drum. sleep. breathe.

2008-12-11T10:04:00.000-08:00

There were a couple of group therapy sessions, but I concentrated little and also paid attention little. Our next ‘unfocused time’ was in the television room where we just got to play cards and stuff for a half hour. I sat down on one of the big plushy couches, next to Casey, giving him a considerable amount of space, of course. “Hey,” I offered. He nodded back to me. Derek came in the room after the last guy came in.

“So, I’m very proud to say that yesterday was a completely incident-free day and we were the only one in the hospital to achieve that.” A cheer or two broke out. “So, as a reward for that, since I know you guys tried extra hard, we get the radio today.” He unlocked one of the closets that was in the room and got out an older looking boom box radio. The guys seemed excited about this, but not overly. This seemed like a prize that they had gotten before.

He turned on the radio and tuned it to the Christian rock station, which received a few boos, but not too many. A few of the guys had decks of cards with them and I could see games of 21 and Phase 10 developing. Derek joined in one of them. I looked over at Casey. He had his arms folded and was looking out the window. I wondered if he was new, as well, or just was brought here against his will and didn’t want to be here. Before I had much time to think about it, Dennis walked into the room.

“Hey, Kyle, you have a visitor.” I looked up at Dennis, and got up to follow him outside the room. Brian was at the front desk. I waved to him but I wasn’t very happy. I still didn’t quite feel safe in here, despite how nice everyone was. Still, I knew nothing was going to sway Brian. He gave me a big hug, before settling down with me on a bench in the hallway.

We weren’t even allowed to go into the cafeteria alone, because I was still on suicide watch. “So, how is it here?” He asked. I shrugged. “The people are nice, but it doesn’t change the fact that I want to go home.” Brian sighed.

“I expected that. It will get better soon, okay?” I leaned back against the wall. “I feel safer now, that you’re safe in here. Have you felt like doing it again?” I shrugged, watching the guys walk by the hallway.

“I don’t know. I expected what happened on the bridge to be so immediate, and to never feel suicidal again. But everything is so overwhelming.” I leaned my arms onto my knees, and He leaned forward with me. “What’s overwhelming about it?” He asked in a quiet voice; curious, but not accusatory. “Well, I’ve had to concentrate on the past week a lot.

The flashbacks aren’t going away, I don’t know what to say to my dad, Jess, or my mom, not to mention my roommates.”

“Your roommates stopped by my office today. They had heard rumors of something happening in your room but they didn’t know anything for sure.” I cringed at the thought of them finding out what I had done. “How did they take it?” Brian was silent for a moment before answering, searching for the right words. “They’re worried.

They’re glad you’re okay and that you’re somewhere safe.” I nodded. “And Jess? Have you heard from her?”

“She texted me last night, late, because she had heard a bunch of stuff going on. She was pretty upset.

But I reassured her that you are okay.” I cringed, putting my head in my hands. “Great. I messed everything up, Brian.”

“No, you didn’t. You came close, and we both know it was God who had everything to do with keeping you alive.”

“And why? Seriously?”

“You obviously haven’t done what He has for you yet, because when you have, He will take you Himself.”

“Bull. That’s such a cop-out. I’m not amounting to anything in my life.” I leaned back against the wall again, crossing my arms over my stomach.

“Not a cop-out. Seriously, Kyle. You’re just seventeen years old. You’re not old enough to have messed your life up yet, and even the mistakes you’ve made are covered.”

“Right. By Jesus’ blood on Cavalry, too, huh?” I overdid the sarcasm. I was trying to offend him, to hurt his feelings. It didn’t seem to work, because I looked over and he was silent for a moment, but he didn’t look hurt. Like he dealt with this all the time.

Oh, right, I thought. He’s a pastor. Duh.

“Why are you mocking what you so clearly know is true?”

“How do you know I know? Because of what happened on the bridge?”
He just looked at me. I looked back at him. “Right, well that could just as easily have been my mind acting up, Brian. I could’ve been psychotic. Or maybe I’m schizophrenic.” I knew that wasn’t it.

But I wanted to keep him at a distance.

“You know the truth. I know that you know it. I’m not going to argue with you, because I know you’re trying to make me angry.” There he went with the mind-reading thing again. Seriously. Overkill. “I’m not.

So wrestle with God all you want, Kyle, but you know He’s the one who saved you, and He’s been there all this time. He’s never left you. Deny Him. Lie to yourself, me, and Him, if you want to, Kyle. But we both know what happened. We both know why you’re here.”

“Where do you think I would’ve gone, had I jumped?”

“Did you have a relationship with him, before?”

“Not really. Nothing like that had ever happened.”

“Well, then I think you know.” I leaned forward again, and looked down at my feet.

“Have you asked Him to be your savior?”

“Yes, right after getting down from the bridge. Not aloud. But I did.”

“Then he saved you, in so many ways. What’s your response?”

I stayed silent. “Is it doubting Him?” I didn’t move. “Have you spent any time with Him yet?”

I shook my head. “It’s been a rush.” He nodded. “Take time today, okay? Your free time if you have the chance. I think it’s really important that you do.

I want you to read the book of Romans.” I nodded. “Okay. The whole thing?” Brian shrugged. “It really isn’t that big, but just read it slowly.

Every time I read the book, I get something new out of it.” I nodded. I had another question for him. “Have you talked to my dad?” he shook his head. “Your mom has. I haven’t. Your mom might come see you this week.”

I shrugged, not really excited about the proposition. “Take advantage of this, okay, Kyle?” I looked over at him. “You’re safe here. They leave, in the end, and you stay here. Try to work on some stuff if she does come, okay?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t going to lie and tell him that I was eager to follow up on that request. “How are you doing, otherwise?” I shrugged. “I miss not being under constant supervision.” I shot a glance at Dennis. He gave me a look. Hey, your choice buddy, not mine.

“Well, that will come soon enough. You earn your way up here. Once they see that you’re safe, within the next few days, you will earn the privilege to not be under continuous watch.” I shrugged. “Two more days after this feels like forever.” He nodded. “I know, but it will go fairly fast.

Just obey their rules, and soon you’ll find yourself with more freedom.” I shrugged. I wasn’t paying attention to my long sleeve and it had ridden up. I was incredibly stressed out the night before so I had hidden under the covers, in practically the only space I had, and scratched my arm until it bled, but I made sure to cover it up with long sleeves again. He didn’t miss the long red scratch up my forearm, and made no small deal out of it. “What is that?”

I shrugged it off. “I was itching, in my sleep.” He shook his head. “It’s not in your best interests to lie to me about this. What is it?” Dennis perked up when he heard the undertone in Brian’s voice then quickly saw what he was pointing to.

I hid my arm before I noticed that he saw it. “What is that, Kyle?” he asked, and walked toward us, interrupting our ‘private’ time. I glared at Brian for ruining it. “Sorry to interrupt, guys. Kyle, do you need a self-harm check?” I growled at Brian.

“No.” He crossed his arms, not negotiating. Brian wasn’t showing any movement either, nor was he affected by my angry glares. “Then show me both of your arms, palms up.” I sighed and retreated, holding them palms up, red scratch free for the eye to see. “I’m telling you, my arms itch sometimes, guys.

No big deal.” Dennis didn’t look impressed, nor did he look convinced. “I’ll let you finish your time with your pastor, and then we’re doing a self-harm check.” He walked away with his clipboard, and sat on the other side of the hallway. Brian didn’t look impressed. “You don’t have to lie to me about that…” he started. “Really?”

I was pissed off at him now. “I can trust you, since you just ratted me out to my mental health tech?” I crossed my arms and huffed, not looking at him but instead at the wall in front of me. He sighed. “It’s for your safety, Kyle.” I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, and scratching my arm is really violating my safety.” I didn’t say anything else, nor did I really want to talk to him anymore, but I didn’t want to do my self-harm check, even though I knew that was the only recent wound. “Okay. Do you want me to leave?” In a huff I answered,

“Yes.”
I balled my fists up. He nodded. “Okay. I’ll be here, then. Tomorrow.” I followed him to the desk where he checked out. I didn’t say goodbye to him.

Dennis cleared his throat. “Follow me.” He led the way to the bathroom that was locked, and unlocked it, letting me inside in front of him, and then closing the door behind him. I watched him, still crossing my arms, confused. “We usually do self-harm checks in private, since I don’t just check your arms. Arms out, palms up.”

I obeyed, and he marked the large scratch. “How did you do that one?” he asked. “Fingernails.” He nodded. “Arms up, above your head.” I obeyed that one too. “Shirt off.”
I took it off, and kept my arms up. “Turn around.” I did. “Pull your hair up.” I obeyed, so he could see the back of my neck. “Okay, quickly, pants down.” I obeyed.

He also had me pull the legs of my boxers up so that he could see that there was nothing there, and he had me moon him, so that he could see that there was nothing there. I felt more like I was being strip-searched. “Ok, pants back on.” I put them back on quickly. “Lift your foot up out of your sandal, let me see the bottom of your foot.” I did, and he repeated the procedure for the bottom of my other heel. “Okay, good.”

He held the door open. “Now, to the conference room.” It was useless for him to say that to me since he was leading the way. I thought about bolting, but then how utterly useless of an attempt it would be. No doors were open, anywhere. He opened the door to the conference room and ushered me in.

I sat down, sighing. He sat down as well. “So do you want to talk about the mark on your arm?” he asked. I had the feeling I wouldn’t really have the option to keep it to myself, anyway. “Um…I was stressed. End of story.” He nodded.

“Okay. That’s understandable. You had a pretty big day yesterday.” I rolled my eyes at the understatement, not sure of why I hated this guy now. “Oh yeah. Sure.
Suicide attempt, being locked up, all in the span of a few hours. I’d say that would qualify me for a pretty darn big day.” I thought back to Derek, and the scar on his wrist, and would have much rather been talking to him about this than someone who didn’t really appear to get it, despite how hard he was trying. “Look. I know it wasn’t easy. And it still isn’t.

You’ve never been in this environment before. I’m guessing you were a little shocked. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but all I’m saying is, I get it that you felt trapped enough that you had to bleed again.” I looked at the wall beside me so that I wouldn’t have to face him, and he had hit exactly on the mark. “I know you don’t like me right now.

That’s okay. I just want you to know that there is always someone here you can talk to. Who you can trust. If I’m watching you, tell me, and I’ll get someone. Even at night, when you’re supposed to be sleeping. We can work through this.” I fought the tears that were threatening to come out.

No one, ever, had approached my cutting that way. Ever. Even Brian, who didn’t condemn me for it, hadn’t dealt with it much, so we never talked about it. “Kyle, we aren’t here to fight with you. We’re here to help you. Use the suicide watch to your advantage. If you haven’t gone without cutting in a while, talk to one of us when the urge hits you, and I promise we can help you through it.

You aren’t weird here. No one is going to judge you for it. I’m sure you’ve noticed some of the other patients struggle with the same problem you do. Let us help you while you’re here, Kyle, and you’ll make your stay so much more than worth it.” I pretended I hadn’t been listening to him.

“Are you going to put it on my chart, and tell Greg?”

“I will, probably. I’ll just tell him that you scratched your arm. He’ll just talk to you about it, not condemningly, and he’s not annoyed with you.” I nodded. “Ok?” I looked up at him. “Okay.”

“Alright,” he said, getting up. I got up as well. “To help you keep safe, we’re going to put you on self-harm checks once a day, at night.” I groaned. “Sorry, dude. Duty calls.

Seven clean days, however, and you will be off of them.” I sighed, not responding to him. I wasn’t about to let him know he had hit my need right on the head. “Ok, then,” he said. He looked at his watch. “Group is starting now. We should try to make it.”

I followed him out of the conference room, and down the hallway, where we reached a stairwell, with, surprise, another locked door. He unlocked it quickly, and we went downstairs down another hallway, to a room with a bunch of chairs together in a circle, all of the guys huddled in a semi-circle, Greg in the center of it at a marker board, discussing the stages of anger. I mostly blocked him out, which was fortunate, because he didn’t volunteer me for any information anyways. After the group, since it was the weekend, Derek and Dennis let us watch a movie. I tuned out the movie as well, though not voluntarily. As soon as it started, my body went rigid and I grabbed onto the sides of my chair, and I couldn’t see anyone in the room anymore.

I was at home, and it looked like I was twelve. Me and Maddy were sitting in my room. I was doodling around in my notebook, and she was playing with my game boy. For a moment it was fine. Just fine. No need to worry at all.

Then the door flew open and slammed against the wall, knocking over my Lego village that I had slaved over for a week’s worth of after school afternoons, and all day weekends. Great. Now I needed to rebuild that, again. For like the fifth time. Then I looked up and suddenly my Lego village was the farthest thing from my mind. “I TOLD YOU,” he screamed, and stomped his enormous foot, making everything shake, and me wonder what else was going to break, “TO BE IN BED AN HOUR AGO.”

Maddy dropped the game boy on the floor. “Uh…you said-“ she started, genuinely confused, before regretting her words and her decision to cross him. “NO! I FUCKING SAID EIGHT O CLOCK BEDTIME FOR BOTH OF YOU!” She became utterly still. I was watching him, and I didn’t dare move either.

“Well? Kyle, get your Pajamas on, get to bed. I’ll deal with you later. MADDY! IN YOUR ROOM. NOW!”

I saw tears running down her face as she slowly got up. “I SAID NOW. YOU DUMB CUNT WHY CAN’T YOU HEAR ME?! NOW!” You could literally see her breaking inside. Or, I could.

Maybe it’s because I am her twin. Maybe we had special powers. “Yes, Dad-“ He interrupted even her obedience as she moved past him. He slapped her butt, sharply and hard, almost hard enough to make her trip. I wanted to grimace, but that would be movement, and I didn’t want to do that. Even more, I wanted to beat him up.

He watched her close her bedroom door behind her. “When I come back you had better be in your bed, mister.” And I just sat there, as I heard her screaming. I heard slapping, I heard her hit the floor. I heard the belt hit the floor. I heard her scream.

And I couldn’t move, and I tried. I didn’t remember things this way. I couldn’t move to go try to get him off of her. “NO!” I yelled. “Kyle,” I could hear a calm voice say. “You’re here. You’re safe. You’re here.”

Then I woke up, the room was the same as it had been when the movie started, but it was empty, and it was just me and Derek. I took a deep breath. “The…the movie…it was just starting and then I was…” I trailed off, everything becoming lighter. Derek sat across from me. “You were what, Kyle? Tell me.”

I fought harder to concentrate. I needed to feel pain, more importantly to bleed, as soon as possible, or I was going to disconnect. “I wasn’t…I was at home and I couldn’t move…” I banged my wrist against the chair. “Kyle. Stop.”

It wasn’t working. I slapped myself in the face. Derek quickly and deftly put his arm in between mine and my face, blocking me. “Stop it, now. Breathe. Slowly.

Concentrate on me and breathe slowly.” I did as he said, looking into his eyes. He didn’t remove his arm from mine. “Feeling any better?” I nodded, beginning to feel more on earth again. Everything came back into focus. “Kyle, what happened when you went away?
What did you see?” I thought about his wording for a second. I had never thought about it in those terms. It sounded easier to understand then disconnect. “You were in your home, and you couldn’t move. Tell me more.”

He removed his arm from me and sat back across from me, leaning forward and poised, ready to get up again if I lost it again. “My dad…it was my Dad. He was yelling and…and he took Maddy, my sister into her room and I could hear what was happening but I couldn’t stop it.” I felt completely on earth now, everything had stopped. i noticed only then that tears were coming from my eyes and I was bawling. “Okay, Kyle.

That’s a pretty tough thing. You couldn’t’ move?” I sobbed and breathed in heavily. “When it actually happened I went in there..a..a…” I stopped to catch my breath, crying harder than I thought I was. “I was…in..the..ee..er…afterward.”

I didn’t want to explain it. Derek sat there with my, not tainting the situation with words just yet. “Have you remembered before? Like this?” I shook my head. “I have flashbacks, but they’re usually from when I was little and I’ve been having the same ones for years, so they don’t bother me as much.”

Derek reached to the table and handed me a box of tissues. “I’ve never been frozen before.” He nodded. “But you do go away like that, too?” I nodded. “Only thing that makes me come back is pain.”

Derek leaned forward. “Did you notice when I had you look at me and breathe big breaths that it started getting a little better?” I nodded. “A little…” He set the tissue box on the table again after I took a few and blew my nose. “And when you were able to tell me what you saw. What did you notice then?” I wiped my eyes with a different tissue, then threw them into the trash can nearby. “I came down again pretty quickly.”

“That’s right. Silence is what helps you go away faster. If you can get out what happened, and what you saw, even if it’s physically painful to say, it works just as good, even better than hurting yourself does.” I nodded. “Will you try that with us? Say one of our names, or say help, or make some kind of sound or something when it happens, and we’ll know, and we can get you safe. You haven’t talked about these kinds of things a lot, have you, Kyle?”
I shook my head. “Never.” Not even with Jess. We usually were concentrating on her pain; the same kind of pain. “What have you done instead?” He cradled his chin in his hand, inquisitively.

“Cut. Popped pills.” He nodded. “See, if you’ll let us, we’ll help you break free from that. Not that it’s a one step thing, and it’s not easy, but this is the first step.” I was beginning to think about what he said when the phone rang.

I wasn’t even aware there was a phone in the room. Derek walked over to the table and picked it up. “Hello? Okay.” He put the phone to his chest and looked over to me. “Your dad’s on the phone.” I sighed, nodded and got up.

“I’m right here,” he asserted, and handed me the phone before sitting back in his previous spot. I nodded to him, needing that reassurance. I gulped before answering. “Hello?” I heard his strong voice answer on the other line. I held onto the table for reassurance that I was here, in safety, not there, with him.

“Uh, your mom says that the program recommends weekly family therapy.” I swallowed.

“Yeah, they do.”

“Well, do you, uh, really, think we need it?” The words stung. I didn’t know how he could possibly conceive us not needing family therapy.

“Yeah, Dad.” I told him, feeling stronger than the last time I had resisted his will. “Well, I don’t really think it’s so necessary.” I balled my fists. “Well, fine Dad. Don’t participate if you don’t want. I don’t care.”

I let the acidity come through in my voice. Something Brian had told me was finally sunken in. He can’t hurt me here. “What does it mean if I don’t?” he asked in an accusatory voice. “I don’t know, Dad.”

I was being honest. “Well, I’ll think about it. Think they’ll let you out faster so you can get back to school?” I sighed. “I don’t think so, Dad. This is residential.”
“What does that mean?”“That the people in here stay here for a minimum of six months.”

“That’s illegal. They can’t make you do that.”

“Mom and I both signed a contract stating that I would stay.”

“Yeah, but that’s bullshit. Whoever has custody of you has the real power there.”

I sighed. I really didn’t want to argue. “Both you and mom have equal custody.”

“That means I could get you out of there. On a dime.” I didn’t respond.

“Don’t you want out, Kyle? I know you want out.” I was silent again. I didn’t know, anymore. This was the one place he couldn’t get me, and even more importantly, the one place I couldn’t get me. “I’m coming to get you.

That’s that. You don’t need treatment. You need to grow up.” I shook my head. Yeah? To grow up from your crap?

I wanted to ask him. “Okay, then. Pack your bags. I’ll be there within the hour.” Before I could say anything I heard him hang up. I sighed, sitting down at the table and putting my head in my arms.

“What did he say?” Derek asked. “He’s coming.” I mumbled. “He’s coming to take me home.” Derek got up. “He can’t.

You’re on suicide watch. It’s mandatory that you stay two more days.” I looked up at him. “Try telling that to my Dad.” Derek didn’t look intimidated. “I know this is hard to believe, but we’ve dealt with parents like your dad. It’ll be fine.

You’re not going anywhere tonight.” I shrugged. “I still have to be alone with him.”

“Not alone.” He disagreed. “Since he’s family, we’ll allow him in the cafeteria with you. But that’s camera monitored, and believe me, we can get there in the blink of an eye. Other people will be visiting their family members too. Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he reassured me.
I nodded. Derek looked at his watch. “It’s dinner time.” I shook my head. “I’m not hungry.”

“Try, ok?” He asked and opened the door, waiting for me to leave in front of him, and I sighed and left the room. He got ahead of me quickly and we went to the cafeteria where the rest of the guys were already eating. I got a milk and compiled a haphazard salad. I sat down at an empty table and after getting the casserole being served, Derek joined me. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move.

I just let the salad I had compiled soak in its ranch dressing. Derek got his clipboard out and started looking around the room and writing on it, and while wasn’t looking, I snuck the fork from my tray into my sleeve and crossed my arms again. I didn’t think I could go through what happened during the movie again, and not have a tool with me. I just couldn’t do it. Especially not with my Dad coming. Surprisingly, Derek didn’t notice as all the forks were being put on the spare tray.

I put the knife I had taken on the tray. Plastic knives were just no good, anyway. This would wait until bed, under my pillow while they did the self-harm check before lights out. One of the nurses from the desk came and walked over to our table. “Kyle, your Dad is here to see you.” As all the boys filed out of the cafeteria, Derek walked me to my Dad. “Remember what I said.

He can’t do anything,” Derek said quietly, too quietly for my Dad to hear. “Ready to visit, Dad?” I asked him, putting up my best front. “Sure.” He followed me to the cafeteria. I sat down across from him, aware of the plastic fork against my skin.

“So, I told the nurse to get your papers ready. She seemed grumpy. She said you’re on..su..su..” I sighed. “Suicide watch,” I finished his sentence. “It also means that legally I can’t leave. It’s called psychiatric observation.” He banged his fist on the table.

“Not here, Dad.” I warned him, feeling strangely confident. He glared at me, nostrils flaring. “I don’t fucking care what the law is, do you hear me?” he said quietly across the table. I just looked down at the floor. “We’ll get you out.”

He just looked over at me. “Come here, son. Give me a hug.” I looked over at him, a little shocked. He hadn’t asked me for a hug in years. Many, many years.

Since before Mom got bad. “What?” He looked impatient. “Did I ask for your god-damned attitude? I said stand up,” and with that, he noisily slid the chair out from under him as he stood, “and give your old man a hug.” He held out his arms.

Those arms. I’d been afraid of them for so long. Could it be real? For once, they didn’t want to hurt me? “Stand UP!” He commanded, still not speaking very loudly.

“Give me a hug. It’s time you did something I asked.” I gulped and stood up and came toward him. He swallowed me in a tight hug wherein I could barely breathe. After a few seconds I tried to get free. He apparently wasn’t ready.

“Dad…” I tried pushing against him. He just held tighter. I started kicking and struggling. “Let me go!” I yelled, but my face was pressed into his tobacco-smelling shoulder and I couldn’t make much sound. Before anything more happened I heard the door open and Derek as well as another, unfamiliar voice.

“Sir, let him go.” He just held tighter, and it hurt. “I’m going to have to call the police. Now let him go.” He didn’t say anything. I screamed into his shoulder.

His arms felt like steel tightened around my body. My arm was fashioned into an awkward position on his stomach. The unfamiliar but very authoritative voice briskly came over, with Derek quickly following, and grabbed both of my dad’s arms, quickly removing him from me. I took no chances and ran to the corner of the room, hiding behind a chair, curling up into a ball and covering my ears. I didn’t open my eyes, but I felt the hot tears running down my face. I heard yelling and struggling and a chair being slid.

I finally peeked, and I saw them restraining my dad so that he couldn’t move, while the police entered the room and escorted him out. Derek immediately looked over at me. “It’s okay, Kyle. I’m sorry. We won’t be allowing him here anymore. He’s not allowed here anymore.”

He nodded to the other person and sat down a short distance away from me, as I watched him out of the corner of my eyes, still curled up in a ball. “He’s gone. Off of the premises. You’re safe. That won’t happen to you again.” I shook my head.

“You can’t say that.” He shifted. “I can work to make sure it happens, okay? At least while you’re in here, you’re safe from that from now on.” He said that, and then let the silence take over. Slowly, I unwound and sat up.

I still made sure the fork was intact. It had not broken, amazingly. I felt a thrill of adrenaline for breaking a rule and getting away with it.

2008-12-06T16:26:00.000-08:00

He crossed his legs, leaning back a bit into his chair, and was silent for a moment. I felt like I should fill in the silence. “Well, every family has it’s problems, right?” he sighed. “Sure. But it doesn’t mean that those problems aren’t difficult to deal with. And sometimes, it doesn’t mean that they’re okay, either.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. “Tell me some more about yourself, Kyle. What do you like to do?” I looked up at him. The mood of the room had changed. “I like to swim, and I like to skate. I also like to play the drums.”

He nodded. “Do you swim competitively?” I nodded. “For my college team,” I elaborated.
“Impressive,” he commented. “Thanks.” He nodded.

“How is that going?” I shrugged. “Not so well. I mean, I tried really hard this semester and I messed up on a few things, and, well, didn’t end up qualifying to go to the regional competition.”

“Why didn’t you qualify?”

“I was 2 seconds too slow. In swimming, that’s a long time.”

He nodded in acknowledgement, but not judgment. “You’re a freshman, though, right? I mean, you have plenty of chances to get better at swimming.”

“Yeah, sure. If the coach lets me back on the team next year, and next semester to train.”

“He would have no reason not to do that, Kyle.”

“I didn’t qualify. It’s competitive. You never know.”

“Hm.” He let the subject pass. “What about skating? How long have you been doing that?”

“Oh, I suppose I was eight when I started. Just normal kid skating. I didn’t start in-line until I was ten and met kids at school who did that.”

“Do you fall a lot? My son skates, and it seems he’s always coming home with some new wound that he got from falling.”

I laughed. “Yeah, sometimes. I did a lot more when I began skating, and not as much now that
I’ve been at it for a while. Only sometimes. It happens.”

“What about the drums? When did you start playing them?”

“My freshman year of high school. I took a percussion class. I don’t drum as much as I should anymore.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Life. It happens, you know? It got in the way of some of the things I like to do, and drumming would be one of them.”

He got a curious look on his face. “How do you mean?”

“For a few years my life has been shakey, but now I feel like someone put it in a blender, and
pressed puree.”

“That’s gotta be scary.”

I shrugged.

“Well. Time’s up for now, and I have an assignment for you to work on until the next time we meet. I want you to write down the reason why you are here right now, a one page essay.”

“But you know why I’m here.”

“I know a few peoples’ takes on why you are here. I know what’s written down in the file. But I haven’t heard your perspective yet.”

“Oh.”

“And Kyle, if you need anything at all while you’re here, don’t hesitate to ask to see me. I may
not be able to get to you eventually, but ask your tech and we can pencil you in.”

I nodded. “Um, by the way, I don’t have my journal here.”
He wheeled his chair over to a bookshelf against the wall and retrieved a green composition notebook, handing it to me. “It’s yours.”

“Thanks.” He also handed me a pencil.

“Okay, so I want to see that essay in the next couple of days. Right now I believe you have like an hour to work on it, after the meeting you’re going to.” He retrieved a very tiny, not very sharp pencil. “Here you go.” He walked me out of his office, where Derek was waiting. He gave me a warm smile as we began walking back together.

I noticed on one of his wrists there was a line scar, and I couldn’t tell how old it was, but directly under it was a black tattoo with the word “rescue” with “Micah 7:8-9” directly under it. I wanted to ask him what it meant, but before I really could, we were in the original dorm hallway that I had been told was where the rest of the guys were staying. Derek told me to sit down next to the rest of the guys. They were all seated against the wall, and I took a seat next to a quiet guy wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and multiple scars on his arms in lines, towards his wrist looking newer and deeper. I nodded to him.

“Kyle.” He looked up at me. The expression on my face told me I wasn’t getting a smile anytime soon. “Casey.” Another worker cleared his throat and he was standing at a marker board that was on the wall with a permanent marker in his hand. “Ok guys, it’s time for a focus group. What are our goals for today?” I listened to the goals as they progressed down the line.
There was ‘don’t think about my mom.” There was also “apologize to my friend on the outs.” All of the goals were written up on the board. Soon enough the line stopped at me and I noticed my name on the board as well. “Kyle, what’s your goal for today?” I thought for a second.

“Do the assignment my counselor gave me.” The mental health worker nodded while writing it up on the board. “Good goal. How do you plan to achieve that goal today?” He poised the marker again. “By using my free time to write it.”

He wrote that on the board as well. “Good, good.” I didn’t really listen the rest of the time because the mental health worker whose name I did not know because his nametag was turned over on his shirt was talking. I only stopped daydreaming when everyone else started getting up.

“In your rooms,” Derek said above all of the guys talking. “No talking. One hour of free time.” He nodded to the other mental health worker and went with me to my room.

I sat on my bed and opened the fresh notebook. I wrote HOW I GOT HERE on the top of the page and got started.

The past couple of days have been…interesting to say the least. It’s like everything boiled over that had been contained for years, and I never thought would come out. I attempted suicide, twice, in the span of a day. That’s why I’m here. I was released from the hospital once, because I told my mom and the doctors that I wasn’t really trying to commit suicide. They didn’t believe me, but my mom did. The first time, I took a bunch of pills and my youth pastor clued in soon enough, and he got to me before anything much happened.

The second time I almost jumped off a bridge into traffic. Something stopped me. Something big. My mom had called my youth pastor and he came and found me, and we talked for a while but he made it clear that coming here was the only option. I hated it for a long time, and to be honest, I still don’t like it. I want to go home, although my mom has said that she’ll only support me financially if I get treatment.

So, here I am I guess. I’m guessing you’ll also want to know WHY I tried it, twice. I don’t think there’s just one answer to that. Of course I was stressed. I’m pulling Cs in school and it’s exam time, where a C could turn into a D. I didn’t make the regional competition for swim team, by quite a wide time slot, and of course my dad was pissed about that.

Me and Jess had been growing apart, again. And I don’t know why she even appeared back into my life. And nothing felt right. The flashbacks from when I was a kid got worse; my dad beat me up again. It doesn’t make any sense now, but it just felt like that’s all I could do. It felt like there was someone in my mind, screaming at the top of their lungs, magnifying everything in my life that sucked and drowning out everything else.

It seemed, both times, like the only thing I could do to silence the scream.

I turned the page in my notebook and started to doodle a little bit. I finally closed it and got up, putting the notebook on my desk. I sighed and laid back on the bed. Today had already been a bit overwhelming, and I was only a couple of hours in. this was one defense for sleeping in. If your days keep sucking, make it so you have less and less hours in a day.

That way, at least you won’t have to endure it for very long. I just existed until lunch, and I wasn’t very hungry there, but I ate something anyway, still with Derek. I looked over at his wrist again while poking at my pasta. “What does your tattoo mean?” He looked down as it his wrist as if to remind himself of what it meant and then back at me. “I went through a pretty hard time in my life a few years back, and God rescued me.

I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s absolutely true. So I put rescue on my wrist.” I nodded. “Cool.” I kept on eating. The afternoon went by without much incident.

2008-12-05T15:23:00.001-08:00

He asked. I sighed, inside screaming “NO!” I wanted nothing more than Brian taking me home and all of us forgetting about this, even though I knew that would only be possible in an alternate universe. My heart was pounding so much I could feel it.

I didn’t want in here. I didn’t so much want to jump anymore but I didn’t want to be committed, either. Still, I nodded to him. Brian touched my shoulder. “I’ll be here at visiting hours, okay? Be strong, Kyle.

You’re going to be fine. I promise.” I nodded to him, hoping I came off braver than I actually was. As far as bravery goes I was a coward. Still I followed the psychologist, wrapping my arms around my chest so that I wouldn’t be tempted to break out of there. He led me through a series of doors, and I tried not to look to my sides but instead to his back. He slowed down to where we were walking side by side.

He gave me a small tour of the unit once we got there. “Here’s the dayroom,” he said and gestured toward a room with lots of chairs and couches, a couple of tables and a television. I didn’t miss the detail that there was a large window with plexiglass covering it. A couple of guys were hanging out in there, playing a card game. We kept walking, and encountered another room with lots of chairs and couches and a television, and, still, the same kind of window. I wondered if it would become a teasing torture to be able to se outside into the world, or whether it would be the one good thing about this place. We walked down the hall a little ways to a room that was evidently the cafeteria, multiple tables and chairs set up.

Next he led me down another hallway, which, as he explained, were the rooms where everyone who had gone up at least one level stayed. He then led me to a conference room where he asked me to sit down and he started explaining the rules of the level system to me. Basically I was on orientation level, the first level of the system. I was also on suicide watch, which put me at a different level than others. I would be in a single room for the first three days at least, and wouldn’t be able to close my door. He also gave me a sheet of paper that had all this information about the program, and visiting hours.

I noticed that visiting hours for Brian wouldn’t be until tomorrow, because it was night time. He then ushered me on to yet another hallway, where there were other rooms. He opened one of the doors and it had one bed, a desk which appeared to be a fixture in the walls, as was the bed, and a light attached to the wall. There was a poster on the wall with a picture of Jesus on the cross, all bloody, and a quote covering him saying, “By HIS STRIPES we are healed.” I bit my lip, looking at the picture. Steve cleared his throat.

“This is your room for the next three days, or more if we need it. Now, I need to ask you some questions if you will walk to the conference room with me.” I nodded and walked with him, looking at my feet. We sat down in the conference room again, and he asked me a lot of questions regarding what had happened. He was writing them down and recording them. It took a while, and once we were through the lady at the desk notified him that my stuff was ready.

We both walked up to the desk and they gave me a basket full of my clothes. A guy with the name Dennis on his nametag walked up to me then. He had brown and slightly curly hair and was fairly muscly, but still quite thin.“Hey Kyle, I’m Dennis, how are you?” He reached out his hand to shake mine and I shook his hand. I nodded to him.

I didn’t really know how I was. Dennis looked at the clipboard he had in his hand. “Okay then. It’s time for lights out, so let’s go ahead and get back to your room.” We began walking together.
“If you have any questions, any at all, don’t hesitate to let me know, alright?” I nodded.
We stopped at my room and I went inside. He pulled up a chair across the hallway from my door so he could still see inside. “I have to have you within eyesight at all times. I will go ahead and look over here while you change, ok? That way I can still make out what you’re doing.” I nodded and thanked him and noticed that he was looking a bit to the side, so I looked in the basket at what I had and changed into the sweatpants and white t-shirt.

I got my toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as the shampoo my mom gave me, and headed for the bathroom. I quickly showered, even though while the curtain was shut Dennis had to be standing right there. I quickly got my clothes back on after the shower and he pointed toward the bed, and I quickly obeyed and laid down in the bed. It wasn’t very comfortable, but I didn’t know what else to expect given where I was. It wasn’t long before I was finally sleeping, but that didn’t feel like much of a rest because it felt like I had just closed my eyes when I woke up to a different person telling me to wake up and that it was time for vitals. I groaned as I stumbled out of bed and put the sandals on that my mom had so smartly packed, knowing my skating shoes wouldn’t be allowed, or they would at least be delaced.

The nurse walked me up to the desk where they took my vitals and told me to go and get ready for my day. I rubbed my eyes as the nurse walked me back to my room, and I was thankful he was a male as I got into the shower again, him closely watching. I didn’t shower long, and got out and got dressed quickly before brushing my teeth. The nurse reminded me gently that beds needed to be made. I smiled and nodded and quickly made up my bed and put my clothes in drawers. I noticed that my mom forgot to include my journal in my bags.

I thought I’d need to remember to remind brian when he visits today. Soon, the nurse told me that breakfast was ready and he walked me to the cafeteria. About eight very tired-looking guys looking to be around my age were filing into the cafeteria. I didn’t really have too much of an appetite, but I decided to be good and eat a bowl of cereal anyway. I ate alone at the table with the nurse. I finally thought to look over at his nametag.

His name was Derek. He cleared his throat as I was slowly eating my cereal. “Sleep well last night?” He asked. I nodded. “It didn’t seem like much of a rest, though.” He smiled. “Yeah, early mornings are like that.

They come before you even know it.” He sipped apple juice. I finished my cereal. One of the other patients had gotten a tray already and put it on our table. He nodded. “Thanks.”
He looked over at my confused expression. “When you are done with your spoon, put it on the tray. Silverware always goes here.” I was basically done, so I put my spoon on the tray. I got up and put the tray with my bowl in it on the rack where all the rest of the guys were putting theirs. The nurse and I headed back to my room, where I went to the restrooom and within a few minutes a man in a suit was there.

He smiled warmly. “Hi, Kyle. I’m Greg.” He extended his hand for me to shake it. I did. “Follow me to my office and we’ll begin.” I followed him, not knowing what I was going to tell him.
I didn’t want to talk about anything yet, but I remembered what Brian said about being as honest as possible with the psychologist about my past. We walked through a series of doors and hallways and eventually came to his office, warmly decorated with a very comfortable looking chair against one wall, facing a desk on the other side of the wall with an office chair. He gestured for me to sit down, so I did, and he sat across from me. “How did last night go, Kyle?” He asked. I shrugged. “Fine, I guess. Weird.”

“How was it weird?”

“Well, uh…I’ve only visited these places before when I was younger. I’ve never been in one myself.” He nodded, taking my file out of a filing cabinet by his desk. “He breifly skimmed it, and then looked back up at me. “Ah. Why did you visit when you were younger?” I started sinking more into the incredibly coushy chair. I was feeling incredibly at ease with him. “My mom attempted suicide too, several times. She got locked up twice.” He nodded.

“Hm. How old were you when these things happened?” I shrugged. “About…ten when it started, and thirteen when it happened the last time.” I had to think about it for a little bit. All of the visits seemed so long ago, coming to visit her on thanksgiving and once on christmas.

“It says here that you have a family history of suicide. Who else in your family has struggled with this?” He put the file back in the cabinet, having read what he needed to read, and paid attention to me again. “Um, my twin sister committed suicide a couple of years ago, and my grandfather did as well.” I put my hands together in my lap. “Wow, Kyle.

That’s a lot to go through.” I didn’t respond, because I’ve never really thought about it. I always thought my family was just weird and left it at that.

eavesdropping

2008-11-22T19:32:00.000-08:00

sitting here is definitely
more interesting than unpacking.
young souls dressed up in their best
sipping their smoothies
joking around.
i eavesdrop as they are drawing quite a bit attention to themselves.
on the couch across from me is an older couple,
his hand on her shoulder first, her head rested against that,
and the next time I allow myself a glance she is resting against him, in an embrace that I would guess
they didn't get to do often.
Next came the couple who I'm guessing were in high school, seperated by some angry wall, him trying to penetrate it again and again,
but she pays the most attention to his phone.
i listen to the conversation behind me,
this kid telling a story about how his mom made him cut his hair for punishment.
the couple on the couch seme to be on a date.
the boy looks tortured, yet tries again and again and
she'll only briefly glance at him before texting.
On the other couch is another date, both people leaning against the couch, looking at each other as if they would kiss.
the prom kids have left now, and i seems....there's no one in here who isn't dating.

2008-11-16T19:53:00.001-08:00

I was settling into my dorm room after class, and my dad called me while I was taking everything out of my backpack. It was the night finishing up the second day of school. I contemplated not answering the phone, since he was the last person I wanted to talk to, really. But I did pick up, on the third ring. “Hey Dad, what’s up?” He didn’t sound worried or anything. Just annoyed. “Your mom tried to kill herself again,” he said matter of factly. Not panicked, not worried, just like he’s telling me he went hunting the other day. “Did you call 911?” I asked, having been through this before. “Yeah, come to the hospital. We’re there right now.” I got up again, getting all my stuff together. I got my keys and left the room, not allowing myself to think. I dialed Brian’s number on my phone. As usual, he answered on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hey Kyle, what’s up?”
“I need you to come to the hospital. Mom tried to kill herself again.”
“I’ll be there soon. You need anything? You okay?”
“I’ll be fine. No, I just need you there. I can’t be there alone.”
“Got it. I’m leaving the house right now.”
I got in my car and started off towards the hospital. Tapping the wheel, not really thinking, because I don’t know what to think. But I can’t keep in that mindset for long. What if it worked this time? What if she won’t wake up? What’s going to happen? Will she have to be locked up again? What will happen? What what what what what? I want to know the what. It seemed like forever had gone by before I got to the hospital, and asked for my mom at the desk, and she’d already been admitted, and they asked me to follow them, and soon I was on another floor and my dad was there. He was sitting in a chair, leaning against the wall. I wondered how he could possibly not be feeling any worry, fear, or panic about this. I was starting to freak out and didn’t know how to approach him. He got up and walked over to me. Shortly after, Brian arrived upstairs. I just came to the realization that I never asked my dad if Brian could come. I just knew that I needed him there, despite the fact that we didn’t talk much anymore. “Hey, Steve,” said Brian. My dad looked at him briefly but then looked back at me. “Come here for a minute, Kyle.” I followed him around the corner. “This is serious. You need to be grown up for this. No crying. Nothing. Don’t you dare cry and don’t you dare tell Brian what’s wrong with this family. There WILL be consequences if you do.” I just nodded, already closing off inside, still panicking, still worried sick. I walked away, and went and sat down by Brian. He kept asking me questions, to which I’d either nod or shake my head. A lot of the time I just stared straight at the wall ahead of me. “You okay, Kyle?” he’d ask, trying to penetrate the wall. I wasn’t ready to let him so I just ignored him. The tension, however, couldn’t be ignored. Nor could I ignore the fact that my mom may or not be okay. I didn’t know what to do. The tension just kept getting worse, and I couldn’t hear Brian that well. I was starting to disconnect, and it didn’t seem like I had control over it this time. Usually I can cut or something to snap out if it, but not this time. Nothing was available to use, and I felt like it was going to disconnect very quickly. Brian put his hand on my shoulder. “Kyle? Talk to me, man. You ok?” I started mumbling. “Must not. No. Not. Don’t. Must not do it.” I felt tears try to come out of my eyes and I slapped myself lightly in the face. “Kyle, stop!” Brian sternly warned and tried to grab my hand. I got up before he could and started pacing, still talking to myself. I then started walking back out towards my car, and I noticed as I started walking that my dad had apprehended Brian.. I got to the darkened parking lot, clicked on my keys, and went towards my car. I opened my drivers’ side door and put my hand in between the door and the panel, and I started shutting the door as hard as I could onto my hand. I didn’t feel anything, or any pain, but I was yelling so I wouldn’t start crying. Brian soon rushed out and yelled “STOP! Kyle, STOP!” He quickly grabbed ahold of the hand that was smashing the door, and then the other hand and pulled me away from the car. “Kyle, stop it.” I fought him as much as I could. “Let me go!” I elbowed him and tried to kick him but he had his legs so that they weren’t exactly where I could find them. Soon he had me basically subdued. My wrist hurt, but when I tried to move it I was successful so I reasoned that it would just remain sore. When he saw that my breathing had returned to normal and that I wasn’t fighting him anymore, he let me go.

2008-11-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

After a while of trying I finally got the tape off of the IV, so I gently pulled the needle out, of course bleeding a little bit. Luckily that was the only IV I had.
I got the IV out of my hand but couldn’t seem to find an escape route. I knew I was supposed to stay here but I was determined to get out. People had escaped from hospitals before. I was setting about opening the window, because the security guar was standing outside of my door and I couldn’t get out through there.

I was trying to open my window, when the security guard, who didn’t seem to fit the stereotypical security guard part, walked in to check on me. He was tall, and fairly skinny, with some musle. He had red hair and green eyes. His nametag said “Seth.” I’m guessing he was in his twenties.

“Hey, what are you doing with the window?” He asked.

I backed up from the window and replied, “Nothing. It was just hot in here.” He nodded. It was neither hot nor cold in the room, so he was obviously unconvinced and automatically suspicious. That would have pissed me off in any other circumstance, but since I knew tht the guy’s suspicions were warranted, I didn’t feel so indignant. Which is lucky for him, considering my attitude problem.
“Well,” he started. “If you wanted the window opened you should have just asked.” He looked closer at my hand. “Hey,” he pointed at it, “Why did you take your IV out? You were planning on high tailing it out of here, weren’t you?” I looked down, not really having a smart comment for that, seeing as how he was completely correct. “Get back in bed, now.
I will have the nurse come and re-do your IV.” I crawled back under the sheets, re-thinking my escape plan while he called the nurse. I noticed that my mom hadn’t been coming to visit me yet, nor had she talked to me on the phone, nor has she relayed any messages to me through my dad or Brian or anything. I guess she just let Dad handle this whole ordeal. Too messy for her. She’s already dealt with her own suicide attempts, and then when Maddy killed herself so I think she has quit dealing with the issue entirely, no matter who in her family is dealing with the problem.
But if I called her and told her it was an accident, and that I really didn’t mean to do anything of the sort and wouldn’t do anything like it again but I was just too stressed out that night and overwhemed. Maybe if I called and told her all that, and maybe cried as well, she would be sympathetic toward what is going on. Maybe if I called and told her all that, she wouldn’t want me to stay here. Maybe if I told her that I don’t want to stay, and plead with her to come get me, and mention that I can’t miss anymore school, and I’ll do much better all-around from now on, and then after I can get back to the dorms I can carry out my plan. And this time, absolutely no squealing to Brian or anything. No one would know and I wouldn’t be waking up in a hospital, having my stomach pumped.
Why is this so? Because I’m going to jump off of the bridge. This time I’m going to skip the pills and the vodka. No use if you’re just going to fall anyway. If I can’t get myself to jump, I might make sure I have a bottle of sleeping pills on hand. No one is going to stop me this time.
I was sitting there, brooding and thinking through my plan in my bed when the nurse walked in, just as cheery and pleasant as she ever is. She was a plump, pleasant woman, kind of short, and she had beautiful black hair all tied up in a bun. “Oh, honey,” she said. She gently took my hand where I had removed my IV. Her hand was very gentle and soft and even though I was already at ease with this woman, I was calmed down a little bit from her touch. I’d known this woman only since I woke up from resting, and already her very presence calmed me down. “Oh, honey,” she repeated.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. What did you do that for, sweetie pie?” She said, shaking her head at me. I shrugged at her, not really willing to volunteer my motivation. She quickly cleaned up the area on my hand where the IV had been and the blood had dried on the skin. “Did you get scared, or did you get cold feet?”
I shrugged again in response to her questions. She wasn’t giving up on getting an answer from me quite that easily. “It’s a good place here. The psych wing is not that bad, honey. We’ll keep you safe while you heal and find hope. Don’t you worry.
It’s not a bad place to be. There’s no need to be ashamed of having to be here. You need to find hope and you need to heal and this is just the place to do so. Don’t be ashamed of it, and let us help you. I promise that you’ll start getting better faster if you do, and then you’ll be able to go home faster too. And I know you want that.”
I half-listened to what she was saying, because I was still trying to plan what would happen should I be released from here. I could usually tune everyone else out, however, and it wasn’t working so well with her. Her voice penetrated through my thoughts and into my mind so that I couldn’t very well ignore her. She prepared the needle for the saline solution and fixed it with the saline bag hung on the stand by my bed. She stuck the needle in my other hand and taped it into place. “Now don’t worry, dear, this will only be in place for the rest of the night.

I will take it out first thing in the morning, ok, hon?” I nodded an okay to her. “Is it ok if I call my mom?” I asked her. She nodded and pointed to the phone, which I had not yet noticed, on my bedside table. She left the room and I still noticed the security guard keeping watch outside my door. I picked up the phone and dialed my mom’s home phone number.
She picked up the phone on the second ring. “Hello? Gains residence, Linda speaking,” her sweet voice answered. “Hey, mom.”I swallowed in all of the things I wanted to say just upon hearing her voice. “Oh, Kyle.
It’s you. Honey! Are you okay? Is everything ok?” I could hear that she had started crying; the tearfulness was evident in her shakey voice.
“Yes, Mom. Everything’s fine. I just want to come home.” She sighed. “I know, hunny. I know.”
I realized that if I was going to convince her, I needed to try harder with her. Much harder. “Mom, it was an accident.” Suddenly she didn’t sound like she was crying anymore. “It didn’t look like an accident.” She replied sharply with no hint of tears in her voice. Ouch. That hurt.
“It was. Mom I swear to you it was.” She sighed again. “Well…” She trailed off. She did that often. “Mom, it’s not going to happen again.
I don’t need to be locked up. I was just stressed out. PLEASE come get me mom, please! It will not happen again and I promise that I’ll do well in school for the rest of the semester.”
“I don’t know, Kyle.” She sighed again. “Please, mom!”
She sighed one more time. “Fine, but you have to promise me that you’ll never do anything like this again. That scared me way too much. I can not lose you, Kyle. You’re my baby.” I sighed.
Those words went pretty deep and hit pretty hard. I remember being little, when she was home, and feeling fine, not too good and not too horrible, just baseline. It wasn’t great but it was good. It meant that she was doing okay and she wasn’t feeling dangerous, either way. We were thankful for the baseline days. I would walk up to her while she was sitting in the chair in the living room that she loved so much because it was so comfortable, and crawl up on her lap.
Her face would instantly brighten up and she’d say, “my baby!” and hug me to her. I always remember her being so warm. I always wanted to cuddle up close to her. She was what comfort meant to me when I was little. My mom told me that she’d make some phone calls and she would be there soon, and she hung up the phone, and called Jamie, who probably tried to talk her out of it because in his professional opinion I need to stay and be locked up in the looney bin. Maybe mom actually undertsands.
Maybe she’s coming to get me now because she’s been there as well. We had to lock her up when we were growing up. She attempted suicide several times. She was locked up for a while. She quickly came to the hospital, and I noticed her and Jamie standing outside my hospital room door, talking.
She was using her hand motions, which means she was upset with him. She always does that when she’s upset. He was standing there like an oak tree who couldn’t be moved, his arms crossed, looking at my mom, not angry with her, but not willing to give up on his stance on the matter either. They both entered the room. “Kyle, are you sure you want to go home today?” I nodded.
“Absolutely.” Mom mom crossed her arms, standing next to Jamie. He continued the questioning. “Do you have any thoughts of suicide?” I shook my head. “No,” I lied.
He sat down in the chair. I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t exactly buying it but it didn’t seem like he had the choice. I knew that he could only do anything if my dad had been the one to come pick me up, and even then only if he knew anything. “Will you be safe if I let you go home, Kyle?” I replied to him without giving him a second thought. “Absolutely.” Another white lie.
I was surely not going to be “safe” in any sense, unless by safe Jamie meant jumping off of a bridge into traffic. And there’s nothing he could do about it. He or anybody else, including my mom or dad, not that my dad would actually do anything about it except for maybe yell and throw a few punches, maybe a kick. Brian, however would. I needed to find a way to avoid Brian.
Mom had probobaly already notified him that I was coming home, since my mom and Brian are so close, and have been ever since their college days, since my mom had had me when she was so young. They still talk a lot. Jamie and my mom were talking about technical things and I still was only half listening. Stuff like don’t let him close the bedroom door, ask him how he’s feeling regularly, watch for sudden changes in personality and mood, lock up all sharps including shaving razors and kitchen knives, and lock up all of the medications. He also recommended that she not let me go back to the dorms where I would be alone. He told her not to let me drive a car as well, as it is really just a big weapon to a potentially suicidal person.
These were all just technicalities because these are all things my mom could have guessed. Jamie explained to me that he was releasing my into my mom’s custody AMA, which stands for Against Medical Advice. He could see no medical reason why I should be released. He did not believe that, despite what I had told him, I would be safe at home or in the college dorms. But since my mom, for the time being, has legal custody of me and has the official say in the matter, has demanded that I be released into her custody immediately, he is obligated to release me to her custody as per her demand. I smiled and nodded at him, all the while plotting and thinking and scheming about how to get out of this life, this situation I had found myself in since, well, forever. Since I was a little kid, at least , or as far back as I could remember.
The hospital released me and my mom and I walked out of it side by side. When we got outside, she put her hand on my shoulder. The crickets were chirping and it was twilight outside. Whatever stars had started to come out into the sky were well camoflauged by the city lights and the hospital lights. The breeze was faint and beautiful. I took it all in like I was taking in a beautiful woman’s physique for the first time.
This was the last time I would see these beautiful things, it would seem. There was no other way to go about it and there was certainly no other answer. Unless, that, is the after life would have something different planned for me, which wasn’t up to me to decide. The only thing that was up to me was how and when to arrive there. I didn’t know if it would be what I had been grown up knowing and taught, given being raised in a southern baptist church. Riding home in the passengers seat, I found the bridge as we drove passed it.
Thanks to rush-hour traffic, I was able to get a good look at it and map out its’ location in my mind. It would be easy to get there. We were already fairly close to home so it wouldn’t be long and it would be easy to bike to the bridge. I probably would. Mom didn’t say anything the entire car ride home. When she arrived in the driveway, she silently turned off the ignition and got out of the car, and walked into the house.
After a second of sitting there in the passenger seat I got out as well, and walked inside. I sat in my old bed for a while. I waited for my mom to go to bed, not so patiently. I wanted all of this to be done. I wanted to be outside, headed for the bridge. I wanted to be standing over the cars, knowing I called the shots as to when I would fall down there.
I wanted that incredible sense of power. I waited for a while without any noise or anything, and then I read the water turn on and I heard her door shut. About a half and hour later I heard her start snoring, which told me she was sound alseep. I decided on the fly to leave her a note. It didn’t say much. “Hey mom. I’m sorry. I had to do this. It’s too late if it’s morning, probably still if it’s still night. I LOVE YOU. Bye.”
I left it on my bed and crawled out of my window. I got on my bike and started towards the bridge. The breeze became icy whipping against my face the more I sped up, faster and faster, and before I knew it the bridge was in sight. I parked my bike nearby. I wished this was water so that I could just throw it overboard so that there would be no trace. Well, by the time this would be over, my body wouldn’t be traceable anyway. I took a deep breath, and while I was biking I had been nervous but now I wasn’t afraid.
No fear it just felt like it was going to happen so why not get it over with. I sat up on the bridge. Watched the cars go by as people gave me weird looks from inside. I wondered who they all were, if by any chance any of them knew me. I very carefully stood up on the railing. I did not want to trip.
I wanted to see my fall before I fell. I looked down, and fear struck suddenly. Hundreds of cars were below me. I started shaking and I almost tripped. This feeling didn’t make sense. I got out the sleeping pills that I had with me from home from my pocket, and poured out a few, but the breeze became stronger and they all fell from my hand, bottle included. Suddenly a voice spoke into my ear.
I looked around after hearing it and no one was there by sight, yet there was a sudden warmth and there was something there. I should have felt blistering cold but instead I was feeling warmth. Warmth in the depth of my being. “You were pushed back, and about to fall, but I helped you,” a fatherly voice said. I can’t really descripe how fatherly it was. It commanded my attention in a bigger sense than I’ve ever felt.
I couldn’t just listen to this, I had to give Him more. And immediately when he started speaking I recognized Him and I knew who he was beyond the shadow of a doubt. I carefully got down, first just sitting, then I got on my feet on the concrete, and tears came to my eyes as I got on my knees in full view of all of the people in cars driving by. “I am your strength and your song, I have become your salvation.” I opened my mouth to speak, but no words would come out. I started crying harder than I’ve cried in a long time.
“Father…Father…” I kept repeating that. That was the only thing I felt able to say, the only worthy thing I felt could come from my lips. I knew who this was and I knew my alliegiance was reserved only for Him, because He’s the only one worthy. It came suddenly, probably because I’ve always known. I couldn’t jump. That would no longer ever be an option.
He kept me from falling and I could not leave. This God, who protected me even when I wasn’t faithful to Him, deserved my praise, my allegiance, my life. “My hands held you and formed you, and I will give you understanding to learn My commands.” I was crying, by now laying prostrate on the ground. Shaking. It started raining, and very quickly it progressed from raining to pouring, and I was soaking wet.
I heard a car slowing down and pull over a short distance a way from me. “Kyle? What are you doing out here?” I knew that voice unmistakeably; it was Brian. I got up on my knees, still crying. “Kyle, we need to get you home. Come on.”
He came over to me and helped me up, then helped me to his car. I sat in the passenger seat. “I’m getting your seat wet…” I felt uncomfortable. “I don’t care.” He started driving again. “Your mom called me and told me to look for you. She found the note on your bed.”
He reached behind him in the back seat and retrieved a beach towel, and handed it to me. I nodded. “I was going to do it. I had every intention. Every intention of jumping.” He didn’t say anything for a while.
It took me a bit, but I looked over at him and tears were running down his face. He reached up and brushed his hair out of his face and wiped his eyes. I looked away. “I was going to jump,” I continued, “and I wasn’t even scared at all. And then I got all warm even though it was all windy and He spoke to me, Brian. He spoke to me.”
He was still crying but I could tell he was trying to stop as he turned into the exit lane that went back into town. “What did He say?” He said quietly. “I am your strength and your song, I have become your salvation, and you were pushed back, and about to fall, and I helped you.” Brian whistled. “Praise Him! That’s in Psalm 118.” I nodded.
“I couldn’t possibly be standing up in response to him. He kept me from falling, just like it says in the verse. I didn’t want to live, and now I will live. I will live. I know this sounds sudden, but Brian I can’t waste anymore time. I wasted a lot of time before and I can’t do that now. He saved my life, Brian. He kept me from falling and now I owe him mine.”
“Wow,” Brian said, quietly. “This isn’t car conversation. Let’s go to a diner somewhere.” He got out his cell phone and pulled into a diner parking lot. “Hold on, okay? We are going to sit and have a late dinner,” he said, before looking me over, “though we should probably go tou your house and get you some dry clothes first.”
I shook my head. I didn’t have any desire to go home. “No,” I said, “I’m drying, and plus, I don’t want to go home right now, at all.” He cleared his throat. “That’s fair. Just let me text your mom and let her know I’ve got you with me and that you are safe and sound.” I murmured “okay” and leaned back against the seat, watching the rain come down onto the window.
I chuckled. “My mom texts.” Having a parent who is actually involved in technology is slightly awkward. Most of my friends moms’, as well as the parents of the people at school and church, have to have their kids help them figure out how to work a cell phone. “Hey!” Brian countered. “I’m your mom’s age.”
I laughed. “Yeah, which is weird anyway. Plus, you have to text. You’re a youth pastor. You’d be quite the uncool, unhip youth pastor if you didn’t text.” He smiled. “Okay, I’ll at least give you that one. I like texting though.”
I listened to the tapping of his fingers on the keys of his cellphone keypad as he texted my mom. He waited a minute and his phone beeped, and he read the message, I presumed it was from my mom, and then he flipped his phone back to the closed position and put it back into his jean pocket. “Your mom says to tell you she loves you, and she’s glad you’re safe and okay and you can stay with me for the evening.” I nodded to him. “Okay.” He took his phone out of his jean pocket again.
“Now let me just tell my wife where I am so she doesn’t get worried that I’ve been hurt and we can go in and get some food to eat.” I murmured okay. He texted again, more quickly, and then put his phone back into his jean pockets again. “Alrighty then. Race you inside!” I laughed and stated, “Oh it’s on!” and we both got out of the car quickly but he had to lock his car so I took that as an advantageous opportunity to get ahead of him.
I gave him a nice little smirk as I let him inside the diner. “Nice one, punk,” He commented. We were quite quickly seated in a small booth and Brian ordered a pot of coffee and I ordered a hot chocolate with whipped cream, sprinkles and a cherry on top. I wanted both coffee and hot cocoa though, so I was hoping that Brian would share the pot. He chuckled at my particular instructions on how to make the hot chocolate. I shook my head at him.
After the moment passed, I decided to speak. “So…” I said, tapping my fingers nervously on the table. I knew this conversation was at best going to be uncomfortable. I usually expected that of convrersations with Brian, but I was pleasantly surprised the majority of the time. There were times, however, that I end up wishing I would have not talked to him because of the discomfort, anger or disappointment. “I’ll just come right out with it.” Brian said.
I braced myself for the lecture, the judgement that I seemed to convince myself was coming everytime but almost never came. “I’ve been praying for you for a long time. I knew you were going through something pretty serious. I’ve known that for a while. Life has been pretty hard on you lately. I’ve dealt with things like it before, but my heart ached, a lot for you.
Just looking at you, or talking to you online, I’ve been able to tell that you’ve been struggling. I was praying for you every day, for a long time. You’re important to me, and it scared me more than I’ve been scared for a long time and broke my heart more than it’s been broken in a long time when I found you in your room.” I looked down. I put my hands down in my lap and looked down at them. Hearing him say these things and known that they really bothered him that deeply is something I don’t really know how to deal with.
The waitress walked by and placed the pot of coffee in the middle of the table, and a bowl filled with little creamer packages. She also turned over both of our mugs so that they were ready to put coffee in. “I’ll be right back with your extra special hot cocoa, sweetie.” She said, her voice thick and hoarse from years of smoking. I nodded to her and thanked her, and as she walked by I could smell the cigarette smoke on her. It’s a smell that I’ve always liked. That and gasoline.
Two smells that I’m sure are not healthy and are possibly toxic to ingest, well, for sure the cigarette smoke, but they’ve always been pleasant and comforting. Quickly the waitress was back with my hot cocoa, which I began working on with a spoon. I ate the cherry first, and then spooned off some of the whipped cream. “That looks decadent.” Brian commented. I’m sure the look on my face was weird, because I was really enjoying the whipped cream. Hours ago I was convinced I’d never eat anything again, or taste anything, quite obviously because I was going to jump.
To have this experience and to actually be eating something when I was supposed to be dead was amazing. I was really enjoying it. Everything tasted richer, better. More defined. I wish food could always taste like that, then I would eat it more. “I don’t know what to say about tonight, Kyle, but it’s a God thing that it happened.”
I was now curious about how he found me. I knew my mom had called him but she was sound asleep when I left, and I left quietly. “When did my mom call you? When I left the house tonight it was dead quiet.” He cleared his throat and poured himself some coffee, the smell wafting up from the cup. The smell was richer than I’ve ever smelled it.
It actually smelled good, and I used to hate the smell of coffee. My mom would drink it in the car on the way to school and I would feel sick. Now it smelled rich and earthy and…good. “She called me, quite panicked, because she had found the note you left her.” I took a sip from my hot chocolate, sweet and creamy and good, while I digested the incredibly disturbing fact that my mom read the suicide note that I left her and I lived to tell about it. He poured four packets of sugar into his coffee.
I refrained from asking him whether it was sweet enough. He then emptied two packages of creamery, raspberry chocolate flavored, into the coffee. I also refrained from asking him if he wanted some coffee with his cream. “She said that she woke up suddenly, without any noise waking her up or anything, and something told her to check on you but she really couldn’t pinpoint what it was.” It had totally been God, all this time. He woke my mom up, propelled her to my room, kept me from jumping, kept me from falling, and bringing Brian to the same point and space that I was, and whispering in my ear.
Everything. Even before, giving Brian a sense that I wasn’t okay, even when I had given him no indication that I was suicidal. It was God, this whole entire time! I took another sip of my hot chocolate, unable to say anything. “So she walked over to your room and immediately after seeing the note knew what was going on. She told me she read it anyway, and then she called me and told me to look for you.
I prayed while I got into the car that God would guide my hands on the steering wheel to where you were, because I had no clue. No one did.” I nodded, and stirred the whipped cream into my hot cocoa. “Yeah, that was definitely all God.” We both sat there for a minute, him stirring his coffee and me stirring my hot chocolate. I was thinking about the past couple of days and he was as well, I presumed.
We were both looking somewhere, anywhere but at each other. I don’t know that anyone could know what to say about a situation like that. God is the one who moved, and God is the one who spoke. Who could argue with that? Who could add something to it that would be meaningful to say? He cleared his throat, and I coughed.
In any other situation, this would’ve been incredibly awkward but now it felt strangely comfortable that no one was talking and that we were both just here. The waitress broke our silence by walking by. “Either of you two gentlemen know what you’re going to have to eat this fine evening?” I looked at Brian so he would go first even though I knew what I wanted. “Um,” he said, scanning the menu that was sitting next to him quickly, “a club sandwich on wheat bread, with fries for a side.” She nodded, writing the choice down on her writing pad quickly. “Good choice, good choice. Fries or chips, sweetie?”
He smiled at her and asked for a side of ranch dressing to dip the fries in, instead of ketchup. She wrote the two things down and then looked at me. “What’ll it be for you, sweetie?” I checked the menu quickly to see that what I wanted was available. “I’d love a short stack of pancakes with hash browns for a side, extra crispy.” She wrote that down.
“I’ll get these up there pretty quick. Can I get you guys anything else?” she asked. We both shook our heads and thanked her. She walked off. “While I was driving, your mom and I discussed options for you, since one of the conditions of you being released against your doctor’s advice was that you would be safe.
And despite what’s happened since then, Kyle, you did violate that agreement with her.” I nodded. “So, what are the options?” He shifted in his seat some, and his phone vibrated, so he quickly turned off the vibration, not even looking at the phone to see who called or texted him. “Well,” he said, “your mom said that she doesn’t want you at home, because she has to work and she can’t trust you to be safe. Frankly I don’t blame her.”
I sighed, and nodded. I wondered what I’d have to do to prove to them again that I could be safe at home, alone. “Treatment is really the best option for you right now, Kyle. Are there other problems you are dealing with right now, besides the suicide ideation?” he asked, fully knowing the answer given his knowledge of my drug history and having seen me with my shirt off before, scars showing. I nodded, taking a couple more sips from my hot chocolate.
“What problems are those?” I looked at him, knowing that he knows. “I want you to tell me what they are.” I got a little bit uncomfortable. I didn’t speak for a minute and he patiently waited, finishing his coffee and preparing himself another cup. “Um…drug abuse and self harm.”
He nodded. “Okay, I knew about both of those, and I just wanted to know if there was anything else.” I shook my head. “I know a place that can help you with those things, Kyle. It’s a really supportive environment where you can heal and let God heal you.” I sighed. “The psych wing of the hospital?”
I groaned, then finished my cup of hot chocolate in one big gulp, then used the napkin to wipe the brown mustache from my mouth. He shook his head. “No, actually. It’s a safe place where you can go to start learning how to heal. Your mom and I discussed this and we think this is the best option right now, because your mom will only let you stay home again if you go to treatment.” I let that sink in again.
Not going home again. Must go to treatment. Treatment or live somewhere other than home. My mom does not want me living with her if I do not get treatment. My mom does not want me living with her. That sentence kept repeating over and over again in my head. My mom does not want me to live with her.
“Kyle, it is because we both care about you, and we want you to be safe. We do not want you to act on your feelings if you become suicidal again. I crossed my arms and leaned back a little bit, leaning on the booth wall. “So…do I even have an option in this or is it already set up?” Brian cleared his throat and sipped his coffee again. “You always have a choice.
You can refuse this, but your mom says that you won’t be able to stay with her then, and she will not support you so you’ll have to start working. But if you decide to get help and go to treatment, your mom will continue to support you. Either way I’m always here to talk. But I do hope you choose treatment, it will make things a whole lot easier, not to mention it’ll be better for you because you can start healing.” I sighed, and rubbed my face with my hands. “Crap.”
I commented, running the options over in my head. The waitress came back with the club sandwich and gracefully placed it before Brian. He put his hands in his lap. I sighed and continued thinking. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
Brian sighed in relief. “You won’t regret this, ok? I’ll come visit you once per day when I am able and your mom will also be coming to visit you. You have the option to elect for your Dad not to visit with you. Be sure to be honest with your psychologist about what has happened in your past, ok?” I nodded.
“That includes the abuse you’ve been through with your dad. They can only help you as much as you let them, and they’ll be able to help you most when you’re completely honest with them.” I nodded, and agreed. “Sure,” I said. “So when do I go over there?” The waitress came over again and placed the short stack and the syrups in front of me.
She also took my hot cocoa cup. “I’ll be back with another one for you soon, ok sweetie?” I nodded and thanked her again. I poured myself a cup of coffee and took a sip of it. I’ve always enjoyed my coffee strictly black. I like it bitter; I don’t enjoy it sweet.
“Your mom and I had discussed them while you were still in the hospital and I called them today and explained the situation. They told me that I was free to bring you in whenever you agreed to come, today. So we can go over after we eat and I’ll bring you some clothes later.” I nodded. I was still quite uncomfortable with the idea of this facility, but it seemed safe. I hadn’t felt safe in a while.
I was still not comfortable with the idea of going to this place. I was not comfortable with the idea of what this place held. But I think I knew, even then that I wouldn’t be safe at home. Or anywhere else. So I decided that I’d give it a try. “Okay, well, we should do it then.”
Brian had a relieved look on his face. “Let’s pray before we eat, ok?” I nodded and we both bowed our heads. “God, I praise you! I praise your name. I praise you for your grace! I praise you for preserving Kyle’s life and giving him a second chance.
I’m so thankful for him, God. I thought I lost him last night. It has been one of the most traumatic, roller coaster days to my life. Through it all you were holding all of us, Lord, and you knew what was happening the entire time. I know that You have a plan for Him. I know that he will not die now, but he will live, and tell of the wonderful works you have done for him.
I thank you so much lord, for preserving him. And I know you have a wonderful plan. I thank you for your grace, and I thank you so much for speaking to him today. I thank you for bringing him to his knees. Lord to that, I don’t even know what to say! I just want to praise You lord and thank you. Thank you so much.
And then lord, as we eat this meal, I pray that you bring nourishment from it to our bodies and that it would honor you. I thank you again and I praise you! In your name, amen.” I repeated the word and we started eating. The pancakes tasted better than I had ever tasted them.

We didn’t talk much while we ate. Both enjoying our food, me getting more and more nervous about going to the treatment center. The waitress brought another hot chocolate over to me, same as it had been before, cherry on top included. There was chocolate and caramel syrup included this time. I smiled at her and thanked her. “Thought you could use the extra pick me up.” She smiled and put the check on the table, which Brian then took.
“Are you sure, Brian?” He nodded. “Oh yeah. My treat. I think I can at least get your last lunch outside of the center for a while.” I worked on eating the whipped cream off of my hot chocolate. “Gee, thank you for reminding me.”

He chuckled. “Hey, no problem.” He waited for me to finish my hot chocolate, which I delayed finishing as long as I could. “You know,” he said, “Maddy would be proud of you right now.” I looked at him and sighed, and thought about that for a little bit. “I know.” He cleared his throat.
“If you don’t want to do this for you, do it for Maddy, ok?” I nodded. I continued my hot chocolate, thinking about that. I kept delaying finishing my hot chocolate as much as I could. With every sip, I was getting more and more nervous. My stomach started churning again, and that’s the best way I can find to describe it. The tingling sensation was at the base of my spine, and my arms started to shake.
Brian had his arms crossed on the table and he was noticing my anxiety. “Hey, getting nervous?” I vigorously nodded my head. “It’s ok, Kyle. It’ll be fine. I promise there’s nothing to be afraid of at the treatment center. I’ll even go in with you.”
I finished my hot chocolate and began wringing my hands. “I…I can’t do this. No. Can we just go home? I promise it’ll be fine.” Brian shook his head.
“Yes, you absolutely CAN do this, Kyle. I’m going to do this with you. We can do it together. I promise you, we can.” I just looked down at my hands. “We should pray first, before we go.” I nodded, figuring it would at least help.
We both bowed our heads, and Brian spoke. “God, thank You for Your grace, that you’ve given both me and kyle through the cross. Thank you so much that you’ve given him more options for his life, in a time when he thought he had none. God, you’re opening up the door and giving him a whole world full of opportunities. God, I just thank you so much for giving him new chances! I thank you for providing him with the option of going to the treatment center, Lord! I thank you for that. Right now, though, this is a scary time, God.
It’s a new thing and a scary time. Kyle is nervous right now as we begin this change. It’s a scary thing to do but we know that we can do anything through You, because you give us strength. Lord I also know You provide us with peace, Lord. Unsurpassable peace. I call on you to provide Kyle with that peace, Lord, that peace that you have this under control and it is all going to be alright.
Lord, give him the hope that You are working in his heart, and that you have already started molding and shaping him. Show him that you’re making him new. I pray that you would give him the peace that can’t be explained except as a calm river. I pray that you’d give him calm as we go to the treatment center Lord. I pray for the people who will be caring for him and working with him, that you would guide their thoughts and their actions. Lord I pray that all this would be done, in your holy name. Amen.”
He got up and went to the counter to pay, and then we went to the car. I went as slowly as I could, as I still didn’t really want this to happen. The thought of this change scared the heck out of me. I didn’t know how long I’d be staying there. Hopefully just for the night, and then in the morning they’d see that I really don’t need that much help and they’d let me go home. That would hopefully be how that would go. I got in the passenger seat of his car, trying to breathe normally.
Brian got in as well and started the ignition. He started driving, and soon he took a turn toward his house. “Your mom packed up some of your clothes and dropped them off at my place, okay? We’re going to go get them so that you have some stuff to wear.” I nodded, resigned now to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to change where I’m headed. I breathed deeeply and leaned back into the seat as he pulled into his driveway. I closed my eyes, hoping that time would go by faster, or perhaps slower, or rewind a couple years, or perhaps just stop altogether.
Brian got out of the car and closed the door behind him, but left the CD on that he had in the player. He was only gone for a couple of minutes and he came back with a duffel bag for me. Great, my mom went a little crazy and overpacked. It looks like almost every garment I own is packed into that huge bag. He put it in the backseat, with something tucked under his arm. He got back into the car then and placed the item, a new-looking study bible, in my lap. “This is for you. Figured you could use a new one and you’re going to want and need to be reading that often, especially when you’re at the treatment center.”
I nodded, thumbing through the pages. “Thanks, Brian. This is a really nice bible.” He smiled. “It’s not a problem. I buy them when they go on sale, in case someone comes to youth group and doesn’t have one.” He started driving again, and as he was pulling out of the driveway, I saw Michelle, his wife, waving out of the living room window at us.
I waved back at her before we pulled back into the road. Now we were headed straight there. “Still doing okay?” I nodded, but I was still extremely scared. “Go in with me, okay?” He nodded. “Absolutely.”
It wasn’t long before I saw the building, Pine Ridge Residential Treatment Center, and I leaned forward to look at it as we pulled into the parking lot. “It’s a nice building,” I commented. It was beautifully built, and there was plenty of trees and plants all around it. We found a parking spot pretty quickly. I just sat there, looking around, still not quite ready to take the final step and go inside. Brian sat there with me for a minute.
I think he knew that I needed a minute. He sat with me and patiently waited. I breathed in. “Ok, here we go, I suppose…” I opened the car door and got out of the car, and Brian got my bag from the backseat. I opened the door again and got the new bible out of the front seat, and closed the car door again.
We both walked in together, and there was a nice spacious lobby, quiet, with carpet and plenty of couches and comfortable looking chairs. Brian signed in with me and we went to sit down. “There will be a psychologist who will come get you in a minute, and he’ll come and talk to you and help you figure out in which treatment plan you need to begin. It will make the entire process less confusing for everyone, especially you.” Brian explained. We sat there for about twenty minutes, me just staring down at my bible and him reading the newspaper that had been sitting on the coffee table.
“I feel much better now that you’re here, and safe, don’t you?” Brian asked, putting the newspaper down and looking over at me. I shrugged. “Not gonna lie, I don’t really feel good about this at all. I want to go home.” Despite the kind and soft appearance of this place, I didn’t want to be here anymore. I was looking over at my duffell bag and realized that it was packed with so many clothes for a reason. I’m not just coming here for a night, probably not even just for a week. I can’t stay here for a long time. No, I can’t.
“That’s okay,” Brian commented. “It’s expected to be nervous and scared before coming in here.” I shook my head. “I’m not nervous or scared anymore I just don’t want to be here.” Brian cleared his throat. “Give it a couple days, okay? It will get better, I promise.
Kyle, this is much better than you being at risk of losing your life again. I may not be able to help you if it happens again because it may be like the first time, you know?” He looked at me, and I bit my lip and nodded. “I may not be there and I may not get the clue. The thought scares me to death, Kyle. But I’d rather you be somewhere safe, like here-“ I interrupted him, something I didn’t do to him often.
“My mom’s house IS safe, Brian! It’s my MOM!” I raised my voice on the last word. “It’s not safe, there, Kyle, not for you right now,” Brian said calmly and quietly. “You were there tonight and you left. It wasn’t safe for you.” I groaned and kicked at the coffee table.
“Hey, stop.” Brian said pretty sternly. “It’s going to be fine, trust me, alright? You’re not going back home tonight.” I looked at him. “When am I going home, then?” I crossed my arms across my chest, looking from him to the duffell bag and back again. He sighed.
“The minimum stay here is six months for drug abuse and mental illness.” I was pissed now. How dare he keep this from me? My drug use wasn’t serious, just uppers and/or downers if I’m not feeling okay. And only when I’m on the verge of insanity or death and I don’t want to die. “You put my drug use in there?!”
Brian nodded. “I’ve known it was bad since I caught you at youth camp last summer with the pills, Kyle. I talked to your parents about it several times. This is a place to get help with it. They won’t judge you for it here.” I rolled my eyes, now pissed off at him. “Yeah right, Brian. It’s a Christian treatment center.”

I looked out the window, scooting to the opposite side of the couch even more from him. “Just because they’re Christian does not mean that they judge you, Kyle. And here it means quite the opposite. Trust me I’ve brought kids here before.” I turned towards him again. “Oh great so if someone’s not doing well you just lock them up?” I retorted.
Without giving him a chance to reply I continued, “Oh, and I’m pretty sure you judged me for mine last year so you shouldn’t be talking.” I turned away from him again, hoping to turn the communication lines off. I took the bible from my lap and but it in between us to solidify the silent message. He didn’t buy it. He took the bible and put it on the table.
“I never thought less of you, Kyle. I just was concerned for you. Quite concerned. As your youth leader you put in me in an uncomfortable position with the pills last year. It was my responsibility to make sure none of my campers had anything on them. I wasn’t mad at you. I was worried about you.”

I sighed, not knowing what to say to that exactly. We sat in silence for a minute before a man in a white button down shirt and kakhi pants came out to the waiting area. He was wearing a nametag with the name “Steve” on it. “Are you kyle?” he asked. I nodded. “I need to steal ya for just a little while.”
I nodded an okay to him and followed him to his office. He gestured for me to sit in the chair that was against the wall. I sat down, and crossed my arms again. He sat down behind his desk. He started off asking me the required questions and everything, like who was the president, who was the first president of the united states, what date it is, and what city we were in. That took a little while and was quite boring.
Then he wanted me to talk about what brought me here tonight. “Um, I tried to commit suicide for the second time in 24 hours.” He wrote something down on his clipboard. “Okay, have you tried any before today?” I shook my head. “I’ve wanted to, but never strongly enough.” He nodded warmly.
“Okay. What did you do to commit suicide today?” He crossed his hands together and listened. “Well,” I started, “it was technically last night but I took a bunch of different pills with a lot of vodka, and my youth pastor found me before anything serious happened. Then, tonight I was about to jump off of a bridge into traffic.” He nodded, looking unsurprised, and I figured I was far from the only one who had tried this lately.
We continued to talk about that, and whether or not I was feeling safe at the moment. We also talked about the history of suicide in my family. He asked me if I self-harmed and I told him yes, I did, and the scars tended to be bad. He said okay and we kept talking about other things, the subject matter becoming of an increasingly unserious nature. Finally, he let us be in silence for a couple minutes while he wrote a couple things down. Then he asked me about my drug use, and I told him honestly about it.
And that I didn’t think I’d be needing treatment for it. He explained that it would probably be required to have treatment for it while I was there. He asked if I had been a victim of domestic abuse and for the first time, I answered that question honestly. He asked by who, and I told him, again, honestly, then became scared of what he was going to do with that information. He told me that the matter had to be investigated if abuse was reported. The good thing, however, was that he couldn’t reach me here and nor could he hurt me here. I was completely safe.
I sighed and shrugged, still nervous about what they were going to do. Lock him up? What? He was going to be so pissed that I talked to to the doctors about the abuse. Maybe that was an advantage to being somewhere locked, however. Maybe no one could touch me here, including dad.
The guy concluded that he did believe I was in need of treatment and that they wouldn’t be able to let me go home, and that I would be admitted with suicide watch, and he explained what that meant, and then he gave me a few papers, including one asking me who I wanted my visitors list to include, and he let me go back out with Brian. I sat there and started to fill out the visitors list, leaving out my mom and my dad, putting on my roommates Jess and Brian. Those are really the only people I wanted seeing me, and really, not even Jess. Brian is really the only one I was okay with coming to see me. I was ok with leaving it like that. Brian and I sat in silence for a little while.
I was still nervous, but not as much. I just sat there, not knowing what to say. “I’ll come visit you later today, as well, okay?” I nodded, hoping time would speed up between now and then. I just crossed my arms again and sat there, not really thinking of talking to Brian anymore. He sighed, getting the obvious clue that I wasn’t in the mood to talk. “Well,” he said, “I know you’re not glad you’re here. And that’s to be expected. But I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad because I know you’d not be safe otherwise. And you’ll be safe here, I can promise you. I know you’ll feel different soon. I promise.” I nodded to him, and still didn’t really respond.

2008-11-10T11:12:00.000-08:00

The psychologist was interesting. He is a man who was possibly in his 30s, with black hair and blue eyes, dressed in a suit. I shifted myself the bed as the psycholost sat down in the chair Brian was in. I sat up in the bed, crossed my legs and arms, just looking at him. He smiled warmly. “How are you doing? I’m Jamie.”

“I’m Kyle, and uh, well…I’m here.” Jamie smiled in recognition. “We’re going to do some talking today, and I encourage you to be as honest as you can. You can choose to pass on a question but I’d encourage you to answer the questions I ask as honestly as possible.” I nodded. “Ok.”

“Do you know why you’re here?” I leaned back into the pillow and crossed my arms. “Well, obviously because I tried to off myself.” Jamie nodded. “What was happening before that?” He put his pen down onto his writing pad, crossed his hands ontop of that, and leaned forward, towards me.

“Well, I was feeling really overwhelmed. Like I couldn’t take it anymore.” I knew this guy cared, but really, I didn’t. Since what happened with my dad earlier I had been determined to get the hell out of that hospital and finish what I started. And no, no matter how nice this James guy looked I was not going to tell him my plans. That’s because I’m certainly not that dumb.

“Okay, can you walk me through what was happening that night? What did you do?”
“I went to my mom’s for dinner. My dad was there, as was my youth pastor. The guy who was in here just a minute ago is the youth pastor.” Jamie nodded.

“Your mom says that dinners at her house, while mandatory, are oftentimes stressful?” I nodded, now not wanting to talk to him, knowing that he’d talked to my mom. “She said that they are often stressful for you. Maybe it’s that having both your mom and your dad to please in one room is still tense for you, and adding on all that stress?” I nodded.

“Did that have anything to do with what happened last night?” I shrugged, already tuning him out. He seemed to catch onto this, because he sighed and stopped talking for a while. We just literally sat there in silence for the time being. I sat and looked out the window. I didn’t really know what to do about this guy.

He seemed trustable, but I just didn’t know. Then he cleared his throat. “We don’t have to talk anymore for today, Kyle. But I do need to know this. You tried to kill yourself – would you do it again, if given the chance?” I rolled my eyes.

“What do you want me to say to that?” He didn’t flinch, or move. “The truth.” I shook my head and looked away. “I can’t be fucking honest with you because you’ll just tell my mom.” Jamie crossed his legs.

“It’s just to help you, Kyle. We have to do this to help you. Are you having suicidal thoughts right now?” I nodded. “Do you have a plan?” I nodded again.

“What is the plan?” I lost it. I still don’t know what made me so odd-tempered that day but I lost it. “The plan is to fucking finish what I started because obviously it didn’t work the first time!” I shook my head and looked at the blanket. “Kyle, I don’t think it’s safe for you to go home right now.”

I didn’t want to stay. “I’m not going to do it, Jamie. I promise. I got scared this time and I’m not going to do it.” He sighed, and I could tell he didn’t buy it. “There is a residential treatment center here, in the hospital, just on another wing.

I am going to hold you for seventy two hours, and we’ll see how we’re doing at the end of those three days. Let me get the paperwork situated and worked out and we’ll go from there, ok?” I rolled my eyes to show him I was listening but I didn’t really agree. He got up. "Ask for me if you need anything ok? They will call me." I didn't respond to him. He got up and left.

There was NO way I was staying here, at the hospital tonight. The security guard was still outside my door so that wasn't an option. I looked at the I.V. in my arm and started picking at the tape. There had to be a way to get it off.

to be continued..

2008-11-04T22:20:00.001-08:00

When I woke up I felt like I had slept for ages. I was in the hospital. Brian was sitting in the chair next to the bed, reading his bible. I raised my arm up to see the IV in my hand. I felt sick. “Hey buddy, you’re up.

How are you feeling?” I groaned and didn’t want to talk to him, so I put my hands over my eyes. “Yeah, they pumped your stomach when you got here, so I can understand you’re not feeling good.” I put my arms to my sides and looked away. I didn’t want to talk to Brian right now. Or anyone.

But he’s the last one on my list of people to talk to. I knew his stance on suicide and I didn’t wish to talk to him about it. I didn’t feel like being condemned. “Your parents are downstairs having lunch.”
“Together?” I croaked. The reality of the fact that this was over, and it didn’t work, sunk in. “Are you sure that’s the best for hospital security to deal with? I mean, there could be broken furniture, broken limbs.”

It was humorous to me, but he smiled without laughing, so he didn’t find it funny. “They’re both worried about you.” He closed his bible and put it on the side table, leaning towards me. I sighed and looked at the window. There was a view of the park, where there was some celebration going on. Balloons were in all different kinds of colors, tables set up.

What a day to celebrate, huh? Brian cleared his throat. “It was scary, Kyle. I thought I lost you.” I shook my head. “And?”

I shifted over to my side so that I didn’t have to look at him and so that he didn’t have to see that I was trying not to cry. I wouldn’t even let myself think about any of it. I just wanted out. Out of the hospital, out of everyone’s eyesight, although I doubted that would happen. “And a lot of things. First and foremost, I care about you.

Quite a bit. You’re very important to me. Second of all, you’re important to your family. Kyle, I’ve known you for years and it’s evident that they’ve messed up. But they still love you and you’re still important to them. You’re important in the kingdom of God.” By now I was listening to him but I was crying.

I still can’t figure out exactly why I was crying, but I was. I am kind of a loud crier, with sniffling and all, so I put my hand up to my mouth to cover the sounds. “ You are, Kyle. You need to know that. I wish you would’ve told me before doing this. Even more I wish I would’ve been able to tell.”

I shook my head. “What would you have done? Seriously, Brian. What would you have done?” I sat up in bed. “Maddy gave so many signs to everyone and nobody listened! Not even me!”

I was full-on bawling now. He moved closer in the chair. “First off I would’ve listened to you, Kyle. Secondly I would’ve gotten help for you. Prayed for you. Made sure you were safe to the best of my ability.

I would’ve done whatever I could to keep you safe.” I didn’t know what to say to that, and even though Brian was one of my best friends I didn’t know whether I believed it. “I know that we needed to pay more attention to Maddy. All of us did. And Kyle, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t watch out for her as much as I could have. I’m sorry I didn’t see it either.

If I could go back, I guarantee you I would make sure she was safe, listened to, and that she’d know that she was loved beyond the shadow of a doubt.” I pulled my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. He went silent for a minute and my dad walked in, carrying a cup of coffee. He cleared his throat, nodded at me, and sat down in the corner of the room. “They say it’s necessary for a shrink to evaluate you,” he said. “So he’ll be here in about an hour to see you and then hopefully you can go back home and go back to school.”

Unbelievable. Brian put his head in his hands and started rubbing his temples. “Brian, can I have a minute alone with my son?” Brian smiled at him and nodded. “Sure. I’ll be right outside.”

I begged with my eyes for him not to leave, but he did. My dad moved into the chair that Brian was sitting in and took a sip of his coffee. “Why did you do this to us, Kyle? Why would you even think of doing this for us, especially now?” I didn’t know what to say. I just crossed my arms and looked out the window.

“What an inconvieniance, Kyle. Seriously. My workload is so heavy, I can’t even deal with this. Your mom is so busy and stressed, why could you even think of doing this to her? Kyle, this is way too much. It really is.

I can’t deal with this. Neither can your mom. Neither of us can deal with you right now.” My temper was rising the entire time he was talking, I just didn’t know what to say about it. “Then don’t.”

When that came out of my mouth, I’ll admit it surprised me. I’ve never stood up to my dad. If I ever stood up for him when I was little, I
usually got beat up. “What did you say?” He clenched his Styrofoam cup.

“My intention, dad, was to be dead. Gone. Just like Madison. Off of your hands for good. That is STILL what I plan to do. So don’t worry.

If you get your way and I get let out of the hospital today, I will make sure I’m off of your hands. Forever.” I crossed my arms. You could see my Dad getting angrier. He was clenching his cup more and he was now shaking.
I felt the adrenaline running through my body, feeling like I was about to be electrocuted. That was literally the first time I had stood up to my dad like that, and been that honest. He cursed and got up and paced. “See, this is exactly it. Trying to make me feel guilty when really it’s been your fault all along. If you’d just stop fucking up and learn to live by my rules

Yes, that’s right, my rules. NOT YOURS. You’ve always been such a smartass and you don’t want to honor me. You never have. Always wanted to play by your own rules at OUR expense. And have you ever cared?” I shook my head.

“Of course I did, Dad. You KNOW I did-“ My dad threw the coffee cup at me. “No you didn’t. I fucking broke my back for you for eighteen years and this is what I got? THIS is what I got?” I recoiled from the hot coffee.

“Seriously, dad? In the hospital?” I yelled. Before he could do anything else security arrived. “You’ll have to come with us now, sir.” As he protested, they walked closer to him.

“No, I’m having a serious conversation with my son. You need to leave us the hell alone.” Without giving him another chance, they got a hold of him and escorted him out of the room. I just sat there, coiled up in a ball, waiting for the inevitable to happen. The nurse came in and stood by my bed. I still wasn’t convinced my dad had left and I thought it was him.

“Please no! Stop! Just stop, please!” I said, crying. “Honey, he’s gone. He’s gone and you’re safe now. No one’s gonna hurt you.”

Her motherly voice was strangely soothing, and I started looking up when she laid the new gown and pants down on the bed. “You need anything, sweetie?” I shrugged. “Soda? Ice cream? Tea?

Some ice cream will help your throat feel better, and some peppermint tea will help your stomach fill better.” She gently put her hand on my shoulder and gently started to rub my back. I started to calm down a little bit, and ice cream didn’t sound that bad. “Hmmm, sweetie?” I nodded. “What kind?

We have chocolate, strawberry and vanilla.” I thought for a second and then told her vanilla. As she left the room I got up and went into the bathroom. There was a security guard outside my door, so I couldn’t close the bathroom door. I quickly changed into the new gown and pants that the nurse gave me, and when I got back to the bed, there was a new cover sheet on my bed, because there had been coffee spilled on it. I laid back down, and a couple minutes after I did, the nurse came back in, her black hair tied up in a bun and a real smile on her face.

It made me feel more comfortable where I was. She placed the ice cream dish in front of him, which surprisingly had chocolate syrup, sprinkles, and a cherry ontop of it. “I thought you could use a little pick up, and hey, who couldn’t use a sundae sometimes?” I smiled and thanked her and took a bite. Once she was satisfied that I was eating she left, and let Brian come back in. He came and sat in the chair.
“Sorry…” I said, putting the spoon for the ice cream down. “I mean, sorry about that. You shouldn’t have had to see that.” He shook his head and crossed his legs, and let out a sigh. “No, it isn’t your fault. I’m kind of glad I saw it, actually.”

I tipped my head to the side while taking another bite of ice cream. “Why?” He sighed again. “Because it’s hard to know how bad it is until you see it. I didn’t doubt you, Kyle. I just knew you weren’t telling me everything, and you definitely didn’t tell me anything on the physical side.

Which is fine; you don’t have to. But I see it now. But Kyle, I did listen, because you were screaming.” I had finished the ice cream now, and pulled my knees back up to my chest. Brian cleared his throat and continued. "I heard you say that you intended to carry out your plan. Kyle, is this true?" I nodded my head. "It doesn't matter, Brian. I hate to hurt you. I really do. But I just can't...I can't do this anymore. And you can't convince me to." Brian nodded. "It's important to me that you see your importance here, Kyle. So right now it's important to me that you don't get released to go back home." The psychologist knocked on the door. "Hello, can I see Kyle for a little while?" He asked? Brian nodded, and patted my shoulder quickly, then got up. "I'll be here later, okay?" I nodded. He got up and retrieved his bible and keys before walking out, and the Psychologist came in.
That's all I have for now.

but a whimper

2008-11-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

Overwhelmed. I just remember feeling overwhelmed. After the retreat and everything, just…overwhelmed. Like I can’t even breathe, and I won’t be able to unless I DO something. Dad and Brian and I all over at Mom’s house for dinner. The awkward silence.

I got through dinner just fine. Then, well, surprise! Cherry pie for dessert, with Vanilla ice cream. Then everything broke and I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of dinner. I just thought I was going to be feeling trapped for the rest of the night. I haven’t felt trapped in quite a while. But I definitely felt trapped.
I couldn’t do it. While sitting there, it suddenly clicked. Maddy DID have exactly the right idea even though everyone had tirelessly told me it was wrong. I am going to kill myself. I had it. I knew it.

Resolved. Right then. Nothing’s going to stop me from making it happen. While everyone talked I tuned out and I thought how will I make this work? Pills. I still have those painkillers and those sleeping pills.

I’ll count them when I get to the dorms. I can do this. I can do this. Yes…I…can. And I will. Very suddenly, things were okay.

I felt lighter. More okay about everything that was going on. I was pale, I guess, because my mom asked if I was feeling alright and I said, ‘yeah, my stomach hurts. Can I go back to the dorms for the night?’ She said okay, and I got up to kiss her goodbye and dad was glaring at me and suddenly my stomach started churning again, like I was going to throw up or something. I had to get out of there.

I got my coat and Brian followed me to the door. “You ok, man?” I nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just stressed from school and studying and everything and I need to sleep.” He looked suspicious.

I started panicking. I know the man serves God and everything but reading minds is a little bit overkill. “You have my number if you need me. Seriously.” I nodded. We were silent for a while and the air got thicker; I feel like I could’ve cut it with a knife.

“Don’t be afraid to call me in the middle of the night, Kyle. I’ll answer. If you’re not okay, please call me, alright?” I nodded, told him I would, then told everyone I had to run up to my old room to grab something. I remembered that there were painkillers still in the bathroom from my wisdom tooth surgery a couple years ago. Percocet, I believe.

I got upstairs and grabbed them and took one final look at my old room. Then it was off to the dorms. Justin and Kelly didn’t plan on being back in town for a week, they had to go out of town for the big swimming tournament. The one I didn’t qualify to go on. So they wouldn’t be expected back in town for a couple of days, until Friday at the earliest. I was safe on that end.

I called my dealer and asked him if he had any Oxycoton and a handle of vodka available. He said he could hook me up on both, but it would cost me. I told him that was fine, I had the money with me. Took him a while but he got to me, and he gave me the baggie filled with pills, because that’s all he had, and the handle of vodka. I thanked him and put the stuff in my backpack quickly then walked towards the dorms. Not a lot really was going through my mind, at all, which is odd, considering I was about to end my life.

I poured all the pills out onto my pillow, and then drew the blinds and took my shirt off. I looked at myself in the mirror and oddly enough I didn’t really know what my final evaluation was of my body. I wasn’t feeling anything. I looked at the word FUCK-UP in purple scarring on my upper arm, and knew that even if I was alive that would probably never fade. I was so pale. Looking at myself in the mirror, I reasoned that I was already dead.
I was looking like it, anyway. Why not just finish the job, because I already look dead. That’s when I started feeling. Pissed, angry. I had done nothing with my life. Nothing.

Absolute failure. Should be ashamed of myself, that’s what anyone else would say. What do I have to show for my crappy eighteen years? NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. I got the razor, and it’s like everything faded again, immediately.

Including feeling. I figured no one’s ever going to see me again so what the hell. I slashed my arms. My stomach, three times. Then I just stood there and watched the blood flow down. I’d later find out that I got myself bad.

Then I put the razor down and got a glass out. Poured the vodka into it. To the brim. I took a handful of the pills, forgetting what all of them were, because I had mixed them together, and gulped them down. I did that four more times until all the pills were gone and I didn’t feel that weird quite yet, so I got online, went to my facebook. What a surprise, Brian was on. He popped onto chat.

-Hey man, what’s up?
-Not much. Just got done with some stuff. You?
-Not entirely too much. Just got home. What are your plans for the rest of tonight?
By now I was starting to feel a little drowsy. I refilled the vodka glass and took a few generous gulps.
-Oh, sleep. I’m really drowsy.
-Why are you drowsy?
-Just not feeling too good, that’s all, really.
- Was it your mom’s steak cooking techniques tonight? Too rare for ya?
I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. My bed was looking increasingly more inviting. I could barely keep my eyes open. I turned, and I spilled the glass of vodka onto the floor.
-Nope I just uh took something to help me sleep.
-What did you take?
- A sleeping pill no biggie. I’m not feeling good. Night.
-Okay, you usually stay up and chat with me until like, atleast 1 or 2. You sure you’re okay?
I saw this but I couldn’t do it anymore, I felt frozen, and suddenly my heart jumped and I realized something – this is it. I don’t know why I didn’t think it wasn’t it before. But I got scared. Cold feet, I guess.
-I did something stupid. Real stupid. You can’t tell my parents you can’t.
- What did you do, do you need me to call you? Are you ok? Do you need to call 911?
I fell on the ground then I got up and fell down again, and crawled over to the bed. My heart was racing. So warm, so inviting. I got in my bed and suddenly realized there was no reason to be scared. I’m sleeping now, and I’ll never have to wake up again. I don’t know what’s next, but I know it has to be better than this. I thought I would sleep.

I closed my eyes and I couldn’t open them. I couldn’t move. I tried screaming and I couldn’t do that, either. I don’t know how much time passed before the door opened and I heard someone’s voice and Brian’s voice. Kyle, can you hear us, buddy?” Brian! Thank God Brian.
Oh shit, Brian. He can’t see this. Brian, no. GO AWAY. LEAVE! I’ll wake up soon!
I tried to move I tried everything. “It’s going to be okay, Kyle, ok?” I felt like I was floating and Brian was praying and it sounded like he was crying. No, Brian…don’t cry. Please…stop crying. I heard someone say “We have to hurry. He doesn’t have much time having taken this much.”
I had never been so scared. I didn’t want Brian to leave but he felt farther away every second. Then he was there again and I was getting sleepy. Everything sounded more frantic, Brian kept talking to me. “Stay with us, buddy, ok? Just stay with us. You’re doing such a good job so far. Just stay with us.”

I tried. I was trying to move and everything but everything made me so sleepy. He was getting more far away every second. “Stay with us, Kyle. Please fight. Stay with us.”

not with a bang

2008-10-24T02:15:00.000-07:00

Here we go round the prickly pear
prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
at five o' clock in the morning.
between the idea and the reality
...
between the emotion and the response falls the shadow.
life is
very
long.

for THINE is the kingdom
for thine is
life is
for thine is the

this is the way the world ends
this is the way the world ends
this is the way the world ends
not with a bang
but a whimper.

It's my English assignment to analyze that poem. I can't analyze a poem I love. I want to analyze it's relevance to now, here. Not what it meant to Eliot. Because like any truly good poem, it's meaning rings eternal. I picked up my drumsticks again.

In the music building after practice. No one was there. There's something amazing about the drums. About playing. Not the same as playing guitar. It doesn't matter what you do with the drums it feels good as long as you just wail on them.

And I did. I needed to. I don't even know if it was music that came out of there. Maybe just noise. Loud loud loud loud noise. But it came out of me like I didn't even have to try to get it right.

It wasn't right. It was me banging on a bunch of drums with two whittled pieces of wood so really does it matter? But it felt the best. Ever. Probably the healthiest thing I've done in a long time.

Everything's gotten worse. Not that anyone could claim surprise there. Mom called. I don't know how she found out about what Dad did. But she did. And she was worried about everything and had a lot to say.

I got home from a stressful day at school where I couldn't even focus and just wanted to take SOMETHING. ANYTHING. Anything to get the flashbacks to GO AWAY. Being six and watching him stumble. Hearing him yell. Hearing her cry.

Hearing the keys in the ignition and off he went. Anything to get the flashbacks of the pain to go away. The inexplicable. The crazy. The scar I have on my cheek isn't from a skateboarding accident. I lied to everyone.

And it made me sound cool. Infinitely cooler than the truth, the fact that my dad hit me across the face with the really pretty vodka bottle. When I was real little I used to get upset at him because I was going to have the GI Joes play in and around the bottle. These flashbacks tell me are they brought on by my sin? If I'd just stop...what? If I'd just stop...being?

If I could stop it in any way it'd be fine. I'm tired of remembering. Remembering what Dad did to Maddy and how I couldn't stand up to him. I'd see him go into her bedroom and night and run up behind him, kicking him, punching him, hell, even biting him. Nothing helped. Nothing.

I've grown up now but that panic is still fresh. He obviously wasn't being the man so I was called to. And when called on, I failed. I guess I've never gotten over that. And what happened to Maddy? None of us have gotten over it.

Being silenced killed her. She told mom what happened, and she told me. She told her guidance counselor at school. Because I told her to. No one listened. Guidance counselor was a friend to my Dad so of course he didn't listen.

She cried out for years that she was violated. That the one person who was supposed to protect her turned against her and nobody helped her. She cried out and she gave signs. Despite what everyone says it was no secret. It's only that none of us were paying much attention because we thought she was okay. Not happy, but okay.

I can't imagine the oppressiveness of her silence. I'm appalled at my blindness. Me. Her best friend. Her brother. Just...being so self absorbed not noticing she's not okay.

She bought some painkillers and she took way too many. Immediately after that, we heard the gunshot. The note by her bed said 'what you did to me isn't pretty, so the way I'm leaving this world is like a taste of your own medicine." Dad tried to throw away the note, burn it, I kept it. I still have it. At the funeral all anyone would talk about is what a sweet girl she was.

Console my dad for losing his sweet little daughter. Tell him it wasn't his fault. In the death certificate, of course, it's stated that heart problems killed her. Later I found that suicides are almost never the cause of death in the death certificate. The whole time I wanted to climb atop the biggest building in town with a microphone and scream into it- MADDY KILLED HERSELF BECAUSE NO ONE WOULD LISTEN TO HER. Over and over until people listened.

And the silence didn't stop after she died.
I digressed.

But my mom called my cell and left a voice mail. "Well, honey," it says, " Dad says that you've been pretty directionless lately. He says you're not doing well in school. Perhaps if you did better then he wouldn't have, well...you know. Okay well, just a suggestion." Click.

I threw it against the wall. Hard. Then my shoe, next. Then my other shoe. My bookbag. I don't even know how to describe what was happening.

While cussing, I swept all of the possessions on top of my dresser onto the floor, then the same to the desk. I needed something else. Kicking things. I threw the desk chair at the door. Then ripped the phone off the wall. Banged it on the desk.

Finally, punched the walls, harder harder, and I wasn't thinking when I punched the mirror, nor did I feel anything. I just fell down. Shaking. I just laid on the ground in the midst of all the crap. Before I knew it tears were flowing from my eyes like I was a waterfall or something, and there was nothing I could do to stop it so for once in my life I didn't try. I cried. Hard.

I stopped caring what people would think. I stopped caring that they would hear. They'd hear that I sounded like a little kid who didn't get his way. I couldn't catch my breath and along with my tears came wailing. I don't think I've ever wailed because I don't cry often. I didn't even hear the door open.

It was Jess. She was suddenly there, and I couldn't hear her very well but she wrapped a towel around my hand and just sat with me. It took a while to register that she was here, and she wasn't mad, so I moved closer. We sat, for a while, before she got me to get up and go to the hospital with her, where they got the glass out of my hand and give two stitches on the back of my hand. Jess didn't make me talk. The whole time I was just surrounded by the memory of Maddy; feeling like her death wouldn't stop playing over and over and over in my mind. I went a step beyond missing her, then.

For the first time I seriously thought, Maddy you had a good idea.

explanation

2008-10-23T11:30:00.001-07:00

I can think more than I could think last night, so I decided to come back to my journal. Last night felt like one big nightmare, and so has the past week. A couple of things happened to get me here. Well first, I got hit again. I couldn't write this last night. It felt impossible to even let out, in any way, until now. Even now I'm not liking how it looks in ink.

My dad was angry and I was over there for the mandatory once a week dinner. I don't know what made him angry this time. I know he stopped doing this when I was thirteen, though. I started taking the dishes into the kitchen and he grabbed me. Goes without saying I broke the dishes. Guess he shouldn't have used the good dishes for this event.

I know he felt bad after hitting me. But weirdly, something changed. I was pathetically sitting there, on the tile floor, crying like a little kid, my nose bleeding onto my shirt, cause not only did he hit me he pushed me and kicked my stomach. When this used to happen I immediately started cleaning up whatever mess was made. This time I didn't see a need to. I guess I've grown up and no longer see these events as my fault.

I just looked up at him, as he sat at the kitchen table. Cherry pie was for dessert, his girlfriend made it, and it was sitting on the table. I could see the look in his eyes. Like he just...lost control. Usually, as a kid, I would've started to clean up the mess. This time, I got up, and didn't even say a word to him as I got my keys and walked out the door. Since he grabbed me I had felt like I wasn't really me, that I was watching what went on from the other side of the room, like this was a movie.

I still felt like that, and I called my friend, who used to be my dealer, to see if he had anything. Adderall, specifically. I met him at the dorms and gave him the 80 dollars my dad gave me, and he gave me one bottle. Then he left. And I took three. And so there you have it. That's what happened last night.

don't worry about me i'm refined

2008-10-23T01:56:00.001-07:00

this is what not ok looks like. i don't know how to describe anything. i've come back to this journal multiple times and can't do anything, can't even think. I'm forcing myself to think. I'm confused and my whole life is flashing before my eyes probably because I took uppers again. Haven't slept in 3 days. What is it, 4 days that people start getting delirious? Turning in homework but most of it is probably crap. Crap crap crap. I'm never going to be something, or someone. Or amount to anything. Things just had to happen. I don't know what to make of it. I was forced to remember because it happened again and it will never make sense. A man should be able to take a beating I mean every kid does but

I

obviously

can't.

about 5 hours after I wasn't thinking and I was on my bed and just as I cut, just once, my roommate walks in and how much can that possibly suck.

Um...was all he could manage to say as I sat there avoiding eye contact, bleeding, waiting for it to finally just be over already. Will you go away already?

He did, but I don't know.

Then I finally took Brian up on his call and went to see him at the church. Just sat there while he worked, he wanted to take me out to lunch.

Said he's the college minister too now, and there's going to be a retreat here soon...

My mind is in 1000 different places but I told him yes.

This makes no sense.

This is what insane looks like.
This is what not ok looks like.

Isn't it girls who are supposed to have complexes of being loved?
Of being saved, and in Christ for years,

but never truly believing that anyone, meaning anyone can love them?
See I don't get this its screwed up.

character sheet

2008-09-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

THE INTELLIGENCE DOSSIER

Name: Kyle Gains
Also known as (nicknames): Kdog
Age: 18
Birth date: March 23
Place of birth: Connecticut
Height: 5'11
Weight: average/skinny
Eye Color: green
Hair color: brown
Hair Style: wavy straight
Distinguishing marks: scars on arms
Father's name: Luke
Father's current status: [ x] living [ ] deceased
Mother's name: Mindy
Mother's current status: [x ] living [ ] deceased
Ethnic background: caucasion
Religion:Protestant
Degree of religious practice: middle of the road
Current address: Dorms
[x ] rents [ ] owns
Brief description of home: a dorm room
Other occupants of current home: two guys, Justin and Kelly
Current occupation:student
Current employer: no one
Significant past jobs: nothing
Income level: 200 dollars leftover semester from student scholarships
Education: freshman in college
Marital status:
[x ] never married
[ ] first marriage--how long?
[ ] second marriage--how long?
[ ] third marriage--how long?
[ ] divorced--how long?
[ ] separated--how long?
[ ] widow/widower--how long?
[ ] other
Spouse's name: NA
Name by which character addresses spouse: NA
Spouse's occupation:
Children:
1. name:
age:
2. name:
age:
3. name:
age:
4. name:
age:
5. name:
age:
Police record
[ ] No arrests or convictions
[ x] Arrest(s) for: drug posession and runaway
[ ] Conviction(s) for:
[ ] Sentence(s) served:
Medical record
General health
[ ] Excellent [ x] Good [ ] Below average [ ] Terrible
Chronic conditions: depression
Current conditions: depression
People often found with outside of work: Jess, Kelly
Organizations of which he/she is a member: School Newspaper

Dress
[ ] Expensive couture clothing, long-lasting styles
Example:
[ ] Expensive couture clothing, trendy styles
Example:
[x ] Good quality, conservative clothing
[ ] Good quality, unconservative clothing
[ ] Whatever everybody else in his/her group wears, which is:
[ x] Whatever's most comfortable; comfort is main value whenever possible
[ ] Whatever's handy, doesn't really care
[ ] Dressing to be noticed--how and why?
[ ] Other
Grooming
[ ] Every-hair-perfect type
[ x] Average grooming and cleanliness for own group
[ ] Clean but sloppy
[ ] Dirty and a slob
Speech
Pace:
[ ] Talks fast [x ] Average pace [ ] Talks slowly
Accent/dialect:
Voice
[ ] Shrill
[x ] Average
[ ] Deep
[ ] Unusually musical
[ ] Unusually authoritative
[ ] Other
Any favorite phrases or words?
Usual cuss words, if any - fuck
Mannerisms
General:
[x ] Projects a calm image
[ x] Volatile--moods change, and body language with it
[ ] Usually fidgety
[ ] Other
Posture:
[ ] Stiff and rigid
[ x] Stands straight but not stiffly
[ x] Average--varies with mood
[ ] Slumped and defeated-looking
[ ] Flexible and graceful
[ ] Usually relaxed
[ ] Slouchy and careless
[ ] Other
Gestures:
[ ] Doesn't gesture much
[ ] Gestures are deliberate and controlled
[x ] Gestures mostly when excited/upset
[ ] Gestures much of the time
[ ] Gestures wildly, even weirdly
Favorite gesture: using hands when talking
When does he/she use it? excited
Habits
Smoker? [x ] No [ ] Former smoker
[ ] Yes--what and how much?
Drinker? [ ] No [ ] Former drinker
[x ] Yes--what and how much? anything at parties, briefly
Drugs? [ ] No [x] Former user
[ ] Yes--what and how much? uppers downers
Money
[x ] Prudent, cautious--saves money
[ ] Average--some debts, some savings
[ ] Spends whatever he/she has, soon after acquiring it
[ ] Deep in debt
[ ] Into criminal activities from financial need
Vehicle
[x ] Does not own a personal vehicle because: rollerblades and rides bicicyle
[ ] Luxury car make:
year:
Details:
[ ] Standard vehicle make:
year:
Details:
[ ] Old/dilapidated vehicle make:
year:
Details:
[ ] Other
Leisure/Cultural Preferences
Enjoys sports? [ ] Not particularly [x ] Yes
How much? [x ] Mildly [ ] A lot [ ] Rabid fan
What kinds? swimming
Enjoys music? [ ] Not particularly [ x] Yes
How much? [ ] Mildly [ x]A lot [ ] Rabid fan
What kind(s)? alt/punk
Enjoys reading? [ ] Not particularly [x ] Yes
How much? [ ] Mildly [x ] A lot [ ] Rabid fan
What kind(s) of books? classical, anything
Enjoys dance? [ ] Not particularly [ x] Yes
How much? [x ] Mildly [ ] A lot [ ] Rabid fan
What kind(s)? just goofing off
Enjoys theatre? [ ] Not particularly [x ] Yes
How much? [ x] Mildly [ ] A lot [ ] Rabid fan
What kind(s)? broadway
Enjoys movies? [ ] Not particularly [x ] Yes
How much? [ ] Mildly [ ] A lot [ x] Rabid fan
What kind(s)? indie films
Enjoys the outdoors? [ ] Not particularly [x ] Yes
How much? [ ] Mildly [x ] A lot [ ] Rabid fan
Doing what outside? hiking, camping
Enjoys going out? [ ] Not particularly [x ] Yes
How much? [ x] Mildly [ ] A lot [ ] Rabid fan
Going where? restaraunts, hot spots
Is good food important to him/her?
[ ] Not particularly [x ] Yes
How important? [ ] Mildly [ x] A lot [ ] True gourmet
What kind(s) of food? anything that tastes good
Can he/she cook? [ x] Yes [ ] No
How well? fairly well
Enjoys shopping? [ x] Not particularly [ ] Yes
How much? [ ] Mildly [ ] A lot [ ] Addicted
Shopping for what?
Where?
Home
Where does the character live?
[ ] Big city [ x] Small town
[ ] Rural area [ ] Other
Where would he/she prefer to live?
[ ] Big city [x ] Small town
[ ] Rural area [ ] Other
Why doesn't he/she live there? he does, in college
What kind of home?
[ ] Apartment [ ] House [ ]
Trailer [x ] Other dorm
What kind of home would he/she prefer?
[ x] Apartment [ ] House
[ ] Trailer [ ] Other
Why doesn't he/she live there? in college
Décor of personal space controlled by this character:
Carefully planned? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Expensive? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Neat? [x ] Yes [ ] No
Clean? [x ] Yes [ ] No
Comfortable? [ x] Yes [ ] No
Attractive? [x ] Yes--to whom? Him
[ ] No--to whom?
Cluttered? [ ] Yes [x ] No
Basic overall style/impression
Pets
Would he/she like a pet? [ x] Yes [ ] No
If yes, what? a dog
Does he/she have any? [ ] Yes [x ] No
If no, why not? dorms
If yes, what pet does he/she have?
Why did he/she acquire them?
How important are these pets to him/her?
How well does he/she treat the pets?

Waking up
Who else is sleeping in the same bed? No one, mostly
What time does he/she wake up? 6 am
What wakes him/her up--alarm? dog? wife? alarm
Is he/she cheerful in the morning? [x ] Yes [ ] No
Does he/she eat breakfast? What? yes, cereal
What does he/she do during breakfast--read, talk, watch TV, feed kids, etc/? read books
Dressing
Is this a big deal, consuming time and thought? [ ] Yes [x ] No
Work
How does he/she get there? school, and biking
Does he/she anticipate, dread, resent, etc., the work ahead?
Does he/she give the job genuine attention and effort? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Does he/she enjoy this work? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Why or why not?
Is he/she good at this job? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Would he/she rather be doing something else? [ ] Yes [ ] No
What?
How long and hard is the work day?
Does he/she stop for lunch? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Where?
Eating what, typically?
With whom?
Dinner
Who prepares his/her meal? dorm caf or himself
Who does he/she eat it with? jess or guy friends
What does it typically consist of? depends
Does he/she enjoy the meal? [x ] Yes [ ] No
Why or why not?
What goes on during dinner--TV, conversation, fighting, reading, etc.? conversation
Who cleans up? they put their treys where they go
Evening
What does your character do on a typical evening? read, hang out
Where? dorm or with friends
With whom? Friends or Jess
How much does he/she enjoy it? depends
What would he/she prefer to be doing instead? depends
Why doesn't he/she do that? depends
Is the evening atmosphere pleasant, calm, tense, frenetic, wary, fun, productive, other? either calm and fun or tense
Bedtime
Does he/she usually go to bed at a consistent time? [ ] Yes [ x] No
What time? 12-2 am
With whom? himself
When does bedtime occur at a different time? whenever
Does he/she usually fall asleep right away? [ ] Yes [ x] No
If no, what is he doing in the meantime--reading, watching TV, sex, tossing and turning, etc.?reading
How much does he/she enjoy this activity? a lot
Does he/she dream a lot, little or never? a lot
Are most of his/her dreams scary, pleasant, sexual, etc.? scary or pleasant
Is any one dream recurrent? [x ] Yes [ ] No
What?
he's on a cliff with all of his loved ones and one by one they all fall off and his feet are glued to the ground so he can't stop what's happening

How does the character get along with:
Spouse? na
Children?na
Parents? not well
Siblings? good when sibling was alive
The opposite sex? good typically
Children in general? good, but doesn't admit it
Neighbors? good
Friends? good typically
People more successful than he/she is? depends, but good
People less successful?depends, but good
Boss? n/a
Underlings at work?na
Competitors at work?na
The local police? not well
The IRS? na
Anyone who challenges him/her? usually not good
Anyone who angers him/her? usually not good
Anyone who helps him/her? good
Anyone who asks for help? good

What is his/her earliest memory? the hospital when his mom was in a car accident
If he/she were suddenly much much richer, what would he/she do with the money? save and buy a house
What is his/her stated dream in life? be a writer
What does he/she really long for underneath? acceptance from parents
What event is he/she most afraid might happen? he'll be alone
Who does he/she, in his/her deepest soul, really love best in the whole world? Jess
What would he/she be willing to die for, if anything? Jess
What does he/she believe about God?believes but isnt active
About the purpose of life? unsure
About an afterlife? judeo-christian
What does he/she actively work to gain or keep or protect--not merely say is important, but actually invest time and emotion in--money, fame, family, love, country, revenge, etc.? emotion family and love
How would he/she describe himself/herself, if totally honest? a lot of weaknesses
In a single word, how would you the author sum up this character's attitude toward the world--interested, optimistic, defeated, exploitive, compassionate, dissatisfied, power-mad, controlling, happy, etc.? cautiously optimistic, if not defeated at times
Would your character agree with your assessment?
[x ] Yes [ ] No
Why or why not?he wouldn't disagree with much

things i want to say, not type

2008-09-23T01:22:00.000-07:00

If I had any respect for the man
sitting across the couch from us
who is her father
but apparently doesn't know what the word means
I would
slap him in the face
and tell him to
fuck off.
that's if I had respect. But since I don't
I'm weighing my options.
And there's not a lot to do that doesn't involve
me kicking him in the balls.
She wears sweaters
all the time
even in summer
duh for the reason why
but he's completely clueless as to what his constant barrage of verbal vomit
does to her.
It's caused two suicide attempts
one year after the other
none of which she told anyone about
ever.
He was so blind to see it.
His words were hurting her so much that
she didn't know what to do with the pain.
He called her fat often
Failure.
Never directly. But
There isn't a choice she made that's good enough for him.
I want to scream at him, as he verbally attacks her while she sits and zones his words out though the impact
will just be far greater
when she's
alone.
I'm
just sitting there watching
wondering
what to do.
I want to scream can't you see what you're trying to destroy?
Lighten the hell up on her. You're destroying her.
You don't deserve her.
She deserves to be happy.
She deserves to not have this crap.
I want to tell them that I, an eighteen year old guy, know more about being a man
than he does.
the measure of a man is how you treat your daughter.
not your physique
and not your bank account.
and you, sir, are a puny, little man.

hookers and robbers

2008-09-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't been to church since shortly after Maddy died, and Brian convinced me to come to camp but soon regretted it, I'm sure, when he found the pills. But I heard this song today. And I'm not emotional, usually, unless you're talking Maddy, but this song provoked an intense emotional response from me.

Hookers And Robbers - Charlie Hall

Maddy . 4 I think?

2008-09-07T23:43:00.000-07:00

Maddy,
I'm crazy for writing you. So crazy. But it's only three weeks in and already I feel out of control. Too ashamed to admit how much I'm screwing up. Even to you. Who..isn't even reading this and is just a figment of my imagination. dead. you're...dead that is it. end of story. fin. Why do I keep writing you? Kyle. Stop writing to your dead sister.

Kyle

p.s. - sometimes I think you had the right idea.

I should definitely be sleeping, but in light of recent events

2008-09-07T02:57:00.000-07:00

Journaling sounded more fun. We were up. All night. Getting coffee at 10pm didn't help. And we walked for a long time. Talking.

Well, I'm assuming she was up all night. Because I've been up all night thinking about that look on her face. Thinking, drawing...There's nothing more tragically beautiful to a realist than the look on a woman's face when she's trying to hide something, like the fact that tears are escaping from her eyes, while she projects a confident look to me. As if she wasn't transparant. As if I didn't know her. As if I hadn't seen her heart break before.

But I let the moment pass, and we continue walking down the street. I let the questions I was asking her go. I wanted to know everything about her life. It feels like it's been so much longer than it has. The effects of the caffeine have left, now. And I am about to crash.

three

2008-09-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

Maddy,
I didn't write last night because I went to a party. A college party. On a weeknight. Yeah. Due to my lack of partying in high school, it felt awkward, but good. It was Jess's idea.

I finally called her, after coming home from Dad's. I forgot how long it had been since I had heard that giggle in her voice when she says ''hello'' on the phone, but anyone who knows her knows that's how she says hello. She wanted to go get coffee. So we went. She's changed, but she's Jess, so I don't really know how much she's changed. Don't tell her that, though.

She likes to think otherwise when she changes her style every year. We talked for hours, and I didn't even notice the time going by so fast. I turned around to look out the window and it was dark outside. She asked about you, Maddy. More like asked about me, in relation to you. She let me know she misses you. See?

I'm not the only one who misses you so much. Okay, so she probably doesn't miss you more than me. No one does. I'm your little brother. Not even mom or dad can compete in the Missing Maddy field. I'm done being mad at you.

Now I just miss you. And you would've helped me out last night at the party. It's hard to describe why it was awkward. But being there, with Jess, in a date-ish situation when we're not dating, was awkward for a little while. I am pretty sure she felt it too, because we didn't spend most of the party together. I walked around a lot, and some girls gave me their numbers, which was an interesting experience.

Overall, I don't think I was missing much when I let my social life take a hiatus in high school. Oh, and Brian called. Yeah, youth pastor Brian. I haven't returned his call yet. Ever since I got in trouble at camp this past summer, I haven't talked to him. I don't know if I will. I don't think he'd be very proud of me right now. Neither would you.

Me.

elephants and cold beer

2008-09-03T23:12:00.000-07:00

I went to see my dad today after class. He was watching a football game. He offered me a beer, so I took one. It felt so high class to drink it. Basically, we sat there for a while, watching the football game on television. Not talking, for the most part.

I don't follow football, and I only watch it while I'm with him. But it was one of the more uncomfortable games I've watched. They've all been uncomfortable lately. For years, they've been uncomfortable. There's this elephant between us. An elephant that's been there ever since Madison died.

We've never talked about it. I don't think he blames me. I hope he doesn't blame me. I don't blame him. I think he blames her. I stopped blaming her a long time ago.

We were best friends. Sitting there, drinking that beer, I wanted to say something. I wanted to speak to him more than I have in years. I opened my mouth and started to, and then he did.

"How's school?"
"Good, dad. school's good."
"Got enough credits?"
"Yeah."
"Your mom told me you're taking thirteen. I don't think that's enough."
"They are pretty hard classes."
"Still. Don't sell yourself short."
I just looked down at my beer, having given up on saying what I wanted to say. We didn't talk any more throughout the entire game, except for him cursing when his team started losing. I left, pretty quickly. I don't know when I'll be able to bring up the elephant.

Lullabye To Her

2008-09-02T21:49:00.000-07:00

Be safe tonight
here with me
it's okay to be safe tonight.
Let me hold you here
listen to my heartbeat
it's real. you're here.
safe.
You're always safe here.
The monster isn't allowed here
and can't break in.
You're safe to breathe, to cry
to feel
anything
to say
anything
here
with me.
It's okay, Dear Girl.
let me hold you tonight.
You're safe.

I used to write that to her and slip it in her locker the mornings. When she came over, I would sing it to her while she was in my arms. That year she came over almost every day. She'd just walk in and you could tell he'd yelled. The evidence was in her eyes, she wouldn't look directly at me or anything and you could see she was fading fast. I had to act or before long she'd disconnect.

Once in a while she'd have been hit or worse. As I'd be cleaning up the wound on her arm from falling, I'd pull up here sleeve and there they would be, the twenty, thirty or so red lines going up her arm and up to her shoulder. I didn't say anything. I honestly did not know what to say. I wanted to say 'Jess, oh Jess.." but I didn't. I didn't want to make it worse.

And who were we supposed to ask for help? Her dad's the pastor. How dare we dirty his image with this inconvieniance, right? It never took to long before I led her over to the couch and I sat while she curled up beside me or in my lap. I'd just hold her as the tears came and rub her back and sing to her. She would hold on just to see if I was still real and I wouldn't tell her that her fingernails dug into my back and my sides.

There we were, the very people her dad preaches against on Sundays. It appears we were moping about as if there were no hope in our lives to present. But this was the one place she could take off that mask of perfection and strength and in the face of her demons finally be just her. I never asked her to talk about it. I wouldn't have done that to her. Just thinking about it, or trying not to, caused her to dissolve in tears. I saw her today at the bookstore.

Hadn't seen her in months. So I guess I just remembered how I miss it. No, obviously not her pain. But I miss holding her and I miss being needed. I don't think I've been needed like that since she got better. I wonder how she is.

Like, really is. She wrote her number on my palm. To call her, or to not call her. Why do I assume it would be weird? It's been so long. Oh I don't know.

I guess it's just the boy-girl thing again. END.

Not end.

our favorite songs-

Holiday in Spain
Goodnight, Elisabeth
Soul Meets Body - "but I know our filfthy hands can wash one anothers and not one speck will remain."

ok. end.

freewrite that i'm not turning in

2008-09-01T16:12:00.000-07:00

Well there's a free-write due tomorrow, I thought I'd do it today. Ready, set, go! I'm finally all set into the dorm room, and to write I need to be listening to the decemberists. California one. I always thought it said wine.

Do you ever do that? Misunderstand song lyrics? There are certain nirvana lyrics I get a totally different meaning from and..they aren't what they were even about. Like, 'with the lights out, it's less dangerous' is the actual lyric. I thought it meant 'Someone laughed out, this is dangerous'. Totally different. I'm anxious.

I can't explain why. Dumb reasons. But I'm almost overcome with anxiety wishing today would just hurry up and be over. Grinding my teeth again. Niccee. Attractive.

What usually calms me down when this is happening? Skating. Putting on my inline skates and just going for a nice, well skate. Always helps if Neutral Milk Hotel or Decemberists are playing on my iPod and I can just feel like I'm as fast as the wind. Too fast for anyone to catch me, the music too loud for me to hear anyone tell me to stop. Which is just fine with me.

The only thing that slows me down occasionally is when I attempt a trick that I don't know yet, but still for a moment I'm flying, and then the next I'm on the ground, having rolled a couple times and have a wound somewhere that when I was living at home mom would freak out about. She'd freak out because maybe there was a dinner party that night and would I just stop getting myself all messy and scabbed up and that would scar don't you know and how'd you like to explain it to your grandkids. Go wash up. I'd be fine explaining it to my grandkids that when I was skating this one time, I fell off the rail. Or, I took a jump that was too high. You look like a skating druggie punk just off the street. She didn't know that to my fifteen or sixteen year old mind that was the coolest thing she could've ever said to me.

I wanted to be a rock star. Still anxious. Just thinking about skating isn't helping. I'm just trying to keep my breathing in control. This is crazy. There has to be something physically wrong with me. I have no reason to be anxious. But still, I'm shaking, my mouth is dry, I can hardly breathe or keep my concentration in one place. Pills. Pills would help me concentrate and they'd take away this can't breathe you're gonna die panic. No I told myself I'd stay off them and I've been off them for weeks. But crap I can't concentrate if this panic lasts much longer. Haha, there's no way this is the free write I'm turning in.

the grass

2008-08-31T21:54:00.001-07:00

before everything was destroyed
lets go to where
we were sitting on the grass
two dollar coffee without cream
sipping
enjoying the wind and the innocence
way before everything screwed up
way before there was the
boy-girl problem
way before
you asked me if I cut
way before
I saw you smoking.
Way before it got complicated and we started fighting
and the cord unraveled.
Way before we got too close
and hurt each other.
That's what I miss now.
Sitting in the grass.
Perfection.
We can't go back.

two

2008-08-31T12:49:00.000-07:00

Maddy
I forgot in the last letter to tell you why I'm suddenly writing to you again. In English, the professor is having us do a journal assignment and we get to write to anyone we want to. I chose you. I chose you because I think about you a lot lately, and I find myself wondering what would happen if you were here. How much better it would be if you were here. So instead of writing to, like, Harry Potter, or Marylin Monroe, I choose you. Dinner was fun last night with the guys. Until then I hadn't really talked with either of them in depth. I hadn't gotten to know them. You know how it is. They party so after we all come home from classes we don't really interact much. Dan wants to be pre-med. Justin is a theater major, so I'm assuming that he'll be here less and less. Enough about them. Mom called me today, to see if I'd gotten the package. And to tell me that she has a new boyfriend. Woo-hoo. Glad I'm not home. I sound like a self-absorbed, ungrateful prick when I say that. But I do know that only you'd understand that.
Me

the most unoriginal title- letter number 1

2008-08-30T22:35:00.001-07:00

Maddy,
It would honestly be great if I could be a kid again. College doesn't seem to be all it's cracked up to be. Honestly, though, neither is home. Mom has sent two care packages. I've been here two weeks. Apparently she finds it quite imperative to make sure I don't go without vitamins, condoms and chocolate chip cookies. Yes, condoms. Can't you feel my enthusiasm seeping through the ink in the very page you're reading? Condoms. From Mom. Yay. The roommates are cool, I suppose. I am going out to dinner tonight with them, apparently. Dan and Justin. They're cool, but between you and me, I don't know if I can relate to them. But I'll be giving it a try. I wish you were here. Maybe you would be able to teach me how to be charming and suave and we'd have fun together, here. You wouldn't be weird, like me, you'd be perfect and I'd be beating the guys down just to spend time with you. But you'd be here. Which is better than what reality currently tells us. Well, tata for now.

me