Not The One

Chapter Nine: The (Eternal) End
by sammo_00

The next week passed in a tear filled blur. For the most part, I sat at the kitchen table, a total mute, uncomprehending of any and all activity that occurred around me. My mother expressed concern and wanted to whisk me away to a hospital for some sort of medication, but my father wouldn’t hear of it.

“She’s been shocked numb,” he kept saying. “But you have to let her work it out.”

One good thing though; for an entire week I didn’t have to hear the annoying voice of Dr. Simsy, though I imagined how she would react when I walked in after missing two sessions and spilled the story about Sam.

He had stopped by my house the morning after and I had mistakenly opened the door. I would like to lie and pretend that I was the strong one who slammed the door in his face after cursing his very existence but the truth is I just stood there like an idiot, tears streaming down my face. Sam tried to hand me some cock and bull story about how it had been his sister playing a joke because she thought I was one of his friends but I could see the lie even through my tears. Fortunately, before I thought of taking a knife to his throat, my father grabbed the door and slammed it shut. He then walked me into the kitchen and made me drink some orange juice laced with vodka. And there I had sat almost nonstop for seven long and meaningless days.

Finally, on the morning of the eighth day, I made a decision. Remember how I said I hadn’t thought anything worse could happen to me? And how I seemed to have found this hidden reserve of strength deep within my being? In those seven days, I had convinced myself that I really was a weak person and that these things kept happening to me for some odd reason. I didn’t really know why, but I thought I had come to some conclusion about it.

So I turned on the shower and while waiting for the water to heat up, walked through my room for a moment, running my fingers over some of my most prized possessions; the painting I had finished after almost six months, my absolute all-time favorite book Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon, and the spot on my bed where my cat always slept. Then I turned and went downstairs, thankful to be alone for what I was about to do.

As if in a daze, I walked into the kitchen, straight to the rack fixed to the wall filled with the shiny glistening knives. I had already chosen in my mind my exit from this world, and though I would have preferred drifting off to sleep with no pain, I knew that the all-encompassing pain that I would have to endure before finding eternal sleep would be but a small price to pay for bringing all this pain upon myself and my family.

If I had never come along, Jennifer wouldn’t have had to do all these things. She would have been a perfectly healthy happy wife with a child on the way, the apple of my parent’s eye. And my mother wouldn’t be two steps from committing herself to an institute while my father turned a blind eye to the problems facing his middle daughter. And Susan. She was trying but it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to bear all the problems of this family. It wasn’t fair to her.

It was only right of me to do this. It was the right thing for me to do. I didn’t belong in this world anymore. All I was doing was causing problems for the ones I loved the most and I couldn’t live with that.

Not that I could live with myself anymore anyway. Every time I walked by a mirror, I averted my eyes, expecting to see Satan himself peering back at me. My nights were no longer restful, full of dreams of happiness, of a love fulfilled with Sam and our children playing happily in a well-manicured front lawn. I tossed and turned, screaming my way through mazes filled with monsters with the face of my sister and ten foot arms ending in serrated blades with which she would rape me, again and again. I was losing my will to live and no one saw it. No one cared to see it.

I kept telling myself that this was for the best; that by leaving this world I would make things right again for my family. I wasn’t going to leave a note. There was no need. I had nothing more left to say.

With an incredibly steady hand I reached forward and plucked the black handled knife from the wall rack. My eyes were dry; I had no more tears left.

To be certain I had the strength for the upcoming task, I had decided I would see how I reacted before getting in the shower. I went over to the sink and held out my left arm, palm up. For the first time, the blade trembled in my right hand but as I breathed deeply, my trembling slowed until I could hold it quite steadily.

I took a deep breath and before I lost my nerve, ran the sharp blade straight across the vein pulsing in my left wrist. As numb as I was, I barely registered the peeling pain as my skin parted and the bright red blood began to flow across my hand towards the swirling water in the sink. All I saw was an end to the hell I had been living in for so long. It seemed as though with every drop of blood that left my body, the terrible burden on my shoulders was lightening bit by bit until soon I would be able to stand up straight, no invisible weight bowing my shoulders, no haunted look in my eye, no bitter twist to my mouth.

I ran the blade under the water as an afterthought, then turned it off and steeled myself for what was to come.

But as I turned to head back upstairs to sweet salvation and eternal rest, the doorbell rang.

If it weren’t for the incredibly tight grip I had on the knife handle, I would have dropped it point first into my bare foot. As much as I was looking forward to this soul cleansing pain, I had not prepared myself for pain of another kind. As it was, my heart rate doubled and my blood pulsed in my ears.

I crept up slowly to the front door, trying to peer through the side windows to see who it was. Unfortunately, all I could tell was it was a person in brown clothes. Probably the UPS guy. Maybe he had something for my father. I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything by answering the door, so I transferred the knife to my left hand and opened the door, hiding the knife behind the solid wood.

“Yes?” I said, squinting my eyes in the bright light of the morning sun.

“Just need you to sign here ma’am,” the UPS guy said, a smile on his face. I had the feeling he was checking me out, but I was too intent on my mission to care. He had a pleasant face, round and a little chubby, with black hair spiked up on the top. His dark eyes were set under bushy eyebrows and his long thin nose flared with each breath he took. I dropped the knife behind the door, hoping the sound of the traffic would hide the thump it made as it landed on the wooden floor and reached out with both hands, forgetting about the gaping wound on my left wrist still gushing warm blood.

All was still as the UPS guy gazed at my wrist. The air acted as though it were cemented in my lungs, unable to come out even through sheer force. Then the guy took a step forward and peered at me closely. I couldn’t even find the strength to back away from the presence of another male, let alone one I did not know. Instead I stood there and let him look at me, feeling as though he could see into my very soul.

“I’m sorry, but what are you doing?” he asked, and in that instance, I could not think of a single good reason for what I was planning on doing. I couldn’t say anything, so I just stared at him, my mind frozen. The guy cocked his head, and through a lull in the traffic, he was able to discern the sound of the shower running upstairs. Then he looked me right in the eye and I felt pierced to the core. There was something in his eyes that I had never seen before, and I couldn’t even think of a word to describe it. But the power in his gaze made me take a step back, and I thrust the electronic device back at him.

“Thank you very much,” I said woodenly, then turned to shut the door, but he quickly reached out and grabbed the door, holding it open.

“Ma’am, is everything ok?” he asked, not moving forward, just keeping the door open enough so he could see me. I only nodded my head and tried to push the door closed, but he was a lot stronger than he looked. And then the tears came. Hot and stinging, they poured down my cheeks in such a flood that I could almost feel myself dehydrating in that instant. I collapsed on the floor next to the still quivering knife, holding my left wrist in my right hand.

The UPS guy laid down the package and the device, then knelt down and extended a hand towards me. When I didn’t flinch, he laid his hand on my shoulder and I fell into his arms. I hadn’t realized how good it felt to cry.

For a moment, I just sobbed onto the guy’s shoulder, then I felt a pressure on my wrist. Looking down, I saw that the guy had pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and was pressing it against the cut on my wrist, trying to stem the flow of blood. I looked up, into this guy’s warm dark eyes and in that one instant, I felt more protected than I had ever felt since I was violated by two men hired by my older sister. I knew, almost as though God himself had whispered in my ear, that everything was going to be ok.

Almost as though the man had heard my thoughts, he smiled at me, and though I didn’t…couldn’t smile back, I felt a warmth in my body that made my earlier thoughts seem foolish and downright stupid.

After a minute, my tears had subsided and I found the strength to push myself back up to a sitting position. The guy still kept his arm around my shoulders though, as if sensing that I needed some form of moral support. Glancing to my right, I saw that the guy’s name was Billy, printed on his jacket. I wiped some tears off my face with my arm and offered the guy a trembling smile.

“Not every day you get girls collapsing in your arms, huh?” I said tremulously, trying to make light of the situation, despite the fact that there was now blood seeping through the sodden handkerchief.

He grinned back at me. “Happens a lot more than you think. It’s something about the brown color. Girls throw themselves at me all the time,” he joked back, but the concern was still evident in his eyes.

I laughed through my tears, a horrible sound, and suddenly I was embarrassed. I shrugged my shoulders and Billy immediately removed his arm, pulling back. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, “but you should really leave.”

“No offense ma’am, but I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re ok. There’s no way I’m going to leave you alone in this state. My mother would tan my hide,” he whispered, just as quietly as me. I looked up at him through my wet matted lashes and he smiled again. “Just trying to protect my own self, that’s all. Seeing as how I’m partial to it and everything.”

For some reason, that was the funniest thing I had ever heard and I just collapsed in a fit of giggles right there on my front stoop. Despite the blood beginning to puddle under my wrist and the water flowing upstairs, I could not stop laughing and Billy laughed right along with me. It was quite possibly the most surrealistic moment of my life.

Somehow, this guy from UPS managed to clear it with his boss to suspend his route for the rest of the day while he waited around until someone came home. I wouldn’t allow him to call anyone from my family because I didn’t want to worry them; there would be enough worry when they came home and found a random UPS worker in the living room with me, covered in splashes of blood from my wounded wrist. The blood had slowed to a trickle and for a while, I felt light-headed, but again, I refused to let Billy take me to the hospital. I had had enough of hospitals for the rest of my life.

During the intervening three hours while waiting for someone to come home, I shared my horrific story with Billy. He had, of course, heard about it about the news when it happened, but when I told him the specifics of what happened, he showed no disgust. He didn’t pull away from me, or show horror or pity in his face. Instead, he let me cry quietly on his shoulder, wiping my tears away with the tissues he had retrieved from the kitchen counter while I washed my hand in the sink under the warm water.

There was no fear in me. And telling this stranger the most secret aspect of my life made me feel more complete and at peace than I ever did while discussing it with Dr. Simsy. I couldn’t explain it but I somehow knew that I had reached the point in my life where things finally would take a turn for the better. And this time, there would be no more pain.


A/N: The book I mentioned, Swan Song, is a book about the nuclear holocaust and is indeed, my all-time favorite book. I would definitely suggest it to anyone who enjoys reading about the eternal fight between good and evil. I would like to apologize though, if this story is getting a little too angsty for people. Hopefully, after this, things will get better. And don't worry, Jack will be back, as will Sam. I've still got a couple more chapters to go. But I think this is by far my favorite, mainly because the theme hits so close to home. And as always, please tell me what you think. I live for reviews. Thanks for reading!!!!