Daughter of the Demon (I)

Daughter of the Demon-12-What Happens When . . .

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Chapter 12: What Happens When You’re Tired of Living

~Jacob~

They didn’t let anyone even come near Jemma for three days.

On the fourth day Clara and I were allowed inside.

When I had sat with Jemma in the ambulance, it truly seemed as if she wasn’t going to make it. That stupid moronic girl had gone and slit her wrists. Luckily, a pencil wasn’t sharp enough to go real deep and do fatal damage. But it was near fatal, and it gave me a near heart attack that would have sent me to a near ambulance, too.

Clara and I stepped into her hospital cell. She had an IV in her arm and was strapped to so many monitors and machines. A heart scanner beeped steadily---though slowly---beside her. She had a mask over her face and although she had retained a little of her natural color, she was so very deathly pale. Aunt Clara was scared. I could imagine. I wasn’t handling this like a jolly walk in the park, either. But it was different for her. I knew that. Worse.

How was I supposed to do the project now?

I pinched myself. How narcissistic of me. Jemma was half-dead right in front of me and I was worried about my school grades. But school was how I escaped the horrors of my home-life. Maybe this was just another horror I wanted to elude.

Except it was Jemma, and I couldn’t.

“Oh my god,” Clara breathed when she sat in the stiff metal chair beside Jemma’s bed. “I’m so sorry, sweetie . . . why did you do this?”

I shoved my hands in pockets, leaning against the wall. I had been invited because I saved her life. I mean, I could have left her to die in the bathroom, but I didn’t. I guess that meant I saved her life. I didn't feel like a hero.

The hospital door opened again and the psychologist or psychiatrist or whatever she was called that Clara had hired stepped inside. She was older but the wrinkle lines bespoke long years of wisdom and helping troubled people.

I certainly hoped she could come in handy, now.

“Good morning,” she said. Yes, it was morning, and I got to skip school to come here. Yippee. Except that, oh yeah, it was a hospital.

And my partner was unconscious.

“Please, take a seat. Yes, you, son.” She gestured to the chair by me and I pulled it over to her and Clara. We sat in a little circle by Jemma and sighed, looking sadly over to her. “I have good news and bad news.”

Clara looked about ready to lose it. “Bad news? How could you walk in here saying you have bad news?”

The psychologist---her name tag read Dr. Marcia---bit her lower lip. “I ran the results and read over what you had told me, and from what I’ve discovered, it does seem pretty accurate. But I want to ask a few more questions right now, if you don’t mind, to support my conclusion.”

Clara nodded. “Fine. Go ahead. I guess it can’t get any worse.”

“Right.” Dr. Marcia cleared her throat. “You told me Jemma’s mother is . . . deceased?”

“Yes. She killed herself.”

Instinctively I looked over at Jemma, remembering her face when she told me that, how sad and desperate she looked. I shivered.

“Now, I understand the father is not in the picture?”

Clara nodded again. “He left when Linda---my sister---committed suicide. He was not interested in raising a daughter alone and had no desire to be a father any longer.” Jeez, had this woman no mercy? She certainly didn’t beat around the bush. Talk about straightforward.

Dr. Marcia scribbled a few sentences down on her clip board, and pressed it against her chest, concealing it from us. Her eyebrows furrowed. “The good news is her condition may be reversible, with the proper guidance, of course.”

Clara dipped her head, narrowing her eyes at the psychologist. “Reversible? What condition are you speaking of?”

“Not a specified condition per say, but, a mental illness, if you will.” She lowered her clip board onto her lap. “Your niece is suffering from post-suicide symptoms. She’s feeling neglected and unstable, and that itself leads to unnecessary actions to take away the “empty feeling” many patients explain feeling.”

“Post-suicide symptoms?” The look on Clara’s face said, bullshit.

Dr. Marcia nodded. “Yes, but that’s not the worst part. This girl . . . she may have more personal problems running a little deep. Actions like this are from deep emotional scars that are incredibly hard to erase and take a generous amount of time to fade. Often these scars are roots to depression or exclusion and in severe cases suicide.”

“So why did my niece try to kill herself?”

“Um . . .” Oh, why did I have to speak up? Clara and Dr. Marcia looked at me expectantly. “I don’t think she was trying to kill herself,” I offered unsurely.

“Why do you say that, son?”

“Because, when I found her in the bathroom, she looked scared of all the blood and not completely sure what was happening.”

A shadow passed over Dr. Marcia’s face. “So it’s worse than I thought.”

“Worse? I thought we’d established that it cannot get worse!” Clara exclaimed loudly, but not too loudly for the sake of Jemma. Even if she was in a medically induced coma at the moment.

“Jemma is acting out of pure self-hate and self-instability, then. Her inner stress and inner anxiety of how her life could possibly go on with how the way things are currently is too much. It creates a sort of . . . gremlin inside a person, that control them and makes them do unthinkable things.”

“So Jemma doesn’t want to kill herself?”

“I didn’t say that.” She hesitated. “It’s still quite possible that . . . she has some suicidal feelings inside her purely of her own creation. At the moment she is feeling a strong desire to no longer be a part of this earth. Yes. She doesn’t want to live anymore. That is why I would advise a close inspection to her room before she is released from this room. She is allowed near no sharp objects. Her pencils must be dull and the teachers have already been notified that she is not allowed near the sharpener. If her pencil runs out, she uses a ball-point pen. One that is not lethal, if you will.”

“It’s going to be so hard for her,” Clara whispered, mostly to herself.

“It is indeed, but troubled children need certain measures done---be them extreme or even subtle---to keep them sane and balanced. I’m sorry if this is condescending to your mood, but, it must be done. Thank you.” She stood up and promptly left the room.

“Wow. That was a mood-killer,” I muttered into the air. Clara wasn’t listening. She was focused on Jemma’s face, on the fact that Jemma’s life was probably over, and Jemma would have an even greater desire for taking her life.

I hated to say I felt the need to punch something with great force at that thought. The anger and the hate was burning and fiery, and like that little gremlin, downright overpowering.