Chapter 26
“Did Kaelyn seem depressed to you lately, Marissa?”
Marissa sat in the local police station, answering
questions. She was experiencing déjà
vu, remembering the time only a few months earlier, when she had been there
after the accident that had been the cause for all of this.
“Well, yes. She… she
hasn’t really been the same since the car accident we were in in January. Her boyfriend Luke was killed, and I don’t
think she ever got over it. Plus, we
just found out a couple days ago that Nick, the guy who we hit, was going to be
brain damaged for the rest of his life, and I think that made her feel even
worse. I never thought she would do this
to herself though,” Marissa said, wiping her teary eyes with a Kleenex.
The police officer nodded.
“I feel so horrible,” Marissa continued, sobbing. “I shouldn’t have noticed how bad off she
really was. I should have tried to help
her.”
“Shhh,” the officer soothed. “Don’t blame yourself. Most people who are suicidal keep their
feeling bottled up inside them. You had
no way of knowing. It isn’t your fault.”
Marissa nodded, but she couldn’t help feeling like it was
her fault. Once again, because of her
stupidity, she had lost another friend.
Another person’s life had been ruined because of her.
***
Four months
later
“The jury finds Shawn Matthew Roberts guilty for
manslaughter. He is sentenced to serve
five years in prison.”
The sound of the gavel striking the wood surface of the
judge’s podium made Marissa jump.
Tears filled her eyes as she turned to look at her former
boyfriend, who sat across the courtroom beside his lawyer, wearing a bright orange
prison jumpsuit. And yet, she didn’t
feel sorry for him. He had made a fatal
mistake, and he deserved to pay for it.
And he only had to serve five years.
It could have been worse. What
was five years, when Luke and Kaelyn were dead?
And when Nick’s entire life was ruined?
Five years was nothing.
Marissa watched as two guards led Shawn out of the
courtroom, struck with melancholy.
There went the last of the group she had been with that night. Kaelyn and Luke were dead, and now Shawn was
gone, doomed to spend the next five years in jail.
And yet, she was still here. She hadn’t been killed, she hadn’t killed
herself, and she hadn’t had to serve time.
She knew that her punishment was just this though, just watching as
people she cared about died or had their lives ruined. And that was punishment enough.
***
That night, as she stood in the bathroom, brushing her
teeth, Marissa thought about Kaelyn.
Kaelyn had taken the easy way out.
She had ended her pain and guilt for good, by taking a razor to her
wrists.
What would it be like to do that? To end your suffering, end your pain?
As Marissa opened the medicine cabinet to put away her
toothpaste, her eyes fell on the bottles of medicine that lined the top
shelf. Those were a lot of pills. Enough to kill someone, if they took them
all.
Enough to end someone’s horrible feelings of guilt. To rid them of the pain that haunted them
every minute of the day. To free them
from their world of suffering.
As Marissa thought about, death sounded tempting. It would be a quick and easy way to escape,
to leave all this behind forever.
That must have been what Kaelyn had been thinking.
Marissa’s heart pounded as she fingered the medicine
bottles. Such an easy way. And a clean way too, unlike the gruesome
death Kaelyn had bestowed upon herself.
Even now, four months after Kaelyn’s death, the image of
her lying in that bloody puddle was imprinted in Marissa’s mind.
Marissa wouldn’t do that.
She would make it nice and clean.
All she had to do was choke down a few bottles of these pills, and
within a short period of time, she would be dead.
Within minutes, her mind was made up. She took down a few bottles of pills,
glancing at the labels to find out how strong they were. She knew that if she did this, she had to do
it right. She sure didn’t want to wake
up in the hospital after surviving through a suicide attempt. That would be worse than death.
Marissa opened the child-proof cap of one of the
bottles. She took a handful of pills and
shoved them in her mouth, dipping her face under the running faucet of the sink
to wash them down. And then she
swallowed another handful, and yet another after that.
Marissa didn’t know how much she had consumed when she
finally stopped, but she knew it was enough.
Her vision was getting blurry, and she was getting dizzy.
She slowly walked out of the bathroom and down the hall to
her bedroom. Feeling light-headed and
short of breath, she lay down upon her bed, flat on her back.
Her heart started to
pound loudly in her ears, its beat growing fluttery and irregular. Her breath came in short gasps. Her chest felt like it was caving in on
her. Her whole body ached as fiery
pains shot through her.
But soon, the pain dulled, and it seemed as if her whole
body had gone numb. Her heartbeat
sounded slow and distorted in her ears, as her breathing became labored and
ragged.
She grew tired, and before long, she could no longer keep
her eyes open. She let them close, and
darkness fell over her.
***
