For a month straight, she pumped herself with pills, alcohol and any other kind of medicine to numb the pain of her breaking heart. As she laid in the darkness of their room staring at the ceiling, the closet doors, the floor or her man’s back because he wouldn’t even face her anymore. The pain in the middle of her chest, back and head would grow so tight, she thought at any given moment her head would explode. Her heart would come out of her chest and her back would detach itself from the rest of her body. She’d lay there awake for hours because she couldn’t sleep without him nor could she could sleep with him just laying there unresponsive to her. As much as she tried nothing seemed to work. So she’d lay there night after night contemplating and perfecting a grand plan to end her existence. She had to do it without her kids knowing but bold enough to make a statement to the man she was hopelessly in love with. It had to be something to shake his world completely up side down. As if the act of suicide wasn’t enough. It had to be something to finally make him understand. She tried to imagine a world without her in it. Who would miss her, would it even matter that she was gone? How would her kids turn out? Would they hate her for leaving them or would they understand that her heart had been broken beyond repair and she just couldn’t go on? Then for a brief moment the fight would bubble up to the surface and she’d say, “Fuck that! I’m not gonna’ leave my kids to be raised by someone else. No one knows them like I do!” Then she’d glance at the shiftless body next to her, but so many miles away in the same bed and feel the vibration from the intake of his snore and it would plummet her right back into that numb state of defeat watching the ceiling for another two hours until the alarm clock goes off.
At 5:00 a.m. her first thoughts are Maybe today will be the day. She gets out of bed and gets the kids up but silently goes over the plan in her head. Maybe carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage, or swallowing ten ounces of drain cleaner to disintegrate her insides on contact (CSI NY taught her that one) She’d already taken a barrage of pills so that wouldn’t work but maybe something more spectacular like hanging herself over the balcony so the perfect neighbors in her suburban neighborhood could see. Then her daughter calls her and she’s snapped back to reality. She puts on her best “mommy face” and “wife demeanor” assuring the kids that everything was A-ok. All of these thoughts occurred in her head and he had no clue. No one knew except God. Morning after morning he’d just lie there sleeping peacefully, unaffected by her nightly insomnia. The endless tossing and turning that brought on the worse migraines. Not realizing that each morning from the lack of sleep she was barely coherent but relentlessly she still drove the kids to school. What she wanted was simple just some attention and affection without having to initiate it or execute a sneak attack to get it. To hear I love you out of the blue or for him to roll over and wrap his arms around her and hold her through the night. Maybe then she could get a restful night’s sleep. What she thought was the simplest things seem to be the hardest for him. When she dropped the kids off she welcomed that alone time. Driving alone gave her time to reflect and think about whatever. Today there were more suicidal thoughts than usual. She thought, “What if I was in an accident, would he rush to my side at the hospital or would he finish out a days work first?” She often talked to God on these trips back to the house and today was no different. She had asked God:
“Why? What had she done to deserve this treatment?”
After all she was a “franchise player” on his team (he told her once upon a, many moons ago) and she always stayed down for the team, so why now was she just warming the bench? Was he interested in who was being traded or the new free agents? Could it be the latest draft picks he was watching? Why didn’t she attract him anymore? Whatever it was she couldn’t wrap her head around the excuse he gave her of it being the lack of money in his life. She continued to talk to God and all she wanted from him were some answers. She just wanted God to talk back to her in plain layman’s terms so that her answers were clear and she’d know what to do. She knew suicide was not her answer, really she’s too strong for that but it seemed like an easy way out. She’s tired and doesn’t have much fight left in her. Unemployed, undesirable to her man, unattractive to herself and unreliable to her kids she looked to God for the answers that would pull her out of this funk but he doesn’t seem to hear her. She prays countless prayers and nothing. She cannot see the light at the end of her dark tunnel just the depths of hopelessness, but she still has faith that one day God will hear her lonely prayers and she opens her mouth again to start her prayers. The tears begin to roll down her cheeks. Her eyes are blurry and she can’t see past the tears. In one last effort to have her prayers answered she screamed out to the top of her lungs, “Goddamn it. God, please just talk to me so I can hear you, you’re all I’ve got … talk to me now!” And it happened. Today would be like no other. God decided it was time to talk to her.
At 8:10 a.m. driving 85 miles per hour, with Ne-Yo blasting: “Why does she stay?” Her teary blurred vision in the fast lane didn’t make for a good combination partnering with the rain showers and a pothole. Hitting it, the pothole sent her car out of control and she slammed into the freeway wall but not before the car careened an entire two miles, then propelled into the air completing an aerodynamic flip that was almost poetic to onlookers. She closed her eyes tight as the hot tears burned her face and she let go of the wheel. She sat back motionless without screaming or trying to fight the inevitable. She knew she was going to die and welcomed it. It had been what she secretly wished and prayed for everyday for the last month. She didn’t see any bright majestic light, nor did her life flash before her eyes. There were no childhood memories, just darkness and silence surrounding her. She let go of the tightness and relaxed her body and opened her eyes but, the slow motion was more than she could bear. A sudden calm fell upon her and she thought with a slight smile on her face, “It’s finally over!” Her heart didn’t have to hurt any longer and the emptiness of rejection would no longer shred her spirit or plague her soul. There was peace! Yes, she was being selfish because she hadn’t thought about her children or the man that occupied the space next to her in their bed. She didn’t care; she knew one way or another her children would be taken care of and the man whom she had loved from the time he said hello would move on as if their union never existed. He wasn’t happy anyway and this would give him the guiltless freedom he needed to bow out and move on. After all, she hadn’t committed suicide. It was just an unfortunate accident, wasn’t it? Or was it fortunate?
