I stared at my sister laying on the ground, her pale white hands on her throat gasping for breath; my baby sister that was naturally tanner than me was pale and bleeding out from both her wrists and her throat. I didn’t even realize it but I was screaming and I couldn’t stop. I screamed for my sister that was now bleeding on to the tan carpet, I screamed for the fear that was over coming my whole body.
“Dad! Dad! Daddy!” then came the sounds of his thudding footsteps running to me. He moved me to the side and dropped to his knees. In one graceful movement he picked her up and was running down the stairs and out the door. My eyes kept my vision blurry and conveniently not of any use. I heard the loud sound of a quickly rising garage door and the sound of a car pulling out of the driveway like a bat out of hell.
My dog whimpered and sniffed my hair and licked my cheek cover in black tears from my mascara. I held on to her, almost like she was my life line. I felt myself begin to hyperventilate, I pulled on my hair and let my back hit the wall behind me. My body shook, and I pulled on my hair scared and frustrated that I was useless; I couldn’t do anything to help my little sister. I then started to think why she did it. Why’d, she cut herself. I shook and fell to the ground crying once again. I couldn’t get the image of her laying there almost lifeless, out of my head.
‘Oh God!, what if I lost her just like I lost mom?’ I thought. I held my head in between my hands as I cried. Then I pulled out my phone and dialed one of my best friends, I chanted over and over:
“Please, please pick up; I need you, please pick up.” On the third ring he answered the phone. I sobbed with relief.
“Sage? Sage, baby what’s wrong?” He asked worriedly.
“M-my s-sister… My sister t-tried to kill her-herself.” I sobbed into the phone.
“Oh God, Sage are you okay? What happened?” Derek asked me.
“I found her laying there… I found her laying face down into the carpet and….. And I saw her blood in the carpet…” I said tonelessly remembering the event that just occurred.
“I don’t know what to do…” I wailed.
“Breath, Sage, Listen to me, baby, okay? I need you to breath and calm down. I know right now you are stressed and worried and scared but I need you to relax and breath.” Derek said in a hushed almost in a whispered tone.
“I’m scared Derek.” I whispered in a little girl voice, repeating exactly what he already knew.
“I know baby but right now I need you to calm down, and tell me what happened. Can you do that for me? Can you calm down for me, and tell me what happened?” he asked. I made a whimpering sound, meaning yes.
“Alright, good. Now take a deep breath and tell me are you alone right now?” I sucked in another breath.
“Y-yes.”
“Okay, do you want me to come over?”
“Can you-ou please?”
“Of course Sage, I’ll be there in ten minutes, I’ll bring Artemis too.”
Ten minutes later
“Okay.” I answered with my body still shaking. The minutes passed but I just continued to stare at the wall, as my best friend kept talking, I made noises here and there to let him know that I was still there. The front door opened, and then closed with a sudden slam; followed by multiple foot steps, followed by several arms surrounding me and voices that seemed to sounded nothing but like Charlie Brown teacher’s voice. I felt the weight of anger and of not being able to do anything boil up in to the middle of my chest. I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t feel my own body anymore.
“Oh god! What if she dies? Oh god! I should do something to help her! Oh god! Oh god! Oh god! Oh god! I should have been there more for her!” I had thought I had said to my own self but apparently I wailed it out for the world to hear the angering thoughts running rapidly through my head. Suddenly my friends, Derek and Artemis both wrapped their arms around me once again, while they patted my hair, and told me everything was going to be alright. They held me close. I could feel Artemis’s long blackish-brown hair against my right arm and face; while I felt the muscular arms that were wrapped around my waist, from Derek. I pushed them both away.
“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT!!!!” I screamed into their faces. They first looked at each other with sad expressions, then they looked at me.
“You don’t know if she’s going to be alright!” I stated to them in a low, small voice.
“Sage girl you need to think positive about this okay?” My best Artemis explained to me as if i was a child. I looked up at both of them knowing that I was a mess.
“You want me to think positive about my sister’s suicide?” I hissed out at them. They both flinched and shared a sad, almost pitying look which was pointed at me.
“WHAT?!?!?! WILL YOU TWO, STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE I’M BROKEN!?!?! I WASN’T THE ONE THAT WAS BLEEDING TO DEATH ON MY BEDROOM FLOOR!!!” I yelled breathily at them again for no reason at all.
“Sage, we need you to calm down okay?” Artemis said with opened palms facing me, like I was a frightened animal. I glared at her; who the hell did she think she was talking to me like some broken, and scared animal? Both Artemis and Derek looked frightened.
“Sage! You’re freaking us out, with all that growling! What is wrong with your eyes?” Derek said In a throaty voice mixed high pitched whisper at me.
“Nothing is wrong with me! I am fine!!! Well as fine as a person can be right after they just saw their sister bleeding to death on the floor” I snarled at them. I felt then the sudden urge to claw them with my nails untill they bled out like my sister had.
“Ok, look here Sage; your sister just tired to kill herself and you are having a level nine break down, so Sage girl you passed ‘fine’ five miles back! So this is what we are going to do; we are going to go get in the car and drive to Derek’s house and have a sleepover got it? good! Let’s go!” Artemis’s tone held no room at all for an argument, I took a deep breath and nodded. She went into my room and packed a bag for me as Derek dragged me along to his car. The air outside was warm and humid; it felt like being slammed it a boiling room and then being left there. It was way to hot for August, my sister Alex would’ve hated it and complained constantly about it. I began bawling my eyes out once more.
Which was an old ford truck that was rusted on the sides and on the front. His truck was the constant smell of strawberries and smoke; as he pushed me into the middle seat I let him buckle me because I couldn’t will myself to move. All I wanted to do was cry and see my baby sister again. I began to cry once again, and hated this feeling of being unuseful, that can with not being able to do anything to help my sister. I then began to blame myself; how could I not see she was in a enough pain to do this to herself?
Both Derek and Artemis entered the car quietly, sharing a look then each took one of my trembling hands and held them tightly as Derek started the car, he stopped, then twisted in his seat to have a good look at me.
“Sage? Sage girl? I know you’re hurting and you’re worried about Lora; but Sage you need to know that no matter what me and Arty here are ALWAYS here for you anytime you need it.” I stared blankly at his face and I felt the tears come up again and my lip shook. He pulled me to him with a sudden hug, while Artemis hugged me from behind; and they let me cry and cry in till sleep took me.
~~Two months later~
Derek’s tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth for the fortieth time in the last two minutes; I was nearly about to jump on him and rip his tongue out of his mouth. Each time his tongue made that annoying click I felt my unreasonable rage build. Squeezing my small but chubby hands into fist to fight off this rage that seemed determined to build and finally let me explode all over Derek’s truck interior. I winced when did I become so violent?
“Sage?” Derek questioned me.
“Yeah?” I looked at him with an annoyed look.
“Are you–” he started but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.
“I am fine! For the love of god! please, please, please do not ask me if I am ‘okay'” I begged him.
“sorry…” he mumbled embarrassed.
“Where’s Artemis?”
“She’s already at school her couch needed her to come in early.”
“Oh, ok.”
“Yup.”
“Look I just wanted to say sorry I know I can be a little over protecting…”
“It’s fine it just gets so annoying having people ask me straight away when they see me ‘are you ok?’ ‘how are you doing?'” I said with a mocking girly voice while looking up at the inside of his truck.
“But are you really—”
“Dont you even dare ask me if I am alright; if you do I will rip out your tongue.” I said staring darkly at him, meaning even single syllable that came out of my chapped mouth. He swallowed slowly and then narrowed his eyes at me.
“Now listen here, Sage! I know you are going through rough times but it does NOT mean you get to be a grade A ***** to everyone, who wants to see you be okay again! People who you just wants to know that you’re okay! We try being nice and understanding, because we know that you lost your sister the way you did–” I winced when he stated this.
“But Sage girl it has been two months, and you have even cried since that night! you need to let it out otherwise you’re going to have a fucking level 5 break down out of no where and there is no telling what you would do if you were alone!!! So please for fucking christ sake! Cry, yell, be sad! Do anything you want but bottle up those feelings of yours!!! Okay?” he sighed frustratedly at me.
I felt my temper begin to boil out of control again; how dare he? Him nor anyone else knew what I was going through at all! And how dare he even think for a second that he had any right to talk to me like that?
‘teach him a lesson!’ a very angry voice in my head shouted at me.
‘how?’ I asked in reply.
‘Show him that he can’t step on us! Show him that WE are the one with power’ the voice growled powerfully. I shook my head and dug my nails into my palm, to get the angry thoughts out of my head. It slowly began to work after a while.
“Sage? Are you okay? I felt his hand reach out to touch me; but I snapped my eyes open and grounded out the words through my teeth.
“Don’t. Touch. Me!” he automatically flinched back, like I slapped him in the face with each word. I sighed as i looked at his ever so sad expression.
“I’m sorry that tone was uncalled for…” I said giving him apologetic smile.
‘Why are you apologizing to this lowly mutt?’ the voice screamed from inside my head making me flinch.
‘Because he is one of my best friends!’ I said back in low growling voice, that just so happen to shut the angry and annoying voice right up.
“It’s fine I know you’re going through a lot right now Sage girl; but i want you to know that I’m always here to talk to, okay?” He claimed frimley.
“I know.” I smiled at him and awkwardly patted him shoulder.
“So you ready to head back to school Sage girl?” he clapped his hands and rubbed them excitedly together.
“Hell to the no!” I said gagging at the thought of return to that awful place so soon.
“Oh come on Sage! Put on your big girl panties and suck it up because guess what? YOU. ARE. GOING. TO. SCHOOL!!” he said with a hint of mockery in his alto voice.
“Please? Please dont make me go!” I begged pulling on his arm gently; I even pulled out a kicked puppy dog face too.
“Sorry Sage girl, but nice try on the puppy dog face.” I huffed loudly and crossed my arms against my chest like a child throwing a fit.
“I don’t like you no more.” He stopped and looked at me to see if I was at all serious, but when he saw I wasn’t he relaxed and put the key in the ignition, starting up the sad excuse for a working truck. I smiled sometimes Derek was way too serious.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ten Minutes Later
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When we finally arrived at the brown-stoned school building that had instead of clear windows, dusty yellow ones that haven’t been washed since the beginning of time. The walls that seemed to stretch forever in the sky, was covered in lush green ivy vines that shook with the breeze. The doric styled building towered over the limp willow trees that also swayed in the frigged wind. The mist and gray-blue sky mashed together and blended in with the old and gray stone roof. I looked at the school and the sudden flash of the last few months repeated in my mind.
The funeral with the sobbing friends and family. The weather seemed to cry with everyone that day; It screamed and cried for the loss of a best friend, sister, and daughter. After that day my father spent trying to slowly drinking himself to death as he blaming himself for my sisters death; the other long days and nights I have spent crying my eyes out, while muffling the sound with a pillow. The days when I crawled into my sister’s untouched room and cried for the fact that I didn’t do anything to help my baby sister when she needed me most. Sometimes I would go through the what-if’s as I laid down in her fluffy pink bed, that smelled of her favorite perfume – which consisted of mostly lavender- , her strawberry smelling shampoo and of mint.
My sister’s walls was bright pink with dark gray trimming; Her walls were littered with photos, poems and even some song she had written. Her name was spelled out with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling; surrounding the name “Alex” giant photos of her friends took up most of the ceiling. I started to cry again as I pictured her smiling and laughing. I remembered, then a few days after a voice started speaking to me in my head.