Three Strikes and I'm Still In | Teen Ink

Three Strikes and I'm Still In

December 11, 2011
By TubaLady DIAMOND, Athens, Michigan
TubaLady DIAMOND, Athens, Michigan
89 articles 2 photos 49 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I know how it feels to be completely alone and helpless, and the last thing you want to hear in that situation is, 'It's going to be OK. ' The only thing that seems to really help is that someone else who has felt that low expressing those feelings"


Here I am. In the middle of the stereotyped padded white room they put crazy people in. I'm not crazy, though, even when it's my third time in here. Yeah, I know, right? I'm still not crazy. But I am a failure.

You see, it first happened three years ago, when she tried to steal my boyfriend (who's now my husband). I am a model, (a pretty one, if I do say so myself), and I was doing a photo shoot when Kaden (my boyfriend) decided he wanted to come along. I was cool with it, the photographer said it was fine, everything's great. Right? Yeah, until he decided to step outside to take a phone call. Nick, the photographer, gave us all a break, so I decided to step outside to see Kaden. There she was. Pinning him up against the building, probably trying to look innocent, whereas he was struggling to break free. Tears flooded my eyes as I ran from the studio to my car, still wearing the $300 dress from the wardrobe department. How could she?! How could he?! How could he let this happen?! How?! Why?!

I hear a knock on my bedroom door, in our house. I'd been crying the entire day, so my voice hardly worked. I gave no answer. I knew I had to do it. The belt was strung on my four-poster bed, ready to be utilized. Confidently, I walk to the bed, pulling myself up as if I were doing a chin-up, ready to drop down. Before I let go, he opened the door and saw what I was about to do. Kaden ran in the room and pushed my body, jumping to catch and save me. Even though I didn't want to be saved! That landed me two weeks on suicide watch.

A little over two years rolled by. Life felt good; Kaden and I just got married. How wonderful! About a month before the big fashion show, life didn't feel so good. She had found out about our marriage and posted a video blog on her website she started a couple years ago. She was "congratulating" me for getting married. Only, she really just used the video to repeatedly call me a s*** and a wh*** and other rude obscenities.

Each word penetrated my psyche like a hot knife through butter, pushing me over the edge. I ran downstairs, into the kitchen, and grabbed a rather large knife, taking it back up into my room. As I began to cut myself, Kaden walked in. He took the knife away from me and threw it, piercing the bedroom wall. I lay sobbing and screaming hysterically "I wanna die!" as he compressed my (rather shallow) suicidal wound. Four weeks of white padded walls, floor, and ceiling for me.

There you have it. I've considered and attempted suicide. This last time, though, I actually committed it. Yeah, I died. The best indefinite amount of time in my life (no pun intended). I saw my sister. My brother, too, whom I've never met. He died when we were born, we were twins and I was lucky to survive. Sissy died at the age of five, I was nine. She got really sick at one point, but then got better. (So we thought.)

It was a nice early afternoon, a little cloudy, and Mom and Dad took us to the local playground to play. She survived the swings and the merry-go-round and the monkey bars and tag. The slide is where I found her. Being a good big sister, I went down the slide first because it was big. She followed, I caught her in my arms. According to her autopsy, all the little valves to her heart shut down.

So there I am, nine years old, holding my dead four year old sister who probably died halfway down the slide. "Sissy, wake up," I said repeatedly, knowing she was gone. The clouds above released their rain in pouring showers. I said the angels were crying. My parents were never the same. After I turned eighteen and moved in with Kaden, they went back to Arkansas where my mother used to live. I assumed they'd wanted to leave their memories of Cassandra behind. I would, too.

On her birthday, this past summer, I visited her grave like I always do. When I got home, I saw a video blog had been posted by her (the one who tried to steal my boyfriend; not Cassandra, she's dead). She had found out about Cassandra and totally trashed her, saying "she probably committed suicide because she was my sister", and that I was "better off dead", like my sister. There, my decision was made for me. I agreed.

The next morning, after spending the night in our extra bedroom, I woke up, got fressed, showered, did my make-up, et cetera. It was like a normal morning. Except for what I had in store for myself. Instead of practicing piano until Kaden woke-up for breakfast, I took my laptop in to our extra room and set up a video for Kaden, It, first, showed her video trashing Cassandra; then mine, I made. I told Kaden everything he needed to know, like a suicide note.

I said, "Hey, Kaden. So you just saw her video. And I don't know why she hates me so much! But I agree with her. Not about Cassandra, but me. I am better off dead. Me and the world would be better off if I weren't here. So do me a favor, will you? Love naught but me. I just want you to know how much I love you. And how much I'll miss you. And that you mean the world to me. 'I love you and I'm not afraid.' So I guess that's it. Bye. Forever."

Throughout the video, I couldn't contain myself and was sobbing relentlessly. I locked the bathroom door, but left a note on it so they'd find my body. "I love you and I'm not afraid", it read. Because I wasn't afraid.

Here's the creepy part: My death. I could feel myself sitting up, but I wasn't sitting up. 'Twas my spirit who rose. The soul I thought I never got. There I was, standing next to my body, staring at my colorless face, already pale to begin. I did it. One-hundred-plus pain killers and I was dead. I knelt down, aside my body, and the floor felt odd. I could touch it, it was there, but I couldn't feel it, exactly. As I gently stroked my cheek, it was like the floor; there, but unfelt.

I left the bathroom and proceeded to my and Kaden's bedroom. He was still asleep. So innocent, so unaware of my being. I gently touched his cheek and ran my fingers through his hair. I already missed the softness of his hair, the gentle way his lips brushed mine as he said "good morning". But this is for the better. Back to my body, in the bathroom, I retreated; and as I stand next to my lifeless corpse, I felt myself being, almost, pulled upward. And there was blackness all around. But clear as day, I saw her. In the purest sparkling-white gown, there she was; my sister, Cassandra. "I missed you" were the first words to leave my lips. They seemed to echo and reverberate through my mind; or, at least, what I had of a mind.

"I know," she said as she sat down and gestured me to, in two chairs that manifested from the black. We sat, we talked and we talked and talked. Words meaningless to others, but with meanings of gold, to us. Although, every time I asked about Heaven and Beyond, she'd taper away to another topic. God knows how much time passed, if any really, when she stood. What looked like a portal materialized through the dark, and Cassandra exited, after walking with the grace I always lacked and turning around at the Light and flashing a perfect smile of farewell.

When I first arrived, meeting Cassandra, I did not see him. Tall; dressed in white, pure as love; hidden behind an iridescent mask. For whom I've never known. I raise a hand and his mask vaporizes. He had my, our, eyes, so I knew it was him.

"Why did you leave me," I asked my brother, "Garth?"

"You don't know the grief I felt, when I understood, discovering we were separated. But I knew it best you had to live."

He paused. "And, hey, remember I'm your Guardian Angel," Garth said as, he too, left through the illuminating portal.

Then, I felt my body hurtling downward through the darkness. I landed, with a jolt, next to my body. I was on a gurney in an ambulance as paramedics tried to revive me, and Kaden sat near my body, probably devastated. We weren't the most religious, but I could tell he was praying, praying I'd be okay. My soul had a groggy feeling of lethargy as I floated forward, knowing what I had to do. I re-entered my body and, instantaneously, went into comatose. For eighty-five hours, all was nothing, and nothing was all.

Starting on the Friday they checked me in, I was placed on a twelve week suicide watch! After I woke up, they informed me that, because of the overdose, I had completely killed my liver. So they replaced it. They, the doctors, said it was a miracle that they could replace my liver, and that I managed to survived after completely destroying it. Garth was watching over me. So, now we're back to where I'm at: My padded white room. I get out of here tomorrow, though! Freedom! I've definitely had time to "think about what I did."

Time has gone by, not much time, but time, and I feel better. Not the best, not like I did before she came and stuck her nose where it doesn't belong, but better. I'm still depressed. And I have no friends. And no family. And no one who cares. Wait a minute! What am I doing here?! I have no reason to live!

[Epilogue:] "There was a note on the desk, in front of her," said Officer Reed.

"All it says is 'I'm sorry'. How depressing," replied Officer Tenney. In front of the blood-splattered vanity lay the body of the victim, Faith.

"Gun in her hand, size of the bullet entry wound, and the note all suggest..."

"Suicide."


The author's comments:
I wanted to write a short story, but I wanted it to be something different.

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JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 5 comments.


on Dec. 19 2011 at 7:45 am
TubaLady DIAMOND, Athens, Michigan
89 articles 2 photos 49 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I know how it feels to be completely alone and helpless, and the last thing you want to hear in that situation is, 'It's going to be OK. ' The only thing that seems to really help is that someone else who has felt that low expressing those feelings"

Thanks, I've been working on another piece of fiction. This one more realistic.

on Dec. 19 2011 at 7:44 am
TubaLady DIAMOND, Athens, Michigan
89 articles 2 photos 49 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I know how it feels to be completely alone and helpless, and the last thing you want to hear in that situation is, 'It's going to be OK. ' The only thing that seems to really help is that someone else who has felt that low expressing those feelings"

Thanks, I'm working on another piece of fiction right now.

surreality said...
on Dec. 15 2011 at 9:19 am
You are onto something here... I respect your daring. Your creative mind shines through the writing.

surreality said...
on Dec. 15 2011 at 9:18 am
You are onto something here... I respect your daring. Your creative mind shines through the writing.

on Dec. 14 2011 at 7:36 pm
FatesMistake13, Springerville, Arizona
0 articles 0 photos 157 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes." Oscar Wilde

"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."

The writing wasnt bad and i kind of liked the way you ended it. but this wasnt so realistic and also i couldnt fall in love with your character.

You are a good writer you just need to find your story and your character to fully show it :)