Whispers In The Dark

Riley

Riley

Jeremiah continued to leave me daisies; on my car, the mailbox, my locker…I couldn’t deal with it anymore.

I was just done. I used to love daisies, but because of him, I couldn’t stand them. After Reximus’s funeral, I stopped by Jeremiah’s house with scissors and matches. I knew that he wouldn’t be home; he had lacrosse practice every Saturday until five. I wasn’t worried about being caught.

I wasn’t worried about anything, really. I was upset, and when I look back on it, I know that I wasn’t thinking straight.

I snipped away all of the daisies from his mother’s garden and piled them up in a circle of stones. I threw a match onto them and just watched them burn. He would be home at any moment. I had to leave, but I knew he would get the message.

I didn’t get any more daisies after that.

My dad was true to his word; he made me an appointment with a therapist. He was young and had just graduated college, but my dad thought that it would be easier for me to connect with someone closer to my own age. I saw him every Tuesday at five.

I slipped once and told him that I hadn’t taken my medication in over a year, had never even bothered to get them refilled. That was enough for him to tell my dad. I started to take the anti-depressants, but I still refused to take my Insomnia medication. I flushed one every night, just so that my dad wouldn’t get suspicious when he checked.

When Jessiah informed us that Anna had been hospitalized and committed, I panicked a bit and immediately had flashes of when I heard about Skylar, and when Robin told us about Reximus. It wasn’t too bad, though. Jessiah was obviously upset, and so were we, but she was alive, and that was probably the best news that we could get. She was getting help, too, which made me feel somehow lighter because suddenly, I wasn’t the only one. I had a notion that Robin was probably seeing someone, too, but I couldn’t be sure.

For three weeks after Reximus’s funeral and burning the daisies, I went without any breakdowns or panic attacks.

I was at Victoria’s house when I broke that streak. She had reached to the top of her closet for a box of movies, and her sweatshirt rose to expose a small patch of scabbed over skin. I found it hard to tear my eyes away.

My voice wobbled. “Why do you have to hurt yourself?”

She froze. The relaxed mood suddenly became tense and rigid. She looked at me, eyes pained. “I don’t even do it that much, anymore.”

“When was the last time?”

She shut the closet door, movies forgotten. “A few days after the funeral.”

“There are better ways to make everything stop hurting than cutting yourself. You know that, right?”

She pulled her sweatshirt down over her black leggings self-consciously and nodded. “Of course.”

I started crying. I had been thinking about it for weeks: What if Victoria was the next one to go? Would I be able to handle that? No. I don’t think I would.

Victoria stood uncomfortably as I struggled to regain some form of composure. I wiped the tears from my cheeks but others replaced them. I had been spending quite a bit of time crying, but not in front of people. I hadn’t even cried during any of my therapy appointments. My cheeks reddened.

I didn’t have alcohol; my dad confiscated it all and called several local package stores so that I would have little chance to get it. I couldn’t get any drugs, either; my dad was checking me every night to ensure that I wasn’t harming myself and was still taking my medication. Everything was changing so fast, and I just couldn’t keep up.

My therapist told me that crying was healthy, but it just made me feel like shit.

Victoria didn’t say anything, just waited for me to calm down. I was glad that she did that, because I don’t think having someone else fussing over everything that was wrong with me would have helped at all. I was happier, though, when she called me that night crying and saying: “I want to cut, but I don’t want to make you cry anymore. How do I stop?”