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Jessie was right.
I was right on the edge of that suicidal cliff.
“I’m beginning to think that Hope would be better without me,” I told Dr. Gresham quietly as I continued to stare out the window next to me. “I’m tired of fighting, tired of trying so damn hard. I’m so sick of finally having a good day, thinking that things might finally be getting better, and then I crash all over again. It’s exhausting.” I drew in a deep breath. “I’m just so tired.”
“Having lows like this is exhausting,” Dr. Gresham agreed. “But giving up isn’t the answer, West.”
I looked over at him. “Isn’t it, though?” I asked him. He frowned at me. “I’m so tired of feeling like this.”
“What about your daughter, Lincoln, Jessie, Meghan?” he asked me. “You have a whole family now that would feel your loss deeply.”
I gritted my teeth, tears welling up in my eyes. “What about me?” I angrily demanded. “What about how I’m feeling? Why does it have to be about them? Why can’t I just for once do something for myself? Why do I have to constantly think of everyone else? I’m so tired of trying to be better for everyone else. I’m tired of fighting with myself day in and day out.” Tears welled in my eyes, exhaustion weighing on my shoulders. I couldn’t put up a front here. Dr. Gresham was trained to see right through it.
And come to find out, my mask had been slipping enough for Jessie to see it, too.
“I don’t think you need to go home today,” Dr. Gresham stated as he stood up.
“What?! No!” I yelled, lurching to my feet. Panic clawed at me. “I can’t stay here!” I screeched.
“You will be living here until further notice, West,” he told me. I sobbed, tears streaking down my cheeks. “I’m not letting you give up, and I have no doubt in my mind that the moment you got alone, you’d end all of your pain, all of your suffering. I’m calling Lincoln and Jessie to inform them of your extended stay. Would you like me to tell them anything?”
I shook my head. “Tell them to move on,” I whispered brokenly. I looked up at Dr. Gresham. “You can try all you want, Dr. Gresham, but I’m beyond fixing.”
“Up,” Dr. Gresham ordered as he opened the door to my room, stepping inside. “We’re going on a walk. You need fresh air.”
“Go away,” I grumbled, not moving from my tiny bed.
“West, I will have one of the nurses come in here and drag you out of this bed,” he warned me. “I said to get up. We’re going on a walk,” he repeated.
I sighed and sat up. I hadn’t slept well in over a week. That darkness was clawing at me, dragging me under. I was on my first round of medication combinations. If these didn’t work, Dr. Gresham would change them again.
We would do this over and over until we found the perfect combination of meds.
I just wanted everyone to leave me alone.
Medicine wouldn’t fix this. It wouldn’t fix me.
“Up,” he snapped again since I wasn’t moving fast enough for his tastes.
I heaved my body off the bed, narrowing my eyes at him. “Can I piss first?” I grunted.
He waved his hand in the direction of my bathroom. I sighed and walked inside it, grimacing at myself when I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. My hair was matted and greasy, and my eyes looked hollow and lost, dark circles under them. My face was pale, my eyes almost seeming too big for my face.
The outside finally resembled the inside.
Swallowing thickly, I quickly did what I needed to do before I met Dr. Gresham outside of my room. I silently followed him out to the garden. We walked in silence for a few minutes. “I’m going to do a medication change,” Dr. Gresham informed me a few minutes later. I sighed. “This combination doesn’t seem to be doing much for you. It would help if you at least tried though, West.”
“I’m tired of trying,” I grumbled. Why couldn’t he understand that? Hope didn’t deserve to have me as a mom, and Lincoln and Jessie didn’t deserve to have me as a mess of a partner.
“I’m not giving up on you, West,” Dr. Gresham told me. “I will continue pushing you until we find the right medication combination and until you are finally out of all of these lows and living a happy, thriving life.”
“I’ve been having these lows for years, Dr. Gresham. They’re not going anywhere.”
“And whose fault is that?” he asked me. I glared at him. “You continue to refuse medications, West. You’re not trying to defeat this. You’re letting it control you, and you’re feeding off of it as much as it’s feeding off of you. Of course, it’s never going to get better—not when you’re being like this,” he bluntly told me. I clenched my jaw. “You’ll thank me one day.” He sounded one hundred percent sure of himself. “But until that day comes, I’m going to continue pushing you, wearing you down, making you absolutely exhausted. If that means I have to drain every bit of fight out of you until you’re begging me to help you, then that’s what I’ll do.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I have an appointment I need to get to.”
