FRAGMENTS

DROWN IV

[Four]
Two hundred and forty seconds;

Four minutes;

That was how long it took between her last message to my cell phone and me finding her drowning unconsciously inside the bathtub.

The doctors said she had taken pills. So many pills, her blood turn white with all the powder.

I didn't know if I should call 9-1-1 first or go to her. I don't remember much of that night either way. All mixed in a tornado, grey blur inside my mind.

I remember my back crashing against the door frame, a purple bruise marking my hips for days to come.

I remember how heavy she was. In all the possible ways. And how weak I felt trying to take her out of the water.

I remember how pale she looked. Her golden strands sticking to her face. Her limbs falling lifeless to her sides as I dragged her body out of the bathtub.

I remember a shrink sound filling the air. Only after realizing it was my own screams and sobs.

I remember calling an ambulance and doing CPR, begging her to wake up. Only four minutes, it could not be long enough for her to be gone. She had to wake up. She was going to. I was sure of it.

She was a good swimmer. She knew how to hold her breath for more than a minute. She had taught me.

The paramedics arrived at some point, I had had lost track of time by then.

I went with them to the hospital. I waited for my parents. I heard the worst news of my life.

I don't remember what happened in between. I don't remember the drive back home. I don't remember climbing the stairs, a suffocating silence in my once vivid house.

But I remember taking that damn shower, the events of the night finally sinking in. Crashing me down just like a wave.

And this time I didn't have her to catch me.

I remember my knees hitting the tiles, the water running down my body. Our shared bathroom becoming only mine. And the realization of it tore me apart.

I remember, more than anything, her eyes. They used to carry sparkling stars in their orbits. But now they are marked in my memories as dull irises. Void, empty.

Deep blue eyes. Ocean eyes. And she drowned in them.

The pills were not the cause of her death. They made her dizzy tough. Dizzy enough to not fight back the water entering her mouth, sipping down her trachea and reaching her lungs. She was sinking instead of floating in oxygen.

And it only took four minutes.

If I had been faster. If I had read her journal sooner. If I had paid more attention. If I had been a better sister.

If I only had said it back. I will catch you too, Sarah.

But the words never left my mouth. She never heard the comforting sentence. And I didn't catch her in time.

It took me months to read the message she had sent to me before letting her cell phone slip through her fingers and dive head first to her dreamless slumber.

I am sorry. You will have to do it without me now. I love you forever.
-S

My throat closed. Her last text as sharp as a knife straight to my heart. And it was like I couldn't breathe. Like her last words had punctured my lungs.

And I wondered if that was what she felt as she drowned.

I didn't want to do it without her. I didn't know how.