Don't Save My Life

Chapter 22

Willa

                “You look beautiful today. Very radiant.”

I looked down at my grey sweatpants and striped long-sleeved shirt that showed my belly. Radiant? Thanks to the overactive oil glands my face probably looked like an oil slick. Maybe after I washed my face I’d look fresh-faced or maybe a little less dewy, but definitely not radiant.

“If you don’t like the way I dress, just say so.” I joked, retrieving a mug of coffee my mother had poured for me before being seated on the other side of the wrap around counter. Our small house could never fit a large kitchen or living room, so the bar and overhead cabinets served as a divider between the two.

“You know that’s not what I mean.” She sat her own steaming cup down. She slid her open hands across the bar, taking mine into hers. The house already radiated warmth. From the new cheesecake colored walls, to the heater that since September was perpetually set to seventy degrees. Still, my heart felt as if it were submerged in warm honey.

“You’ve been sleeping well, you’re making passing grades. Todd told me that you’ve even  been participating during sessions.”

I didn’t bother speaking on the whole doctor patient confidentiality that she and her boyfriend were blatantly breeching by discussing me.

It had been exactly two months since I did away with what would have been my nearly empty bottle of Xanax. At first it felt hopeless. Even though before, I’d only been using them on and off for a month I already felt like I depended on them. The morning after the night I’d kissed Emmet, I was overcome with a sudden hopelessness. It washed over me like a tidal wave after a devastating earthquake of a nightmare I’d had of the bombing.

This time, I’d dreamed about the hours before my father walked in the middle of the mall with his heavy black backpack. I struggled in my sleep, wimpering as I relived the words I spat at my father when I’d had enough. All I’d asked was to go to the mall, something I never did when I knew my father was having a bad day. But I’d just gotten into a fight with one of my closest friends and she and her soon to be fiancé wanted to talk to me. At the time, I still wasn’t certain why Emmet Walters of all people had invited me to hash things out with my best friend and her boyfriend. All I knew was that I liked him.

“Why do you want to go to the mall?” his voice started off foggy in my head. I hadn’t heard it in so long. But soon, it cleared up. So clear that in that moment, it was real again, too tangible to be a dream.

“Because I was invited by my friends.”

“Liar! You’re going to meet a boy you little slut!”

“Who I’m going to meet is none of your business. “Even in the dream I could hear my voice quiver gently beneath my vocal chords.

“Say that again?” Even asleep, I could feel the shallow hole in my stomach as heart dropped from beneath me. I’d never spoken up to my father. Now he twitched in that way he did when he watched the news. His mind telling him that everyone, was out to get him.

Mom wasn’t home, if she was, she’d surely be blamed for my disobedience.

“I said.” I swallowed, even his eyes looked real. That vicious beady glare that was void of any soul. “It’s none of your business.”

“Go to your room.” He snarled.

“Go to Hell..” I snarled back.

Even years of watching my mother go through it hadn’t prepared me for the intensity of the blow that came next. My Jaw may as well have been dislocated for all the blind numbness I felt. The difference between when it happened and reliving the dream was, I cried while I slept. But then, I pulled myself up, an uncontainable rage boiling over after years of silence.

“I hate you!” I shouted, scrambling back towards the door when I’d gotten up.  I took steps back as I shouted. “You need help you sick bastard! What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me!” He nearly screeched.

Dad hated being told that something was wrong with him. He’d never except that he needed mental help.

I shook my head and before he could charge, I ran out the front door.

Behind me I could hear his shouts.

But I ran, ignoring his delirious shouts drawing fear from the neighbors. I ran all the way to the mall. When I got there I went into the bathroom, and cleaned myself up. I rested in a stall and when I’d caught my breath I texted Emmett back and told him that I was at the mall waiting for them. I also told myself that after today, I would change the way I lived. I didn’t care what awaited back home later. Today, I would be a normal teenager. Everything would be different. And one hour later, it was.

I woke up from that nightmare in a pool of sweat, stifling a scream when I automatically assumed it was blood. That was the morning I decided I’d never be normal. I needed, the Xanax. The sun was peeking through my window, but things couldn’t have gotten any darker. I was a flower fallen into a dried up well, I could reach for the sunlight but I’d never grow enough to escape my shadowy prison.

 A voice in my mind kept saying that even after that kiss, things wouldn’t change. Even after that night, I’d never be free of any of it. Just as I stood to find the bottle that would end my fear, I noticed a text from Emmet.

I clicked the screen with fingers dampened from clutching a sweat drenched blanket.

Good morning beautiful. Is it weird that I dreamed of you last night?

I smiled internally, but swallowed when I brought myself to text the next few words.

I dreamed about you too.

I really need someone to talk to.

He replied instantly.

I’m on my way.

And just like that, Emmett Walters had shattered another layer that had wrapped its mechanic fingers around my heart. Each time in the following weeks that  I reached for my pill bottle, I thought about him. That look of disappointment I’d seen on the beach, I never wanted to see it again. Talking about my problems with Emmett may not have been the breakthrough Todd always hoped to happen in his homey psychiatrist office, but it was a start.

The ringing of the doorbell ripped me violently from my thoughts. I was back in the kitchen. My mom’s small delicate hands still held mine for a moment. At the sound of a slight rapping at the door, my mom stood to answer it. It was probably Rickie, we were going shopping for the winter bash at the crescent today. The feeling of my mother’s hands stayed with me as she nearly floated gracefully to answer the door. Her palms weren’t rough or bruised. Her face wasn’t dull and lifeless. She was fine, and I was fine.

Suddenly, I realized what she meant. But it wasn’t just me. Everything was so beautiful this morning. Life was radiant.