Page 203 of Poison Vows

“What happened, baby?” she asks urgently. “Even in your sleep you were still sobbing.”

I don’t have the words. I just weakly hang onto her and cry my heart out.

Before I know it, I’m numb again.

When my stream of consciousness trickles back like raindrops, my eyes flutter open.

My throat is so dry and sore, I can’t breathe without feeling the pain.

My eyes feel like someone placed stones over them and I feel numb all over.

Then I hear the slow, rhythmic beeping around me and realize I’m in a hospital.

When did that happen? Wasn’t I in my room?

The memories suddenly flood back in like a tidal wave.

Before I know it, I curl up into myself on the hospital bed as the tears come back afresh, and I fall apart.

It feels like someone tore my chest apart, savagely yanked out my insides, and stuffed dynamites in me, so I implode.

I clutch my chest and cry, that I pass out again.

When I come to, I hear a sweet, familiar but worried voice speaking close to me.

“She has a history of severe panic attacks, yes, but the last time it happened was years ago when she was fifteen.”

“Marie, your granddaughter’s chart has been kept sealed for years by someone. Even you don’t know everything, but I’ll tell you now. Ivy was admitted a couple of years ago for insomnia, anxiety, and depression.”

“What?”

“She came in after…”

“After what?”

“After she made an attempt.”

“No!”

Granny’s heartbreak and shock are clear, but there are things I have also kept from those around me. How can I explain that my heartbreak was too much after that Christmas vacation that I sunk to a very low place?

But this time, I don’t know if I’ll survive.

“My baby attempted to kill herself?” Grammy cries. “How?”

“I’m sorry, Marie,” the lady says gently. “I thought after she went back to school and focused on her goals, she’d be fine. She was doing well too.”

I keep my eyes closed, remembering the past.

I thought I had completely buried that but apparently not.

The one who caused me to spiral out of control was also the one who had a way of reeling me back in, demanding my surrender and yet all this time, I was just a means to an end for him.

I fall asleep again and surrender to the weightlessness…

Nothing can touch you when you shed your burdens and become numb. And so, I choose that state of existence over grief and reality.

So why did I do it when it looked like I had it all?

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