Counting Down

Chapter 4 - Shadows Return

Had it really been six days? Six days of spending hour upon hour in bed, listening to nothing but Riley's piano music and drinking hot tea? It couldn't have been. Everything had been a complete blur since I was drug out of the hospital and forced to be sent home. I stood up shakily and wobbled to the bathroom. My thin and weak frame practically became translucent in front of my now dusty bathroom mirror. The one strong hands that held Riley's hand every night were pale as snow and my eyes had heavy, dark bags underneath them.

I stripped out of my black bathrobe and noticed my incredibly noticeable hip bones like mountain peaks rising from my body and ribs that seemed to be erupting from underneath my skin. I was dying. I was dying without her. I hadn't been away from her for over three days and this was beginning to feel like the end. I took a shaky breath and walked over to the shower to turn on the water. I let the faucet run and made my way across the bathroom to my medicine cabinet. The familiar bottle of pain pills given to me by the hospital was gripped in my painfully weak hands. I covered my mouth to mask the ugly sobs racking my chest. I ran to the tub and let my body be encased by the rising water.

Everything came at me at once, like a tidal wave of worry, fear, heart break, bone crushing anxiety, and complete hopelessness surged at me and now the waves were reaching into my lungs and drowning me. I couldn't take it anymore. I reached across the bathtub counter and took the bottle of pain killers, ripping it open in the process.

In my hand was one pill.

It had been six days without Riley.

I eagerly poured out six more pills and laid them flat in my palm. They were the same color as my eyes were when I woke up from my short coma. My head spun for a few minutes as I pondered the thought. What was worse was what I really did.

I took the seven pills - six for each day without Riley and one for good luck - and shoved them into my gaping mouth and swallowed them dry. My hands stayed still for a few minutes as I waded in the shallow and warm bath water. For a moment my legs felt tingly and started going numb. That's when the burning started. My throat felt like it was engulfed in flames. My eyes watered and I struggled to breathe normally. I gripped the edge of the tub trying to cease my head from spinning but it was now useless as the sudden realization if what I had just done hit me light a freight train.

Oh my god, what was I doing?

I stumbled out of the bathroom - in my naked glory - and picked up my cellphone with my trembling hands. The numbers on my phone were hazy and glowing but I managed to dial out 911. Someone picked up and asked, "911....what....emergency..?" was all I picked out.

"I downed some pills. Help me!" I cried out in a strangled scream.

"Where are you?" the voice asked.

I mumbled out my address and kept the phone pressed to my cheek. She kept telling me to stay with her and stay conscious, but everything was growing blurry. I brushed my hand out in front of me and watched it drag slowly across my vision like a sparkler.

My eyes were growing heavy as the woman pleaded for me to stay on the line. My door bursted open and some paramedics in bright white clothing picked me up from my beige carpeting which was beginning to look like a cloud as I was lifted from it. One voice whispered, "You're going to be okay. We got you know."

I nodded as I was strapped onto a stretcher and rattled into the back of an ambulance for the second time this month. Crazy how life is, huh?

The ride there was a blur of messy figures through my glassy eyes bustling around, checking my heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and other vitals. As soon as we got to the hospital, my stomach was flushed of the pain pills I had swallowed. Exhausted, I fell asleep in my hospital bed - stripped of my belongings yet again and without a blanket or any object I could use to potentially harm myself with.