Echo(17)

“Then why go on living?”

“Well,” she starts, looking over to the fireplace mantel where a menagerie of picture frames line the wooden structure. “For me it was for my family. My children. It took a while, but eventually I found the strength to pull myself together and live for them.”

I scan the array of family portraits and candid snapshots, and when I turn back to Isla, she smiles, asking, “Do you have children?”

Her question hits me hard. I’m not sure how to answer because it wasn’t that long ago that I did have a child. A baby. A tiny baby growing in my womb, and now that womb is empty. So, I keep my answer simple, “I don’t have any family. It’s only me.”

“Your parents?”

Shaking my head, I repeat, “Just me.”

Instead of telling me how sorry she is about this fact, she does her best to encourage. “You’re so young. You have time in this life. For me, I was an old woman when my husband passed on, but you . . . you have youth on your side. You live for that. You’re beautiful; you’ll fall in love again, and you have time to create your own family.”

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to fall in love again.” I’m also unworthy and undeserving of love after everything I’ve done.

“Maybe not now. It takes time for wounds to heal, but there will come a time when you’ll be strong enough.”

I’m smart enough to know that not all wounds heal, but I nod and give a weak smile before standing up. “I should get out of these wet clothes,” I say and excuse myself from the room.

After a hot shower, I tend to the cuts on my hands and then wonder why I even bothered to do so as I pick up a bottle of sleeping pills from my toiletry bag. The pills lightly pad against each other as I roll the bottle in my hand. I keep wishing for some sort of relief, some comfort, but it’s been here the whole time. Right here in this bottle.

What’s the point of life when life has nothing but vile hate for you?

My body is numb, a casket of waste. I feel nothing in this moment as I consider my escape. I don’t want this life anymore. I never wanted it.

I’m outside of my body, standing next to a pathetic woman whose bones now protrude through colorless skin because she refuses to take care of herself. I look at her, slowly deteriorating. She stops rolling the bottle of pills in her hand and stares into the translucent orange before popping the lid off.

“Do it,” I encourage. “Put yourself out of your misery.”

I know she hears me as she moves gracefully, pouring the pills in her hand and then lifts her head, staring across the room at nothing in particular.

“Just do it, Elizabeth. Everything you want is waiting for you. They’re all waiting for you.”

And then she does it; holding her hand to her mouth, she dumps the pills in and takes a long drink of water from the glass on the bedside table. I walk over to her when she lies back on the bed and run my fingers through her hair, soothing her the way a parent would a child. I meet her craving for tender affection. She looks peaceful in the stillness of the room, breathing in a soft, rhythmic pattern. I notice tears puddling in her blue eyes, but she doesn’t cry, and I know she’s ready.

“I just can’t do it anymore,” she whispers to herself and then closes her eyes as she lets go of the fight.

Sometimes, for some people, the fairytale only exists in death.





WHEN I OPENED my eyes and found myself in the same room I fell asleep in, I had to laugh at how pathetic I was. I couldn’t even kill myself; instead I just gave myself one hell of a nap. And there I was, greeted by another day after a lousy botched suicide attempt.

Everything inside of me was paralyzed, yet my body still moved.

Did you know it was possible to have feelings with no emotions?

You can, and I’m proof of it.

I performed the same actions of the previous day with detachment, and it wasn’t long until I found myself back at Brunswickhill. I spent hours there, sitting outside of the gates and crying for my lost love.

And the next day, I returned.

And the day after that.

And the day after that.

And even the day after that.

It’s a pathetic routine I refuse to break, because for some reason, as upsetting as it is to be at the estate, it allows me to feel connected to Declan. And I need that connection because I don’t have anything else to hold on to. So I cling to the forlorn fairytale that never will be.