Til Death Do Us Part

Zac V.

I knew my wife was clinically depressed. I've always known. Ever since we met back in the tenth grade of high school. So it was never a surprise to see her not enjoy simple things like art and flowers like she usually did.

Back then I didn't know much about depression, nothing more than that it just made you feel negative emotions for no reason. Over the years I've come to learn that it's much more... Complex than that, and even now I don't fully understand what it means to be depressed because well, I've never had it. That's where people go wrong when they think they know what it truly is when they've never experienced it first-hand. I haven't, but I had a wife who has since she was nine and I still don't understand it 100%, and I've known her for almost ten years.
 

When we met back in high school, she was vulnerable and her emotions weren't well put together. Needless to say she was an emotional mess. We shared the same mathematics class and she had caught my attention right away, which was ironic because she sat at the back of the class to avoid attention and I sat in the same row to try to get hers. She always took her notes and did her work. She spoke to the same two girls who sat beside and in front of her. I had wished I knew what they were talking about. It was the same cycle day after day, until one day she was absent. It was just over the middle of the semester and it was her first absence so it was out of the ordinary. I was curious but decided that maybe she'd caught a cold or maybe the flu since it was winter time and the weather lately had been brutal.

I didn't question it any further until it marked 3 days she hadn't showed up. At the end of class, I had decided to ask one of her friends if they knew anything.

"Shay! Shay wait up!" I called out and she turned around to acknowledge my call. Luckily I'd known her name since we went to middle school together.

"What's up, Zac?"

"Do you happen to know where Valerie is?" I hoped she had an answer.

"Yes I do," she said giving no information out.

"Would you be able to tell me where?"

She sighed and pulled me to the side of the hallway, "She's in the hospital Zac," she said lowly.

What? Why? "Why is she in the hospital?"

"That's her business to tell you. She's in the general if you'd like to visit her."

"Thank you, I will tonight," I said then headed to my locker. I didn't care about last period Chem, I was more concerned about why Valerie was in the hospital.

It took me longer than I had hoped to arrive there since I had to deal with my mother and why I didn't attend last period and then it took me quite awhile to choose a bunch of flowers for her. When I got there I became nervous. I slowly approached the front desk and waited for someone to help me.

"Hello, can I help you with something?" A nurse asked.