Page 1 of Fixing Emilee

CHAPTER ONE

I feel like I’m underwater, being dragged to the bottom. It’s hard to breathe, I’m freezing, and the sounds around me are muffled. I swear I hear someone talking to me, but I can’t make out what they are saying. “Emilee,” my name cuts through. “You can’t leave me.” Parker? No, it can’t be him. Why would he be here? He doesn’t care if I give into the darkness. Giving in sounds peaceful. Fighting against it’s pull is painful. I’ve dealt with enough pain lately. Ignoring the voice, I let go, letting the blackness consume me and pull me under. I’m free, genuinely free from everything.

The sounds around me are relentless, getting louder and more precise. No, no. I don’t want this. Why did the darkness stop trying to pull me under? I don’t want to wake up. I can’t go back.

“Emilee, can you hear us?”

“Come on, open your eyes.”

“Keep fighting. You can do it.”

“Come back to your family. They need you.”

Even though my eyelids are shut tightly, light is pushing through them. There’s a pounding in my head, so violent I’m sure it will split my skull open at any second.

“Come on, open your eyes,” someone repeats. Don’t they know I don’t want to? That’s the opposite of what I’ve been trying to do today. I want to die, not live. My heart is beating so fast that it’s physically hurting my chest. I beg the darkness to come back and take me. My plea is answered as exhaustion rushes over me, and I’m pulled back into the quiet, peaceful bliss of the dark.

It’s been two days since I regained consciousness in the back of the ambulance, flanked by two middle-aged men. Even though I was weak from the blood loss, I found enough energy to yell at them, telling them to give up on trying to stop the bleeding. I told them that my family hated me, and that it would all be better when I died. They just continued doing their job, trying to save me, telling me that it would get better, and that I didn’t mean what I was saying.

I haven’t said a word to anyone in forty-eight hours. The last person who heard my voice was him, Parker, when I yelled at him to leave and never come back. After that, I shut my mouth and haven’t opened it once. I don’t see the point in answering anyone’s questions. Honestly, it’s always the same question, just phrased differently, a million times daily. What happened? Why was I cutting? Am I all right? I have the answers they are asking for, but I don’t want to give them to anyone.

Since I’m not talking about what was happening, my grandparents have been going through my stuff to find the answers they want. I should feel bad about forcing them to go to extreme measures, but I can’t find a fuck inside me to give right now. My body aches every time I move, and with each ache, I get more pissed at everyone. The skin on my arms feels too tight from the multiple stitches I had to have.

I curse my grandparents for being home on Tuesday. They are never home that early on a weekday. If they hadn’t been there, I would finally be free of this fucking world that is hell-bent upon destroying me. I don’t understand why Papa pushed me, making me pull the gun out of my mouth. When I pulled the trigger, it shot the wall instead. It’s not like he cares about me. Why was I fucking saved?

Nothing that has happened in the last two days has made much sense to me. When my papa showed up this morning, he walked into the room and sat something on the table. When I glanced over, I saw it was my phone. I don’t have the energy to worry about the lecture I knew was coming my way. He can’t raise his voice too much here because the nurses or doctors will hear him.

“I found this in our room yesterday. It was under the bed, covered in blood. But according to Levi, it still works. He turned it on since we didn’t know who it belonged to. He said it was yours.” My head snaps over to look at him. His eyes hold hope, but hope for what? That I’ll talk to him? That’s not going to happen.

I nod, signaling that I heard him, but I turn to the left, watching the first snow fall of February outside. I listen to him sigh and the whoosh of the air leaving the cushion as he sits in the chair next to my bed. This is our regular routine; he sits here in complete silence while I try my best to ignore him.

Even though I’ve chosen to remain mute, I haven’t stopped listening to everyone that comes into my room, trying to find out what will happen to me now. The doctors have given Papa a stack of pamphlets for treatment facilities. Some are local, but most of them are across the country. They “help people like me,” whatever that fucking means. I don’t really care where they send me as long as it’s far away from here. I don’t want to see anyone from this god-forsaken town. Especially him, the asshole who ruined me completely. I can’t even think about him without feeling like my heart is being ripped out of my chest. I work so hard not to think about him during the day, but I can’t stop him from crashing my dreams at night. I once welcomed any dream with Parker as the star, but now they torture me. Just like he did.

I float through the day, not paying attention to the time until the stars appear in the sky. On the left wall of my room, there is a big picture window. It’s my favorite thing about this place. As soon as the stars come out, I pull the chair over and sit there all night, watching them all twinkle. That’s where I find myself tonight, staring up into the vast night sky. My mind wanders back home, wondering if what’s happened has made its way to everyone. Did anyone care enough to worry about me? I’m sure Christian and Vanessa laughed at me, saying how pathetic I was for not even killing myself correctly.

Like most nights, I fall asleep in the chair. Jerking awake, I almost fall out of the seat when a voice behind me scares me shitless. “Emilee, why aren’t you in bed resting? That chair is not comfortable.” My body instantly relaxes as my brain recognizes the voice. My heart is still racing from being scared awake. Standing, I try to calm it down by breathing in my nose and out my mouth. I don’t say anything to him as I cross the room and crawl into the equally uncomfortable bed. I don’t even glance at where he’s standing. I don’t know why it’s so hard to look at him. Is it guilt? Or maybe shame? The strongest possibility is that I don’t want to see the look of disappointment that I’m sure will be there.

I focus all my attention on the off-white, scratchy sheet covering my legs. I stare down at my hands like they hold the answers to all my problems. Like every other day, I hear him pull the chair over to the side of the bed, sitting down. But this time, his hand comes into my line of sight as he reaches for mine, squeezing them. His hand is rough, with callouses from all the hard labor he does every day. The fact that he is taking time off work to be here with me hasn’t gone unnoticed. I just need to figure out what to do with that information.

“Sweetie, please talk to me. Explain to me what was going on in your life that death was the only way through it,” he begs me. My heart leaps into my throat as his voice catches on emotion, breaking. I want to look up at him, but my head feels like it weighs a ton. I see a tear fall and hit the bed beside me, making a wet spot. My head shoots up, and for the first time in my life, I see the man I thought never cried, crying. Pulling my hand off my lap, I wipe a tear off his face.

My stomach starts to feel like someone is twisting it as everything I thought I knew about his feelings for me this past year runs through my mind. I thought he didn’t care about me, and they just put up with me out of a sense of responsibility. But, if that was the truth, would he be sitting here begging me to tell him what’s wrong? Wouldn’t he have just signed the paperwork the doctor has been asking him to sign so they can send me to a facility? Once again, my brain refuses to make sense of everything.

The realization that I might have been entirely wrong about my grandfather hits me full force, and I fail to stifle the sob that rips from my throat. The look on his face says seeing me like this is killing him. I don’t know if I can ever fix my whole life, but what I do know is, I’m tired of living like this. I want the hurt, pain, and loneliness to end. Sitting in front of me is something I can fix, which would resolve a little of those three things. I try to get control of the sobs coming from me.

“Take a couple of deep breaths. In through your nose and out through your mouth,” he says, leaning closer to me.

I follow his instructions, calming down a little. Opening my mouth, I try to speak for the first time in forever. Nothing comes out but a small squeak. Papa grabs the cup of water off the table beside my bed, handing it to me. Taking a sip of the cold water feels good on my raw throat. I clear the mucus from my throat, trying one more time. “It’s been hell.” His bushy, gray brows raise, but I continue before he can ask a question. “I didn’t want to live another day dealing with all that shit. Being dead was better than having to go back to that school. Better than seeing them.” Confusion crosses his face, and I understand. Because, in his eyes, nothing was wrong.

A week ago, I opened my mouth and spilled everything, and I’m about to do the same thing again. He never says a word or moves a muscle. I tell him every tiny detail, not mincing my words, even when he winces like I physically hit him as I explain how invisible I felt at home. By the time I’m done talking, I can’t breathe out of my nose because I’m crying so hard. I try wiping the tears off my face as he mirrors my movements. He pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and hands it to me. I dab at the tears that refuse to stop falling and start turning the handkerchief over in my hands. I’m worried about what I have to ask, but I need to know.

“Why did you stop me?” I whisper. The gasp that leaves him at this small question makes me think I’ve said the wrong thing.

“You’re my granddaughter. If you thought I could stand in that doorway watching the life drain out of you, you were wrong. I love you, Emilee, no matter what you think or how we have made you feel.” His tone leaves no room for me to question him. My tears had slowed down, but they are coming just as fast now as they were before. It’s been a long time since I heard those three little words from anyone’s mouth. “I know our rules are not only outdated but harsh. Believe me, Carly gave your nana and me an ear full the first night you were here. She made sure we saw how much we contributed to your attempted suicide.”

I try to talk, but he continues. That’s a good thing because I don’t think I would have been able to form a complete sentence.

“Our biggest fear when your mom dropped you off was that we would repeat the same mistakes with you. With your mom, we were too lenient, let her get away with too much, and she had no rules. When she started to act out and rebel, we didn’t do anything, and look how she turned out. We want you to have a better life than she does. We didn’t want you to go down the same road she did. So, I thought if we were stricter with you, gave you more rules…” He stops, shaking his head.

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