The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (361 page)

The familiar burn started in my chest as my body tired, and I started ingesting saltwater. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before it gave up. Before I gave up, but then my hands touched something hard and slimy. I pulled my head up and saw a large flat rock in front of me. I had unknowingly swum back to the rocks. I instinctively latched on with both hands as I had done when I was two, and I pulled myself out of the water. I coughed up large amounts of seawater as I finally shed tears.

I hated my dad for teaching me to save myself, but even more, I loved him for making me resilient.

My suicide attempt had been a life-changing moment. It would have been for anyone. I drove home wet and disoriented. When I got through my front door, I blacked out. My parents found me and rushed me to the hospital. I suffered from hypothermia and drowning. My lungs had filled with water, and I was slowly drowning. If my parents hadn't brought me to the hospital, I would have died. I became catatonic in the hospital.

When I finally started talking again, I admitted to my nurse that I tried to kill myself.

Stupid
.

They kept me for observation like a criminal on suicide watch. They charted everything I said and did. I was never left alone. That was when I started taking antidepressants and anxiety medication. I didn't have a choice. They wouldn't let me leave the hospital until I did. I wanted to be stubborn, but I knew I had lost this battle the second I jumped into the ocean, so I took the pills like a good little girl.

What was funny was they helped. They numbed me. Things didn't seem that bad anymore, but on the flipside, things didn't seem that good either. I was here, but my emotions had been turned off. Exactly what I needed at the time.

****

P
resent

I woke up in the morning to my daughter's foot kicking me in the face. She had snuck in at some point and crawled into bed with me. It was becoming a habit for her. One I had to soon break her of or I would never get to sleep in again. I rolled over and looked at my phone.

I was startled that it was nine.
Shit
. They were late for school. I hadn't bothered turning my alarm on because Dean was usually home in time to get the kids up and off to school. Plus, my kids never slept in!

I shot Dean a quick text to find out where he was and threw my phone down onto the end table. I jumped out of bed as quietly as I could and rushed into the closet. I yanked a sweat suit off of the hangers and quickly peeled off my PJs and threw them on. I brushed my teeth haphazardly and went into Drew's room to wake him.

"Morning, Mommy. Where's Dad? He said he was coming home today."

The concern in his voice sat wrong on my heart. "He is, honey. He's just running late. You know that happens sometimes. Speaking of running late, you guys are very late for school, so hurry up and get dressed, and we'll have dry waffles on the way to school."

"Okay, Mommy," he yawned.

I rushed back into my room and looked for a text from Dean.
Nothing.
Ugh! I was annoyed, but underneath that, I was worried. It didn't show that he had read my text yet. I stuffed it into the pocket of my sweat jacket and gently shook Lexus awake.

"Hey, sweetie, it's time to go to school." She opened her eyes and smiled.

"Pick me up," she said.

I scooped her up and carried her to her room to get dressed. We rushed out of the house with dry waffles and backpacks in hand. I couldn't stop checking my phone as I drove. I wanted to call the station, but I didn't want the kids to think I was worried. Drew was very sensitive to the sounds of my voice, so he would immediately know if it sounded off.

Sometimes dropping off the kids at school was the hardest part of the day. After leaving Lexus in her classroom, I sat in my car in the parking lot of the preschool and watched as a dad parked next to me and helped his son out of the car. He was dressed in a neatly pressed suit minus the jacket. I saw it lying over the passenger seat headrest. They both looked so happy. I longed for that with my own kids. It was a rare moment when Dean was home to take the kids to school, but more than that, I yearned for those carefree smiles. I wanted to see us happy again. When they disappeared into the school, I pulled out of the space and headed back home.

I dialed the station on the return drive, but it just rang, which meant they were on a call. I wondered if they were still at that fire. Dean did say it was a bad one. Finally someone answered.

"Station 47," the voice proclaimed.

"Hi, this is Dean's wife, Lennox. Is he still there?"

"No, ma'am. They are still at a fire."

I was relieved. "Oh, okay. Any idea when they will be back?"

"No, ma'am."

"Okay, thanks." I hung up the phone.

It was silly how formal firemen were while on duty, but I was glad that someone was there to tell me everything was all right. In my gut, things just didn't feel right when I woke up, but it was probably just because for the first time in many years I hadn't taken my medication. My portentous feelings were quickly replaced with anxious ones. I kept repeating the words I would say to Dean about Braedyn.

I thought about leaving out stuff, but then decided that if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right and expel everything. Instead of a physical cleanse, I was preparing for an emotional cleanse.

Rather than going home, I went to the park down the street from our house. I sat on a bench set off to the side from the playground. There were several younger kids playing under the watchful eyes of their guardians. Some were moms, but there were also a couple of dads. Our park was pretty popular because it was new, so it wasn't out of the ordinary to see it busy at any given time of the day.

This wasn't the first time I had come here alone while the kids were at school. At first, I thought it was ironic that I would crave some time alone and then I would end up going somewhere surrounded by kids. Later, I realized the reason I came here was because I was searching for something in my life that was missing.

I watched as a dad pushed his little girl that looked to be about three on the swing. She giggled and shouted for her dad to make her go higher, so he obliged with a smile as big as hers. On the play equipment, a mom chased her son around. They both laughed as she playfully threatened to capture him in a tickle fest. They too seemed happy, unaffected by the worries of the people around them.

I hated these people. I hated them for having what I always wanted. What I always needed. I hated them for knowing how to navigate around the dark corners of their minds while it swallowed me. I cried a lot at first when I came here, but like everything else in my life, I became oblivious to it... or maybe it was acceptance. After all, I was the one who made the choices that led me here. No one else was responsible. It was all me.

Our life wasn't always so dismal. Before the burn out set in, Dean was happy when he came home from work, and I was some semblance of content. We still did things as a family. The time was short-lived though, and we had fallen into a dangerous routine that didn't include any alone or family time. We had neglected the importance of each other.

I wanted to believe we still had a chance to fix things. If he transferred to a slower station where he could sleep at night instead of running calls continuously, or selling our house and moving to a more affordable place that didn't require him to work so much, or maybe even me working again. There were so many moments in our past that we chose the wrong path, but I had hope we could retrace our steps and follow a different one.

When I returned to the house, I found myself falling into the same monotonous morning routine. I thought it would help, but it didn't, so I did something I hadn't done in years. I wrote. I rifled through the book shelves and found my journal I had written in before the kids were born. I headed out back to my favorite seat and opened it.

My last entry was when I was pregnant with Drew. I had a hard pregnancy and an even harder time mentally. I was still taking medication, but at significantly lower doses and the hormones were counteracting any effect they were supposed to have. I had fallen into a pre-partum depression. Again, something that many passed off as baby hormones and didn't take seriously just like post-partum depression. The only thing that got me through his pregnancy was writing. The last entry was hard to read again.

I still have six weeks to go, but I don't know if I'll make it. I'm tired, in pain, and just want this to be over. I don't even know if I want to be a mom or if I'll be a good mom. I can barely take care of myself. How the hell am I going to take care of a little human? What do I do if Dean is at work and I have a breakdown? I'm scared of what I might do. That's crazy to say, right? A good mother would never consider that she could hurt her child, would she? Every time I think about being alone with him I have a panic attack. And what about my life? Our life? Everything will be different. It will revolve solely around him. Will Dean love him more than me? Would I love him? Or even worse, would he be like me? Stricken with depressive episodes and panic attacks? After all, it was hereditary. He would suffer as I have.

I cringed at the next line.

Maybe I should save him from the same fate as me.

The entry ended there. I remembered very clearly when I wrote that and why I didn't write anything after. I had succumbed to a horrific guilt for having any thoughts of killing my unborn child that I went to my parents' house to sleep it off under the protective eyes of their company. I had thrown the journal against the wall, which is why it had a split binding on the bottom.

I flipped the page over and wrote the date on the top. I wrote down everything that I was going to tell Dean, so if I lost my nerve or couldn't find the right words, I could just let him read this. He knew I liked to write, but I never told him about my journals. Maybe it was time I shared that with him, too. Although, I was sure that last entry would scare the shit out of him. He would never want to leave me alone with our kids again.

I started by writing everything about Braedyn from the first day I met him until the day he broke me. Then, I wrote about the suicide attempt. I never told him about it. It was one of my darkest secrets that I protected for fear that he would judge me like the hospital staff did. Even my parents. I always felt judged by my parents after that.

****

C
ollege Years

I wasn't released from the hospital for several weeks. I saw the world through a new set of foggy lenses. I had become dependent on the pills. I took the anti-depressants every day, but I was only supposed to take the anxiety meds as needed. I took them more often than that. Any time I felt the slightest bit of emotion, I popped a pill and erased it from existence.

My parents told Kylie what happened, assuming we were still besties. I was livid with them. She came over the night I came home from the hospital. When I opened the door and saw her standing there, I had the sudden urge to kick her in the throat, especially after she smiled like everything was normal.

"What's wrong, Len? You look pissed," she said as she pushed past me into the house.

I thought about tripping her. Maybe she would chip a tooth on the tile when she fell.

I needed a pill.

"I'll be right back." I went into my bathroom and grabbed a bottle off of the counter. I poured a pill in my hand and washed it down with a sip of water. Several prescription bottles were laid out on my counter. My mom wanted to make sure I didn't forget to take them. She said if they were out of sight they might be out of mind. I picked them up and hid them inside the counter drawer. The last thing I needed was for Kylie to see all of these and report back to Dean that I had lost my mind.

I rejoined her in the living room where she was plopped in front of the television. "What are you doing here?" I asked harshly.

"Easy, tiger. I'm your friend. Why wouldn't I be here?"

Was she really going to skate around the truth? "Stop the act, Kylie. I know about you and Dean. I saw you guys together."

She jumped off of the couch like a lion pouncing on its unsuspecting prey. "Whoa, friend. Be careful what you accuse someone of before you know the whole truth."

She stopped suddenly and started turning white.

"Oh my God, Len. You thought Dean and I were... And then you tried to... Oh my God, Len. I am so sorry. I am so fucking sorry."

She ran over to me and smothered me in her embrace. She started crying on my shoulder. What the hell was happening? I was the one who should be crying. I pushed her off of me.

"I don't understand."

"Len, he was trying to recruit me to get you two back together. That's why I was hanging out with him. He was trying to get to you through me."

I started shaking my head violently in disbelief. The sheer realization of what I could have done finally hit me. I would have killed myself over a misunderstanding. I was mortified at the thought.

"Lenny, are you okay?"

I put my hands over my ears as if that would block out the stark truth. I started hyperventilating. Kylie grabbed me around the waist and sat me on the couch while yelling for my parents. I was losing grasp of reality quickly, and the pills weren't helping.

I'm not sure what happened after that. I hadn't physically blacked out, but they said I had a psychotic break.
Great
. I was officially a psycho.
Awesome
.

I was placed on suicide watch again, but this time it was at home, thankfully. I could tell the concern over my mental health was growing in my parents. No one in either of their families had suffered from this, so they were at a loss of what to do. They followed the doctor's instructions to the tee.

Needless to say, I didn't start school at any university that fall. I spent the fall and winter finding my hold on reality again. I basically sat home and watched TV or wrote crazy stories. That was when my writing passion really started solidifying its place in me.