As I lay, with my back pressed against the cold hard tiles scattered across my bathroom floor. I shift my gaze to the sun roof. My eyes proceed to focus on what is above me. Just for a moment, the half a pill bottle spilled out on the ground beside me becomes a distant memory. Somehow my brain cannot comprehend that the other half of the medicine has found it’s way down my throat. I glance over at the prescription bottle, fragilely attached to my weak and lifeless hand.
Her hands were soft and gentle. They were helpful hands. Hands that were once used to pour soup into the empty bowls of the residents that inhabit the streets of Colorado Springs. We spent Monday and Thursday afternoons there every week. After school on we would take the bus to the downtown station, then walk 5 blocks which lead us to the Colorado Springs Downtown Soup Kitchen. There, we would stand for four hours ladling soup. Two of the four hours were spent actually working, and the rest consisted of me following Lily as she made her rounds catching up with all the regulars. She always did all the talking, which I didn’t mind. I loved the way she loved people.
What feels an eternity has passed. I can no longer feel the bottle pressed against my faint hand. I try to move my head but my body won’t respond. I lay there still, with occasional sudden uncontrolled movements. Is this what it feels like? I thought it would be worse… death that is. I anticipated it would be more gruesome and fast. But this type of departure is much more slow and isolated. I almost feel disassociated with my body. Like I’m an outsider watching closely for the next step. My spirt is alive, although it’s home is fading with every second that passes. I wonder if Lily felt this?
All the regulars loved Lily, one in particular might have loved her too much. Walter was his name. He supposedly only came in on Mondays and Thursdays when Lily and I were there. Everyone thought that he was just trying to get to know her. Apparently he had “the purest of intentions”. What a load of crap. We now know that the phony wasn’t even homeless, he was just a creep. One night he followed Lily and I home from the bus stop. When I left Lily at her house, he snuck inside without her knowing. In the middle of the night she heard a load bang from across her room, she found him hiding inside her closet. That was Walters first strike. After his second strike Lily finally told me what had been going on.
“We have to tell someone Lily, he’s not safe!”
“Please don’t! He’s just needs someone to talk to, he’s going through a lot.”
“That’s great. Maybe he could do what normal people do and talk during the day, not at 1:00am after you’ve just found him hiding in you’d closet!”
“Okay! I agree the closet thing is weird, but I’m trusting you with this. Please just don’t tell anyone.”
“Whatever”
After the third strike, I received a call. Confusion stuck me as to why Lily would be ringing this late in the night. The clock read 1:27am. I made the sound decision to not pick up the call because as my mom always says… “nothing is urgent and everything can wait till the morning.” I guess sometimes mothers aren’t always right.
As I staggered down the stairs that morning, I was drowned by a dark gloomy atmosphere. I looked into my mothers wholesome eyes which seemed to pierce through me and allow her sorrows to puncture my heart. Words muffled around me, “rape”, “killed”, “sorry”. It was like my living room was a big aquarium and I was the fish everyone was waiting to spontaneously combust. I knew that the things I was hearing could not possibly be true. I began to sink further and further into the arms of my parents. I sat unable to comprehend the truth that was just blatantly laid in front of me. I sat there unable to think, breathing even became an unachievable goal. Without warning my mouth grew a mind of its own, and I cried out,
“She’s not gone! She can’t be! I-“
My brain finally understood, my world, my love, she’s gone. My life began to shatter piece by piece right in front of me in the course of 10 minutes.
Over the next few weeks, I withdrew myself from everything I used to love. It pained me to go out because everywhere I look I saw her. My attendance became so shockingly poor, that my parents had to decide if I would need to be kept back a year. They thought that taking me out of school was the best course of action. This lead me to my loneliest moments. Every spare second I had was spent thinking about her, how she died? Why I couldn’t save her? How Walter lead her to that desperate state, the same way she’s lead me to mine? And when I wasn’t thinking about that, I wasn’t thinking about anything. I became quit good at being alone and sitting or standing quietly unattached to the possibility of thinking anything at all. When I perfected that skill I knew that my time here would need to come to an end. I could t handle it anymore.
As my last breathe approached me my mind finally found peace. Although my chest tightened with every gasp I took, I couldn’t be more happier to be dying. The aching that seemed unbearable was now slowly beginning to fade. My hands no longer shook. My body had ceased any and all sudden jolts. It was time. The anticipation was finally over. No more guilt. Most importantly my desperate sorrows will be washed away for good. With every last bit of life left in me I uttered out…
“See you soon my love.”