Ophelia Study No. 1

Chapter Thirteen

 Emily steadily declined in every way one can. Her grades barely stuck around passing, drama being the only one she was excelling at with a B minus, a grade that was still unusual in comparison to her past marks. She smoked as heavily as ever, despite her weekly meetings with the support group trying to get her to quit. She never slept enough, and she was awake at odd times and asleep at even stranger hours. She got really quiet, she withdrew from everyone, and had I possessed the guts, I would've called out her unhealthy eating habits.

It was a Thursday night that I had been cleaning our room, which had turned into a pit ever since her suicide attempt. It had taken a visible toll on not only her, but everything she touched, it seemed. I had pulled pile after pile of discarded clothing and papers from the floor when I finally stumbled upon a notebook.

It was completely ordinary, no distinct markings of any sort on the cover, and not even a design or pattern. It was a solid, black, college ruled notebook, which I, in all honesty, expected to be blank when I opened it. Boy, was I mistaken. It was almost as if the universe had compelled Emily to write a manifesto in an unimpressionable notebook with the sole intention of proving me wrong.

Her writings covered each page, 'covered' meaning literally the entire page, yes even the margins and the inside of the front cover. It was in that neat, precise handwriting that I grew to know so well, only as you went further back; it grew more and more frantic, wilder by the sentence. I had read only excerpts out of respect, but my, were they unsettling. She may have been my star, and while she had a galaxy in her heart, she had storms in her head. What I could make out of her journal painted pictures of despair that I couldn't fathom, a sort of sharp sadness that could only be expressed in jagged letters and jumbled sentences. Not to mention, a novel's worth of parentheses and ellipses. She really poured her heart out into what was written in that notebook, and the pages nearly dripped with her blood.

In fact, bodily fluids would be the only thing that could possibly make the diary any more personal. It was composed in such a way that the only more raw it could get would be through the literal use of tears and sweat.

I was thankful that she had been downstairs with my mother when I discovered her journal, grateful that I had not enlisted in her help in the wearisome task of tidying the disheveled bedroom. In seeing those scribblings, and reading just parts of them, I'd come into contact with her soul, and I wasn't entirely sure if that was something she wanted me to see.

Emily, as usual, had fallen asleep by five in the afternoon. I took this opportunity fully, rushing to find my mother soon after I saw Emily's sleeping figure.

I ran into my mom, literally, at the foot of the stairs. The laundry basket that had been residing against her hip titled, almost spilling some of its contents before she corrected this. She raised an eyebrow at me expectantly.

"Sorry," I apologized quickly. "Look, this is really important. Can we please get rid of all the knives in the house?"

"Excuse me?"

I had pushed forward, so panicked that my hands shook as I continued, "Not just knives, but scissors, razors, anything?"

She had sighed exasperatedly, asking, "And why is this important right at this moment?"

I wanted to keep Emily's journal private, so I didn't confess to finding it. But I knew that I could get my mother onboard with a single, three word sentence. "It's for Emily."

An hour later, the house was completely rid of any sort of sharp object or even dangerous material. From plastic sacs to scissors, all were moved to the garage, where they were locked. Certain items we couldn't dispose of completely, such as medicine, for example, were locked away, only my mother knowing the combination to the safe they were stored in.

When Emily woke up, she was confused as to why she had to have permission to access the Tylenol. My mom had hugged her, promising, "It's for your own good, sweetie. We love you, and we'd do anything to keep you safe."

Emily stood there, stunned by the measures we'd come to in her name. She was dumbfounded; completely unable to convince herself that anyone could care about her so much. But two people right in that house did, and I probably can't speak for the both of us when I say this, but at any given time, I would've died for Emily. She was the world to me, and according to my mother, I looked at her like she put the stars in the sky and pushed up the sun every morning. Could you blame me? She was, after all, the only person who had a choice to leave many times but still stayed. She could've left me behind more times than I can count, but she chose not to, and I don't know why she did, but I was so thankful.

At the same time, I wondered if I had broken her. Not with the attitude I held around the time she was kicked out, but that weird period of time where I hated her for no justifiable reason. Looking back, I still can't find a solid explanation for the way I treated her. Was I taking out some bottled rage? Maybe. Playing the offense in my first relationship but going overboard? Perhaps. All I know is that to this day, people imply that I pushed her to do what she did about a month later. And while I believe that there was something dark inside that girl before she ever met me, something just beneath the surface, I also realize that I may have brought it out in her. I couldn't have created the problem, but I certainly could've exacerbated an existing dilemma.