WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARE DEAD ;;
Make time slower, give me longer. It's too late for me, no one will know that I'm down here. Believe your dreams of me sinking so far below. You can't pull me up from here so don't try.
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“FUCK!” I shrieked. I studied the pills in my hand before looking around the room. On our bedside table, I noticed something I never had before: Carly had set up a small nativity scene, and had a tiny cross with Jesus nailed to it. There was a small quote taped up above it.
I had spent my entire semester denying God’s existence, but now as I came closer and closer to finding out whether or not He was real, I began to question myself. How could I definitively say whether He existed or not? That certainly wasn’t my place. When I was younger, I had always felt so close to God. Before I got bad, really bad, I had always prayed, asking him for forgiveness, for patience, for a reason to recover. And when I didn’t get those things immediately after … that was when I started to question my faith. I felt like the faith I’d been assigned -- Greek Orthodoxy -- wasn’t meant for me. Going to church only served to make me feel more out of place. I couldn’t connect to him like everyone else could.
But maybe if I tried again, something could change. Maybe if I prayed, and I looked to Him for help, something would be different. Maybe, with His support, I could rid myself of this awful disorder, of my suicidal thoughts. Maybe if I got back on the train, something would be different.
I wandered over to Carly’s nativity scene to read the quote directly above it. The quote read, “God will wreck your plans when He sees your plans are about to wreck you.” I heard a loud knock at the door, followed by screaming. “Raelee! Raelee, open up! What’s going on?” I recognized the voice, but I couldn’t tell whose it was. “I’m coming in!” The voice shouted.
The door to the study opened, and then my own door was opened. “Raelee, Jesus Christ. What the hell is going on?” Kaitlyn cried.
“Kaitlyn!” I shrieked. “Please help me.” Her eyes flickered around the room, from the pills in my hand, to the ones spilled on the bed, to my iPod turned to Adam’s Song at the loudest volume I could stand. She shut the music off, scooped the pills out of my hand, and threw them away. She wrapped her arms around me tightly.
“Please explain what’s happening,” she whispered. I felt her hot tears falling on my back.
“I wanted to be dead,” I cried. “I wanted to be dead. I wanted to kill myself. But I don’t want that anymore. God exists. And I know He’s real now, and I don’t want to be dead. God wrecked my plans because He saw they were about to wreck me. And I just want to go to the hospital. I need to go to the hospital.” Kaitlyn peeled herself off of me to look me in the eyes.
“I didn’t think you were going to come around. But you did. And I’m so happy He saved you,” Kaitlyn murmurred. She wrapped me in her around me again. “I live in Peoria, and you live fairly close to me. I’m going to drive you to a hospital near your house because I don’t like the idea of you being stuck in Monmouth for the next few days. And this way, your parents will be able to see you, which they’ll inevitably want to.”
“Thank you so much, Kaitlyn. I met you at a very strange time in my life. But strange is good. There isn’t really a better time,” I sniffled.
“I’m just glad I could be here for you. Let’s finish packing, and then we’ll get going,” She said with a tentative smile.
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The ride home was mostly silent; I think Kaitlyn was too deeply in shock to carry out a conversation with me. I’m sure she’d heard the rumors about me flying around campus -- she had surely heard how truly fucked up I was. I leaned my head up against the window on the passenger’s side in her 1994 Jeep Cherokee. I’d been sleeping so much, but nearly killing myself had drained what was left of my energy. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to take me. Kaitlyn’s Relient CD rocked me gently to sleep.
Kaitlyn shook me awake close to three hours later. “We’re here, Rae,” she said quietly. She lead me from the parking lot to the hospital. She explained to them what had happened several hours earlier while I looked at the floor and tried to hide my depression and embarrassment. She turned back to me after what seemed like an eternity.
“They’re going to give you a room and call your parents. I’m going to stay here with you a while, and maybe we can get some stuff worked out before they get here,” she explained.
“Alright,” I breathed. “Sounds good.”
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I was taken into a small room with a single bed. Everything was white, and there was next to nothing it in. I had always read about how the ward of the hospital you go to is generally barren and white, but I didn’t expect it to be true.
“When we talked about religion for the very first time, when we met at SOFIA -- you said didn’t believe in God,” Kaitlyn began, interrupting my thoughts.
“Right,” I said, pulling at my uncomfortable hospital gown.
“And why’s that?” She asked.
“Well, I didn’t know how to believe in a God that didn’t support anyone who wasn’t straight, cis-gendered and white,” I replied, tugging the blanket up to my chin.
“Sorry, Rae. That’s where you’re wrong. In the Bible, when they talk about homosexuality being ‘wrong’ -- people completely misquoted that section. Keep in mind that the word ‘homosexual’ didn’t exist until hundreds of years after the Bible was written. A couple of assholes decided to put that word in, in place of it’s true definition in Greek -- which is something to the effect of being an effeminate male. And there’s something about having sex with people of the same gender, and how that’s wrong. But that was actually God asking that people didn’t have ridiculous pagan sex rituals and have sex with any human they can find. Plus, the Bible says nothing about being transgendered,” Kaitlyn said.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “People always seem so sure of themselves when they stand outside parading around with their ‘God Hates Fags’ signs and whatever.”
“He who busies himself with the sins of others or judges his brother on suspicions has not yet even begun to repent or examine himself so as to discover his own sins,” Kaitlyn replied. “Essentially, if someone truly thinks they’re in a place to criticize another Christian, they’re no Christian at all.” As she spoke, there was a knock at the door -- my parents had arrived.
“I’ll leave you with that. I love you a lot, Rae, and text me if you need anything. Have a nice break, and remember to take care of yourself,” she said.
“Bye, Kaitlyn. I love you a lot too,” I replied as she slipped out the door.
