Jesse Teller

“This is the poison in your system working its way out,” Steven said over the sound of my heaving. “This is all of the dark emotion and lies that have been fed to you working its way out. This is a good thing. Keep going.”

I had started throwing up about ten minutes into our session. I had grabbed his trash can and vomited, and now it was almost nonstop. He got me cups of water every few minutes to wash out my mouth.

See, I had become devoted to therapy. I believed in Steven. Believed he was going to help me out of it. I knew that one day we would be on the other side looking back at this horror and wondering how it had all not killed me. At least, I knew that when I was with him. When I walked out, the reality of the situation always hit me. But I was there, so I was trying.

I would get a few words in and stop to throw up. Say a few more things and heave again. I did the rest of the session like this and when I left, he gave me two trash bags, one inside the other and sent me on my way. He told me no more No Doz and said it would get better.

I had no idea how I was going to get home. I figured I would call Anton and see if I could get him to come out and get me, but when I walked out, I saw that Siren had not left. She had waited for the hour-long session to finish and was taking me home.

She gave me her phone number and told me to call her anytime I needed to talk. She asked if I wanted her to come in. Said she would sit with me while I threw up, to be there if I needed anything. I sent her away and walked back into the house.

As soon as I walked in, Morgan began to howl. He could not hear his own barking. So, he made this sound that brought vibrations to his throat to let him know he was vocalizing. It was a whining, howling, bark that chilled the blood. It was the worst sound I had ever heard and I went to let him out and take him to the yard when another wave of nausea hit and I was in the bathroom.

Through the howling and the heaving, I knew I was in trouble.

I was not throwing up food anymore. All that was coming up was stomach acid. It burned the throat and it felt like I was dying. I grabbed my throat at one point, realizing how fast my heart was beating, and a terrible thought crossed my mind.

If I cut myself right now my heart rate was so high that I would bleed out in seconds. Suddenly, I needed to look at a knife. I just wanted to look at one. It seemed the best thing to do was to at least touch a blade. Just to stare the devil in the eye.

Soon, I realized this was my last chance. Bekah would be home soon and she would stop me. Suddenly the day seemed to have lined up for this event. As if I had planned it from the start. And I’m not sure that I didn’t. Not sure that one of my alters had not had this in mind the entire time.

I got up and walked into the kitchen. I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of orange juice. I drank all of it and turned to the drawer that held the kitchen knives. I felt Guardian roll over, and Shadow walked to the phone. He called Bekah.

“You gotta come home.” He threw up in the trash can. “I can’t stop puking and I am looking at knives thinking about how fast my heart rate is moving and just how fast I would bleed out if I cut myself.” I didn’t wait to hear what she had to say. “Hurry.” I hung up and went to go throw up again. Before I did, I looked one more time at that drawer and I felt Guardian roar forward.

He touched the handle of the drawer and was overcome with another wave of nausea. He ended up back in the bathroom, knowing his chance had been missed and vowing to have another.

I don’t know how long it took Bekah to get home from work, but I guarantee you, it was not long. I remember her arms around me and how cold they were. I realized then I was feverish. She took me toward the car and I stopped to grab a few trash bags, the white plastic ones we all hate so much. I double bagged two of them and threw up in them. We made it to the car and off we went.

She did not speak.

I wailed. I talked about Grasp, I talked about Rose, and I talked about Shush. I did not know what to call him, but I said there was a child inside me screaming. I know she had no way of knowing what that meant, but I remember saying it. We got in to the ER, and Bekah told them what I had taken. We were shown back immediately. I was given an IV and within three minutes the nausea stopped. I was not throwing up anymore. I could think. And my first thought was of the knife in the drawer that Guardian had been going for.

Shortly after being there I realized that they had put me in a room with one door and they had a nurse sitting by it. I knew the ER was busy, so I asked what was going on.

He was a very big, very handsome black nurse, and when I asked him why he was not out saving someone’s life he said he thought he was.

“I’m fine in here,” I said. “You are needed out there.”

“I’ll stay, I think.”

I started to notice that since I got in the room I had not been alone. “Why am I being watched?”

“We are pretty convinced that you tried to kill yourself today. I am here to make sure that is not an option,” he said. “Does that upset you?”

It did but I didn’t say so. I just looked at him and wept.

I was thirsty but they wouldn’t give me a drink. Said that they wanted me to pee first. Yeah. I was thirsty. Dehydrated, and they wanted me to pee and wouldn’t give me a drink until I did. They did not want to dilute the sample.

At the time, I figured this was madness, but now I’m pretty convinced that they were giving me IV fluids. They were waiting for my fluid level to get high enough, maybe. I don’t know, but I do know that I had to wait about eight hours before I peed. And I know they took a lot of blood.

Every hour someone would come in and take more blood. They told me that the person before me hadn’t taken enough and that they wanted to get a little more. Every time I stuck out my arm and gave them what they asked for. I trust doctors. I trust nurses. And I trusted that they wanted to keep me alive. Anything they were doing was in that vein. So, I followed instructions and I waited.

They kept taking my pulse. My resting heart rate was 210 beats per minute after two hours of sitting on a table. I’m going to leave that there for a moment. And let that sink in.

When I peed, they took my sample off somewhere and they gave me a huge cup of water. I drank it all and asked for more. They did their test and came back, telling me that my heart rate was too high and my blood work irregular. They told me that there was some sort of trouble and they needed to keep me overnight. They told me that since I was a suicide risk that they were taking me to the ICU because it was the only place where I would be watched constantly.

Bekah kissed me and I laid on the bed.

I was taken through the halls, past sleeping rooms and through quiet areas. I could only see the white of the ceiling tiles above me and the blazing of florescent lights as they buzzed by overhead.

I had the feeling that I was dead. That I had passed after kissing Bekah, and I decided that as long as I had gotten to kiss her goodbye, I was happy with my death. I turned into a room, hushed and covered in a gloom, and when I looked up, I saw a company of angels looking down at me.

Artist gave them wings and halos and I gasped at their beauty.

I whimpered, “Angels,” as I stared weeping at their splendor, and I heard one of them speak.

“He is so sweet. I want him,” she said. “He is mine.”

She pushed me to a corner and smiled down at me. “You’re not dead. I’m not an angel. I’m here to make sure you don’t die. Do you need anything?”

“Water.”

She brought it and I drank my fill. They gave me something to sleep and I passed out.

The next day they came to me and asked me a bunch of questions about suicide but it was a new day and Guardian was gone. Shadow was there and he wanted to live. He told them everything they needed to hear.

They said the caffeine had metabolized in my system so fast, they thought my thyroid levels were too high. They were sending me to see a specialist.

They asked me if I wanted to go home and I told them, very much. I wanted to see Bekah again. Wanted to hear her laugh. If I was going to live, I wanted to get started doing it.

Grasp was in jail. This was a good thing. Things were going to be fine. I was going to be fine.

When Bekah came to get me, the doctor gave her instructions.

“You wait on him hand and foot. Do not let him get off the couch. He can go to the bathroom, but you do everything else for him. If you can’t be with him all day, then I’m keeping him here.”

“No, I took the day off,” she said.

“Good. He could have a heart attack at any moment. His rate is still really high, and his heart was strained yesterday. We are going to do some tests to see how much damage was actually done.” The doctor looked at her. “No excitement. He watches movies or reads books all day and all night.” He pointed at me. “Boring ones.”

That was not to be. My rest would not come for me. It was the eve of the Battle of Normal Street. Hell was coming. And Fury was coming with it.