Page 61 of Perfect Chemistry

“Look under the mat. There should be a black key.”

“I’m looking but I don’t see it-” She overturned the welcome mat, and dumped out the flower pots. She was panicking and opted to ring the doorbell incessantly.

ding dong ding dong ding dong

“Katie!! Katie! Answer the door, Katie!” She started shouting and banging on the door.

“Calm down. You freaking out is not going to help right now. Are you sure it’s not under a brownish-blue flower pot?”

“No. NO. I’m telling you it’s not he- WAIT! I found it, hold on I’m unlocking the door. Katie? Katie, where are you?”

“Is she there? How bad is it?”

“No I don’t see her any- OH MY GOD! Call an AMBULANCE! KATIE!! KATIE? WAKE UP, SWEETIE.”

“What’s going on? What happened?”

“CALL AN AMBULANCE! She’s ice cold!”

“OK! Stay on the call with me. Call an ambulance. Give them Katie’s new address.”

“KATIE? LOOK AT ME, KATIE! OPEN YOUR EYES. COME ON, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS! Pleeeease, Katie!” She cried, pulling her sister’s body to her chest.

* * *

Katie’s Point of View

“Am I getting discharged now?” I asked as my parents walked into the hospital room.

“Katie, you can’t continue like this,” my mom whispered.

“Like what? What, mommy? I didn’t take any drugs. I wasn’t drinking. My system was clean!” I yelled at her.

“Katie, you were hypothermic and unresponsive when Fiona got to your place,” my dad interjected.

“That doesn’t mean I tried to fucking kill myself!” I shouted.

“Katie, look at me,” my mom spoke quietly. “We’re worried, and we don’t know how to help you.”

I shook my head. This was fucking unbelievable. I chuckled sarcastically. If my sister hadn’t left me at the race to find my own way home instead of going out to lunch with a guy she had met cheering, I wouldn’t have frozen my ass off.

“My husband died. The other half of my soul was taken from me. I’m sorry that I can’t bounce back fast enough for everyone else’s comfort,” I growled at my parents. “Get out of my room. I don’t want you here,” I dismissed them, and hit a button to call a nurse.

The door to my room opened and a middle-aged woman in teal scrubs came in. “Can I help you?”

I looked at my parents again, shutting down all of my emotions. “I don’t want any visitors, and they’re refusing to leave.”

The nurse looked between us awkwardly, before quietly ushering my parents out of the room.

I was discharged four hours later and found a cab to take me home. I called a locksmith and scheduled to have the locks changed on my little house. I was done.

I was tired of my family constantly butting in, and telling everyone that I was a risk to myself. I went to grief counseling that Maria had set up for me, and joined a gold-star family support group. I showed up to work on time every day. I did my job to the best of my abilities, and hadn’t been reprimanded once in the year since Tyson’s death.

My family said I wasn’t grieving, but I was. I just didn’t want to talk about my future with them. I had my entire life planned beside Ty, and it was all taken from me. I needed to figure out who I was without Tyson Johnson, and it was hard.

I took up training for a triathlon with my therapy group. We were all widowed and used the training to get through the pain of loss. We met several days each week to either cycle, run or swim. The day I collapsed in my bathroom was after competing in the actual triathlon.

There had been a nor’easter the day before the race, and it dropped the water temps pretty significantly. Add to that the wind chill that set at barely 40 degrees and my exhaustion from exertion. Then, as if that wasn’t hard enough, I spent nearly forty minutes looking for my sister, before finally finding a cabbie that would give me a ride home in my wet clothes.

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