Part 48 (2/2)

With the sound of the siren fading in and out, there was a jolt of electricity that turned the whole room red and then black again. My body was being electrocuted, and with each shock, a red light blinked from above my head. My heart was racing so fast that I could hear it pounding in my brain. My veins felt like they were on fire. The whole scene was frightening.

How do I let go? How do I make this stop? I couldn't figure it out. What I did know was that I wanted out of the darkness. I wanted the electricity, the red blinking lights and beeping sirens, all to stop. I wanted my heart to stop burning rapidly inside of me. It hurt too much.

The room was dark, but I stuck my arms out. I felt the hard, shut door. With all of my might, I pushed my arms forward through the darkness and painful electric shocks. Pus.h.i.+ng all of my weight on that door made my skin burn. I continued to push and push until it began to break apart. Cracking and crumbling, that door was breaking down. I did not stop pus.h.i.+ng. The hurt in my veins became almost unbearable just before the door finally burst to pieces. When the wood crumbled beneath me, I fell through and hit the floor. The door faded to ashes, and the darkness seemed to wither away. I lay still, and the pain drifted away as I began to open my eyes again. The brightest and most blinding light I had ever seen suddenly filled the room. I could not see clear enough to make out where I was.

The world was completely white.

”She's awake! Mommy! Mommy! Her eyes are open!” I heard Nick's voice so loud and clear.

The sound of his feet pounding on the floor made me cry.

”Her eyes are watering!” Alison said with fear in her voice.

I did not move. I lay still on my back, staring up at the bright lights and white ceiling above me. I couldn't see anyone's face. I could only hear their sweet voices. Nick and Alison's sweet voices made my heart beat steadily again.

Mom was there. I could feel her hands touching my arm and rubbing my hair gently. I heard her crying and sobbing. Real tears seemed like they were actually falling from her eyes. I saw her leaning over me, almost like a shadow. The tears that fell from her eyes landed on my face. It reminded me of the rain.

”Oh, baby,” Mom cried from over me. ”I'm so sorry. I'm here. It's okay.”

”Is she awake?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

Mom looked away from me towards the voice.

”Her eyes are open, and she has tears in her eyes. Does it mean that she's awake? Does she know that we are here?” Mom asked.

Mom was pushed out of the way, and someone else stood above me. It was a woman dressed in a white coat. Her white coat almost blended with the white ceiling above. The bright lights made it hard to make out her face. She s.h.i.+ned a circle of light into my eyes from a pen she pulled from her almost invisible coat pocket. It made me blink. She gasped happily.

”Kristen is awake and alert!” The woman exclaimed. ”Get Dr. Grayson. Quickly!”

I couldn't hear Nick and Alison anymore, but I heard Mom still crying. I did not know what was going on. All of the excitement from the moment I opened my eyes was exhausting and scary. I closed my eyes and pushed myself away from the white lights and the confusion.

CHAPTER 63.

Hospitals have a smell to them. The sickening smell lingers to make you always remember where you are and what you've done. The smell was too familiar. The white, thin blankets were too familiar. I lay in the bed with three of the white blankets spread over me.

That day when I'd followed Mr. Sharp onto the bridge, I knew that we did not intend to ever get off the bridge alive. We'd jumped over the wall to die so that there would not be any time for regret, no way of turning back, and no way for us to be saved.

Or so I'd thought.

After I'd climbed up the wall and had stood next to Mr. Sharp, we had decided we were going to jump. I hadn't looked behind me, and I hadn't looked down. My chest had been tight, but I'd taken the deepest breath I could take and I'd jumped. I'd gone up into the air, but I'd never felt myself go down.

I was told that I had pa.s.sed out, possibly from fear or shock once I had actually jumped, but, before I could launch myself completely forward, someone had caught me. I never made it to the bottom of the highway where I would have, without a doubt, died. If the 100-foot drop down to the highway below wouldn't have killed me, then I was sure that a pa.s.sing car or semi would have done the job.

My limp and unconscious body had been pulled back by the person who had been there and quick enough to grab me. When I had been pulled back over, I'd fallen back to the ground and had hit my head on the concrete ground. The person who had saved my life was a man who had been driving the car that had almost hit me. He'd parked his car right there on the bridge, and when he'd seen me climbing up the wall, he'd started running towards me. He had been screaming out to me, but I couldn't understand what he was saying.

As I had been launching myself off the wall with Mr. Sharp, I'd grown light-headed, and then I remembered only seeing black. That's when my savior had gotten a hold of my s.h.i.+rt. He'd told the police that he barely got a hold of an inch of my s.h.i.+rt, just in time. He said that I had been so heavy because I was pa.s.sed out and unable to move myself or take control of my own weight. He didn't think that he was going to be able to keep me from falling. I was told that he had almost lost his own life trying to save me, because he'd really had to pull to get me to fall back and not make us both go forward and down. He certainly had pulled hard enough, and he'd been able to let me go before we could fall over. That was when I'd fallen backwards and had landed back on the concrete ground of the bridge. I had suffered a serious concussion, but the doctors had said that I was lucky that a concussion was all I had.

I woke up from that concussion a few days later. Mom, Alison, and Nick were there beside me. Mom told me that they would not leave my side until I had woken up. I did not fully regain consciousness for three days after I woke up for the first time. After those three days, I did not have any more blackouts. Coincidentally, the day that I regained full consciousness was the day of Jack's parole hearing. To my surprise, Mom, Alison, and Nick were there at my side. Mom promised me that she was not going anywhere.

She said, ”I am right where I am supposed to be.”

”What about the parole hearing?” I asked her.

Nick and Alison stood next to Mom, one twin by each of her sides. She squeezed them tightly with one arm each as she smiled down at me. Genuine tears fell from her eyes and, one by one, they made me happy.

”That's not important,” she said. ”Our family is what is important right now. You are important to us.”

I knew that this was certainly not a dream. I was wide awake, and what was happening was for real. Everything that Mom was saying was true. Her tears were not fake, and her actions were not of my imagination.

Every tear that was shed between the both of us that day proved that I didn't fail this time. I was given the strength to push myself back into the light. I could not stay in the darkness and let myself rest eternally in h.e.l.l where I did not belong. That was where Jack belonged, and that was where he was going to stay.

CHAPTER 64.

Dr. Pelchat's office was terribly familiar. I sat in the same chair opposite his as he sat behind his big, wooden desk. He had my same familiar chart open with a pen in his left hand. He and I were alone together in that familiar room with the same familiar window that I had a habit of staring out of when I felt too closed in.

”You're a strong girl,” Dr. Pelchat said.

His voice crept in and disturbed my silent thoughts.

”I didn't think that you would want to see me this time,” I admitted to him.

”Why not?”

”I don't know. I just didn't think so. After all, I did become a statistic.”

”No,” he corrected. ”You would have been one of those statistics if you had actually succeeded in killing yourself.”

”You're right.”

”Do you remember what happened that day?”

”Yes,” I told him. ”I let him go. Mr. Sharp is gone.”

”How do you feel about that?”

”I'm taking it one minute at a time.”

Dr. Pelchat nodded.

”There are times when I wish he would appear again, but I know that he won't. Especially now that you put me back on Risperdol.”

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