Elixir

III

Author's Note: Hi, friends! I've decided to just put up this third part despite not hitting my meager goal of 10 views, five votes, and three comments. I'll let it slide, as I did put this all off for an entire month. I deserve it :(. But to the three folks who are still reading, thank you, I hope you like it! Oh and any suggestions, feel free to comment!

I found myself wailing in the arms of four strangers. I'd heard them running towards me, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get up. I didn't want to get up. I wanted to sink into the ground, through thick layers of cement and let mother nature consume me whole. Every inch of battered skin and scarred tissue. I wanted her to rip apart my insides and devour my heart and my restless mind. I didn't want to exist in this world anymore. There was nothing for me. Everything I could have been was destroyed. Every want that boiled inside me and pushed me through the ice packs and stitches with a needle too thick and thread too rough was gone.

In that moment on the ground, I felt all my desires vanish. I couldn't hear the panicked voices of the four fretting teens above me, or the strong arms encompass my carcass-like body, only to place me gently onto the bench I was bawling on only moments before. I didn't feel the heaviness of a jacket being laid upon my now shivering body, or smell the riveting scent of boy invading my nostrils. I could only feel my body internally shutting down. My mind desperately pleading to my heart.

please just stop, stop, stop, stop, stop pumping blood through my veins and thoughts to my head and warmth to my fingers and life into me, please stop letting me live

But my heart didn't listen or just didn't care. It kept pumping blood to my veins and thoughts to my head and warmth to the fingertips that wanted nothing more than to freeze. It let me live, but it was merciful enough to choke me for a moment too long and lull me into a gentle slumber.

What felt like years later, I came to, but a quick scan of my surroundings confirmed that it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes. I was staring up at the sky. It was beautiful and blue and big. It was still light out and I could hear the distant sound of children laughing and playing. I sat up, much too fast, and squeezed my eyes shut trying to will the dizziness away. A thick, blue jacket fell off my shoulders and onto my lap. Despite the humid summer air, I was shivering. I rushed to put it on and made the decision to go home. I was not happy about it, but who was I to choose whether I could live or die? I no longer had the authority to make my own decisions. Especially not one like this. My life was not my own, but my mother's, and for a brief moment of hysterics I forgot that. But I owe it to her after all the damage I'd done.

It was just over twelve years ago when everything went wrong. Where I ruined it all. We had the perfect life, perfect family of four. My mother, my father, my brother and me. We lived a life of luxury. We mattered to the world. But then I, stupid girl, ruined everything. Money surrounded us like pots of gold at the end of a rainbow. It was marvelous and we were happy. But, that's the thing, there was never a pot of gold at the end of any rainbow, just like there was no real job, legal job, that paid the bills of our expensive life style.

My stupid child ears zeroed in on conversations I wasn't meant to hear.

"You were supposed to pay him back two days ago, Johnathon!" My mother exclaimed. Still, she was sane, she was happy.

"I know what I'm doing, Paula, stay out of it." His patience would never wear thin. Never have I seen my father wear a frown on his lips. There was always a smile lurking somewhere, whether it be hidden in his eyes or the muscles of his cheeks.

"Please, just pay him back, who knows what he'll do if you push him." the worry in her voice was more evident now than before, yet, still, my father didn't care.