“Ryan? He’s good, he asked me to go out with him this weekend,” I said, unable to resist smiling at the thought of hanging out with Ryan. The past two weeks had helped me heal from Eric’s outburst. I found myself actually being excited for the future, and for the prospect of spending time with Ryan. We had talked a lot through text but his work schedule and my class schedule kept us from seeing each other. We also facetimed on certain occasions, his smile always lightening up the room even through the screen of an iPad. But not being able to be with him in person was still torture. Especially remembering how hot he was in that Express changing room.
As for Eric, we still hadn’t talked. He called my phone nonstop for the first four days, leaving message after message about how sorry he was and how horrified he was of his mistake. I texted him on the first day and I told him that I would forgive him but I also needed time. A lot of it. I knew I had to tell him something so that he wouldn’t do anything drastic. Eric may have been messed up, but he was also a very hopeful person. If I gave him something to look forward to, even if it was the slightest chance of me coming back, then it would calm him enough so that he could deal with his emotions in a healthy manner. I was scared to see Eric’s reaction if I were to just cut him off cold turkey.
On some days I thought I would show up at Courtney’s apartment and find Eric sitting on the front porch, waiting to get me back. Thankfully, he kept that boundary and didn’t show up around me.
Courtney gave me an extra case of pepper spray just in case.
It was a harrowing thought, thinking that I may need to use pepper spray on my childhood love. The one that was supposed to last forever with me. It wasn’t a good feeling at all, especially since the last thing I wanted to do was harm Eric. It was irrational thinking, but I couldn’t help it.
And then my phone buzzed on my lap.
I looked down.
Eric.
“Shit,” I said.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
“What happened?” Courtney asked, entranced by the family of meerkats on the television screen.
I stayed silent, reading the text message over and over again. Eric was in the hospital.
And it was because of me.
I threw the phone over at Courtney and dropped my head into my hands. As she read the message out loud, I began to tear up. My upper lip started to quiver in the way that warned an uncontrollable crying session was about to occur. I took a deep breath and tried to focus.
“Emma, I love you like nothing else in this world. That’s why I tried to kill myself last night. I know what I did to you was beyond words. I’m sorry. I’m at the hospital right now. Please. Help me,” Courtney read, trailing off at the end. She looked at me with the same expression she would look at a chemistry test with, a lock of her sandy blond hair falling to the front of her face. She pushed it away with her hand as her mouth dropped open a bit, she just didn’t know what to do.
“Are you gonna go?” she asked me, handing back my phone and turning off the meerkat family.
“I have to,” I replied, knowing there was no other option. This was not how I wanted it all to end. I imagined us parting ways in a friendly fashion. We had way too much history between us to just throw it all away. I forgave him, now I needed him to forgive himself.
“Please, take the spray,” she said, concerned about me.
“Court, he’s laying in a hospital bed. I don’t think I need to worry,” I said, the words hurting as they came out.
“I know, I just want you to be safe. He scares me.”
“Yeah… he scares me too.”
I changed out of my sweat pants and threw on whatever clothes I could find in my makeshift closet hanging underneath Courtney’s own bunched up winter jackets. Her room was a bit of a mess but I was able to salvage a light blue top and jeans from underneath a pile of sweaters that had fallen on top of my clothes. I grabbed my purse and hurried out, picking up a breakfast bar on the way before wishing Courtney good luck on her biology test as she looked at me with a face of worry.
I walked into the hospital, feeling like the white walls were starting to become a sort of twisted second home for me. I rushed over to the front desk and spoke with a nurse who did not seem happy to be working at all. She looked through her records and was able to point me to Eric’s room after a little sigh of exhaustion. Apparently it was too much effort to say a room number to someone. I said a curt thank you and went on my way, winding around medical students milling about and a few families waiting for news on their loved ones.
I found Eric’s room in a little less than five minutes. The door was closed, his folder labeled with his name rested inside the bin next to the door. Grabbing the doorknob and turning it felt like something out of a dream. I wasn’t sure what was waiting for me on the other side of the door.
The room was dim, the thin curtains covered the small window at the end of the room. Even though it was the midday, someone inside the room would have thought it was dawn. Heart rate monitors blipped on the side, casting an eerie green glow from the display. The room was a single, only having one bed in the center faced straight at an old television box hanging from the ceiling.
My eyes immediately went to Eric, who was sleeping in his bed, the sheets covering his whole body. I could see his face was battered and bruised, cuts scattered across his forehead as though glass cracked and peppered his face. I could see his left arm was held out in a cast, keeping the bones in place while they healed the damage Eric tried to inflict on himself. I realized then that I had no idea what Eric had done. I knew nothing about how he tried to kill himself.
Jesus. He tried to kill himself.
I brought my hand up to my mouth and tried to stifle a cry but it wasn’t enough. I saw Eric’s eyes flutter open, a hazy confusion trying to fight away the reality that was gripping at him. I saw him realize he was still in the hospital, memories of what he had done came flooding back. He looked at me and reached out his still functioning arm, smiling but crying at the same time. My heart broke seeing him in such pain. I walked over to him, slow at first. The image of him towering over me was faint, but it was still there. The image of him dying was stronger though.
I placed my hand in his and felt him close his grip around mine. It was tender, apologetic. So different compared to the grip he had around my neck.
I started crying hard, emotions raging inside of me like a destructive tsunami. I was scared and angry and hurt but I was also so worried. I dropped to my knees and took his hand to my face, kissing his closed fist as tears wet both of our cheeks.
“Why?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Because I needed you,” he said, his grip around my hand tightening. I felt him squeeze, my fingers coming together, almost painfully. I pushed back up, getting on my feet so I was no longer on the floor next to him. His grip loosened around my hand, letting me take it back and run it through his tangled hair.
“What did you do?” I asked, afraid of what he would say.
It took him a while to respond, the words unable to form. Finally, “I tried to drive my car into the lake.”
“Oh, Eric. My Eric,” I said, kissing his forehead as his body shook with sobs. I stayed strong this time, letting Eric release everything he had inside of him.
“They told me I can’t play basketball anymore. I have nothing else. I’ve lost you and basketball.”
I looked down at him as he dropped that bomb. It was weird. He said it without any emphasis, like a throw-away sentence that had no long lasting implications. Except it did. If I was everything to Eric, then basketball was his life. Without basketball, I wasn’t sure whom Eric would turn into.
“My arm is too fucked up from the crash,” he said, weakly lifting his cast.
“Ironic huh? I try to end it all but I’m dragged back, except my life is actually pretty much close to ended.”
“Don’t say that,” I said, trying my hardest to do some form of damage control. “Your life is no where near ended. You made a mistake, but you’re strong enough to come back from it Eric. I’ve known you since we were fifteen. You were always the one I looked up to. The one who kept me going through my hard times, now it’s your turn to do the fighting.” I grabbed a styrofoam cup filled with water and brought it over so that he could quench his dry throat. He took a sip and then looked away, out towards the covered window.
I pulled back the curtain and let in the light, showing me just how beat up Eric actually was. His whole head looked swollen and his arm was basically immobile.
“I’m moving back in,” I decided, then and there.
“You don’t have to,” Eric said, I could see a familiar brightness spark in his gaze. The brightness of hope that Eric always held on to.
“I will. You’ll need someone to help you,” I said, taking a seat on one of the uncomfortable pastel green chairs. I knew I needed to lay down some ground rules though.
“I’ll help with whatever you need. But Eric… we can’t be together right now. I need you to understand that. I still need more time. But I want to help you, I do.”
“Do you still love me?”
The question totally caught me off guard. So much so I made an audible gasp noise, the kind that happens when you get punched in the stomach. It felt like such a potent question, one that used to have such an innocent connotation only a month before. I should have been able to easily answer with a yes, but my mouth struggled to shape words at first.
“Of course, Eric. That’s why I’m here,” I finally said, shifting forward in the chair.
“But, do you think we can ever get back to what we were?” he asked, unable to look at me.
I took another moment to answer. I honestly had no idea what I would say. I had prepared myself to end it permanently, but seeing him so vulnerable and broken opened my heart again. His plea tugged at the deepest part of me. The part that remembered our weekly picnics where Eric would bring me a box of skittles and we would just watch old French movies together.
Just before I answered, a knock came from the door and a head peeked through. I was surprised to see Jason come in, along with a nurse who had tagged along to change some of Eric’s bandages. It took Jason a second to realize he knew me, but once he did I saw a smile and a polite wave. Eric saw it too. I just missed the part where Eric clenched his fist in jealousy.
“Hey… Emma right?” Jason said as he jotted down some of Eric’s vital stats in his notes. The nurse meanwhile got around to taking off a bandage that was on the side of Eric’s head. I saw a dark red mark of dried blood that had soaked through the gauze.
“Mind if you give us some time?” Jason asked me, taking a seat next to Eric’s bed. I knew that any suicide attempt was taken extremely serious, as it should. I looked at Eric and managed a hopeful smile.
“I’ll see you when you get home, ok?” I said, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. Eric glanced quickly at Jason and then back at me. I didn’t see the suspicion already creeping up in Eric’s mind.
“See you,” he said, mindlessly ironing a wrinkle in the white sheets that covered him.
“Stay strong ok?” I said as I walked out the door. I waved again at Jason and closed the door behind me. I really, really hoped Jason was as good of a therapist as he was a doctor because Eric needed to talk to someone. He needed to figure out what was going on underneath. I paused a moment just outside of his door, wondering how the dynamics between us would change.
I had no idea.
“Jesus, why is this place so damn confusing?” I asked to myself, pressing the button that had a worn out letter G on the elevator panel. It was supposed to take me to the ground floor, which by logical means would indicate that I would be able to escape the confines of the hospital. But for some reason, I kept making a wrong turn and finding myself back in the same damn gift shop. Talking with Eric must have really thrown off my internal compass because I was as lost as a donkey on an Antarctic iceberg. Which I assumed was pretty lost.
I turned another corner and was so distracted by the gleaming red EXIT sign, I didn’t notice a man who was just inches away from me now. I ran straight into him, making him drop some papers out of his hand and under his walker.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I apologized as I picked up the pamphlets he had dropped. I looked up and saw it was the older gentleman from the time I had stayed at the hospital. The pamphlets were all informative pieces describing different strategies on coping with death.
The man didn’t say anything. He grabbed his pamphlets, nodding politely at me as he made his way back to his wife’s room. I stood there, wondering what his wife’s fate was, when I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder. I jumped in place and twirled around.
It was Ryan.
“You didn’t fall and start talking about cats again, did you?” he asked. Seeing him suddenly made me feel so much more complete, as if things were going to be ok. He felt like a protector. I wanted to circle my arms around his strong core and melt into his chest, knowing that it would be the safest place I could find. A part of me expected Ryan to cure everything, even Eric’s problems. I felt like I couldn’t fully give myself, both physically and emotionally, to Ryan just yet but I could still feel the passion between us.
And it was growing.
There was no denying that. I already felt myself grow warmer at the memory of our unfinished romp in the changing rooms.
“Nope, thankfully no head trauma yet. But hey, the day’s not over yet,” I said, a little exasperated from talking to Eric but finding my mood shift more and more as Ryan stood there, smiling down at me, his lips curling in a way that reassured me to my very core.
It was all going to be ok.
At least I
thought
it was all going to be ok.
“Well let’s make sure you don’t get banged up. I have a Styrofoam bubble in my office you can use to roll around in.”
“Styrofoam? You couldn’t even get me a clear plastic hamster wheel?”