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Just Breathe
I HAD TO go back to my house and decide what I was doing with everything. Brandt was communicating with my parents' lawyer about the estate, but the reality was I had to stand in the house I grew up in without the sounds of my parents laughing in the kitchen or my sister singing horribly off-key in her bedroom. I had to choose between keeping something or getting rid of it. Just the thought crushed me.
"I know it's only been a week, but you can't avoid this forever," Brandt said carefully. We were sitting in his car outside my house after the funeral.
Just breathe.
"I know. I'm trying," I replied. He took my hand in his. I felt terrible because of the distance I had created since the crash, but I had no control over it. I was emotionally exhausted, and the only way to shut it off was to retreat and hide from the pain. He was a casualty.
I looked at the front of the house and replayed the day we left for the train station. We were all happy and utterly clueless to the fate the future held.
"It hurts so much. I can't even remember what it feels like to not hurt." I chewed on my fingers, a horrible habit I had adopted.
"You want to know what haunts me the most?" he asked.
I looked at him, wondering what it could be.
"That I could have lost you, too. That I should have lost you. Everyone died, Bay. Everyone except you. It haunts me because I realize I would die if I ever lost you. Yes, I'm grieving the loss of my parents, but in my gut…in my heart, I know I would have been irreparably scarred without you."
Irreparably scarred. Was that what I was? He was right, though. It was a miracle I lived, and had I lost him with the rest of my family, I surely would have chosen a different fate for myself. I would've given up. Right now, sitting in this car, I was still fighting—albeit hard to see—to live. I opened the door and took the first step toward a completely different future.
Step one, breathe.
Step two, breathe again.
Step three, be brave.
I opened the front door, and the silence immediately suffocated us along with the stale air. I ran to the first window I saw and threw it open and then ran into the kitchen and opened another one. I ran into every room opening windows frantically, barely breathing through the despair. I couldn't connect my mind with what my body was doing. It was such a strange feeling, like I was having an out-of-body experience. All I knew was every window needed to be open. That the house needed life because it felt dead, like my family.
Brandt caught me in his arms as I whizzed by the front door where he had planted himself while my episode played out.
"Let go," I cried, but he only held me tighter.
"Bay, stop. They're all open."
"I have to make sure. I need to check again." I was losing my mind, but he let me go. I ran through the house again, satisfied when I confirmed all the windows were open. I stepped into my sister's room, and when I spun around to take it all in, my heart burst. I ran into my bedroom and slammed the door.
"Bay!" Brandt yelled.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. My chest was tight, and my head hurt. I stared at my cast, horrified by the images it conjured. I was covered in blood again and people were screaming, and the air was so thick with dust that I started choking. My doorknob started to turn, so I ran into the bathroom and locked the door.
"Bay, you're scaring me."
My sobs echoed loudly in my ears. I might have even been screaming, but I couldn't be sure, because I was losing all sense of what was real. I scratched hard at the blood on my legs. Why wouldn’t it come off? I ripped the hand towel from the counter, ripping off my jeans, and scrubbed my legs.
"Bay, let me in." Brandt knocked on the bathroom door.
I couldn't stop. I needed to get all the blood off. I was scrubbing the skin raw with the towel, but the blood was still there. I turned to the shower and threw the water on.
"Bay, what are you doing? Please, let me in." His previous knocks were now a measured pounding.
The cast. I needed to get it off. I yanked open the drawers and haphazardly threw things out and around trying to find something, anything to cut it off. I quickly grabbed a small box and opened the cardboard flap, revealing three new razor blade replacements. My hands were shaking fiercely, but I managed to grip one.
"Dammit, Bay. Open the door, or I'm going to break it down."
His body banging into the door didn't shift my focus from getting this cast off my arm. It was full of blood and needed to go, too. I cut and hacked at it with the razor. Every once in a while I felt a sting, but I didn't care.
I finally cut through it and tore it off. My arm hurt like hell, but the cast was soaked in blood, so it had to come off. I was beyond rational thinking anymore. The veils that separated sane from insane had been severed, and I was at the mercy of my fragile mind. I jumped into the shower and filled the loofah with soap and scrubbed hard. I started with my fingers, trying to ignore the pain of my broken arm, but the blood wasn't coming off.
