everything feel okay again. Mom always knew what to say and how to act with me and would always have time to talk, she made me feel normal, even though I knew I wasn't. And when we got my diagnosises she didn't leave like all my friends, she didn't turn to drink, she didn't ridicule me, she supported me and she loved me anyway. And that was all I wanted." Natalie could sense that the conversation topic made Ronnie uncomfortable but persisted despite the pleading looks the blonde sent her way.

"How did you feel after the fire?" Images of that night six years ago flooded her brain, identifying her mother and sibling's bodies, the sight of her father breaking down and his anger when she told him he needed help. The sudden decision to move to Austin, Texas.

"Numb, lost, alone, forgotten and depressed. I stopped eating, whenever I closed my eyes I could see their burning bodies, smell the burning flesh, hear their screams and then the silence. Then I would hear my dad blaming me for not waking up and getting them safe. For being the wrong one, he didn't want me to live because I was the problem child. I was so fucking messed up and I still am." The pen flew over paper as she made notes of the emotions of the blonde.

"Do you know what it's like to know that everytime your father sees you, he wishes that they survived instead? That's how I lived." Ronnie shouted at the therapist, her hands shaking as she scratched at the scars on her knee. "I knew that he wished I died and they survived. That I fucked up his life by living. Do you know what that does to a child? It fucks them up, I mean, look at me. I'm a fucking hot mess." Tears cascaded down her sodden cheeks as the pen raced across the paper, soon filling up the lines.

"Sometimes I would wish that I had died in that fire, I wouldn't have been raped or abused, I wouldn't have lost everyone, and I couldn't hurt everyone I love." And at that the blonde walked out of the session and to her car where she drove to the beach.

She laid on the sand in her shorts and crop top as tears cascaded down her cheeks and memories flashed through her mind, haunting her. The screams of her sibling's, her coughs for oxygen, the roar of the flames, the smell of burning flesh, their burning corpses. Her hands itched to hold something sharp and her wrists burned with temptation.

Every scar on her skin seemed brighter and more noticeable as if it was calling for her to do it again.

Five hours later and Ronnie had turned her phone off, put it in her bag on the beach and walked into the sea. She hadn't been to the beach since the tsunami, hadn't even gone in deep water since she had been pulled under and seperated, where she almost died, once more. Heart hammering in her chest, she ached to run out, but instead she stayed, torturing herself.

"Nobody wants me." She whispered as tears rolled down her cheeks, the salt water mixing with that of the ocean. Ronnie was so tired as she closed her eyes and took her feet of the floor as she swam further out until she was floating.

And then she simply stopped and pushed herself under, giving up all hope. Screams of her name echoed through the beach but she didn't hear them. With one last cry she opened her mouth and screamed underwater, the water flooding her mouth, coughs racked her body as she suffocated.

Her hand surfaced through the water as she let go and closed her eyes, walking into the light. Her body floated to the surface and bobbed in the waves.

"Ronnie!" Eddie screamed as he dove into the water and sped off towards her body, swimming as fast as he could. Bobby, Athena and Maddie on the beach, Maddie on the phone to 911 for an ambulance. As soon as he reached her, he felt for a pulse, his heart dropping as he did so.

Flipping himself onto his back, he floated and hooked his hand under her neck, keeping her upright as he swam as fast as he could. The second he got to shore he started CPR, the third time he had to revive his girlfriend in a year. Bobby took over after a few moments as Maddie checked for a pulse and talked to the dispatcher. "No pulse."