Daughter of the Demon (I)

Daughter of the Demon-26-Realizations of My Life as a Suicide

Chapter 26: Realizations of my Life as a Suicide

~Jemma~

I couldn’t talk. The only optimistic thing I kept in mind was the fact that there was a little percentage that I may be able to speak again. Eventually. Maybe.

But I had reached a level of depression I didn’t think possible.

Two weeks in the hospital and yet I wasn’t dead. I was alive. Why did the universe insist on keeping me alive? And who the hell saved me from drowning?

I wasn’t going to cut myself again or anything like that. No, this loss of feeling was worse. It was deeper. I just didn’t want to do anything, ever again.

Hence me wanting to kill myself.

The doctors couldn’t tell right away because I wasn’t allowed to talk. But they began to see my lack of caring for everything, my lack of energy, my endless staring at one spot on the floor. It must have been pretty bad, too, because they held a meeting together in my hospital room to talk about my future.

Talk about planning ahead.

Of course, I didn’t pay much attention. Wherever they sent me . . . it just didn’t matter. I just didn’t care.

Michael came to retrieve me out of the hospital. I refused to acknowledge his presence and continued my perpetual stare at the invisible dot on the floor. Then he picked me up and I closed my eyes. I felt the rush of air against my skin as he carried me out the door, down the hall, outside, and into his car. He buckled me in because he could tell I wasn’t moving, and then slid into the drivers’ side. Wordlessly he turned the car on, backed out of the hospital driveway, and drove away.

I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Aunt Clara. I didn’t want her to see me, to see myself not as Jemma who has beaten down the demons, but as the demons that had beaten down Jemma. I didn’t want her to see me like this.

I was not in control of my life anymore, but I was beginning to think I never was.

Michael set me down on the couch, and I immediately found my spot to stare at on the floor. Somebody wrapped a soft blanket around my shoulders and I felt their eyes on me.

“What’s wrong with her?” I heard Aunt Clara ask either air, Michael, or maybe both, a sob in her voice.

“I don’t really know. The only thing the doctors would tell me is that she can’t speak because of her surgery,” Michael replied.

“I understand that, but, she isn’t even making eye-contact. Michael, what happened that day on the bridge? It’s been two and a half weeks and you still won’t tell me. Nobody will tell me!”

“I just don’t think---”

“Michael, we’re going to be married soon, and, dammit, you better start telling me these kinds of things!”

There was a shocked silence on Michael’s part. I would have looked up if I’d been able to. Marriage? So Aunt Clara and Michael were really getting married? That was a good thing. They were perfect for each other.

“What is wrong with her?” Aunt Clara asked again. “What is wrong with my baby?”

Her baby? Wow, never heard anybody call me that before. Not even my own mother.

“Clara she . . . she wasn’t really . . . she was going to . . . she tried to take her own life.”

I felt the anger rippling off of Clara. There was a point one could reach of such utter sorrow that everything else turns into pure fiery rage. I knew that helplessness better than anybody.