Pain Killer

24 ~ Tough Cookies

The following days are hard. Beyond hard. Martha took two weeks off because of severe stomach cramping. She was diagnosed with anxiety four days after my bridge incident. The guilt settled on me when I heard her crying in her bedroom early in the morning, and then throwing up when I got home late from class.

I sit at the kitchen table, a mug of steamed milk in my good hand. The heat scorches my palm and I don't quite realize it as I listen to her coughs in the bathroom. She must have been worried because I didn't text her on my way home tonight. The stress is eating her alive, making her stomach weak. I pull in a deep breath, shutting my eyes as if it will make the pain lessen.

Martha enters the kitchen. Her face is pale but she attempts a smile when she sees me.

"I'm sorry I didn't text you," I say down at the skin of cinnamon that floats on the surface of my milk. "I'll try to remember next time."

"Thanks, Delilah." Martha nods, pouring herself a glass of water and sitting down across from me. "I feel better just seeing you."

Her statement confirms the guilt wrapped around me. I'm the cause of her anxiety.

I force myself not to stare at the dark circles around her eyes but I'm sure mine look the same.

We sit in silence, the weight of reality stealing our energy and hope like a thief. I sigh as tears begin to build in my eyes.

I'm so tired.

"How did your finals go?" Martha sips her water carefully, most likely knowing my answer.

I rotate the cup in my hand, my cast clinking with it at every turn. The white wrapping of my brace is covered with happy faces, signatures, and get-well-soons from my classmates and professors. "What do I expect when I've hardly studied and missed a quarter of the classes?" I mutter.

"It's alright. School isn't everything."

We both nod, knowing the deeper meaning behind those words. Like the fact that I almost killed myself makes grades and education seem like some chaff in the wind.

I almost died.

The thought feels paralyzing. It weighs on my mind almost constantly. It's become a scale, judging almost everything with a counterweight that this life is not forever and there isn't much that really matters.

College is one of those things.

But if it weren't for college, I would have never met Uri.

My heart stings at the thought. It's been a week and a half since we last spoke at the hospital. He hasn't called; a sign that forgiveness is still not a possibility for my actions.

I miss the crap out of him.

I know it's because I'm just lonely, my only other friend being Martha whom I can barely look in the eye without crying out of suffocating guilt.

Of course, it would be unfair to say I only have two friends, because the fact that I "attempted suicide" became known to the whole campus, just a few days afterward. I was almost a celebrity as hundreds of texts and emails flooded my phone with the students and teachers telling me I'm loved and irreplicable. But the one that iced the cake was Agatha's. Each message brought me to tears, but Agatha's short little paragraph was all it took. I sat on the floor as tears poured from my eyes and I sobbed for a long time. The next day, I called her and asked if we could get coffee someday and really be genuine friends. And I wanted to be friends with Gin and Leona too. I wanted to be a new person, no longer hiding in my shell of prideful and judgmental views. I knew it was time to change.

Change hurts.

I sip the hot milk, wishing everything could be even a little easier. But watching Martha take medication every morning, hearing her cry when she worries about losing me, I don't know where to start. And the bridge calls my name as if it is a true solution, as if it doesn't scare me out of my mind, as if it wouldn't hurt everyone around me.