my best friend/ex-girlfriend’s death

She had come home from Chicago the night before. She, our roommate and I were drinking and watching Archer. I passed out. I came to with a raw cough in my throat like nothing I’d ever experienced. Turns out I threw up in my sleep and Roommate had to roll me over. He pointed to the soiled pillowcase in the laundry basket.

I heard my girlfriend whimpering low. I was the one in her life who knew her for the shortest amount of time, and yet I was the only one who could discern the barely-perceptible difference between her regular whimpers and the ones that indicated she was having a nightmare. These were nightmare whimpers. I went to wake her.

Immediately knew something was wrong. Her arm was ice cold. It was December, but she should definitely not have been that cold. I mentioned this to my roommate and he blew me off.

I noticed then that her fingers were blue. Something was definitely fucking wrong. I went to check her breathing and it stopped right in front of me. My throat still raw from my own close encounter and I stood like a statue. Yelled at Roommate. He was CPR certified, so we moved her to the floor where he got to work and I phoned 911.

While he was pumping her chest, a thick vomit came from her mouth, like charcoal in color and texture. I looked it up later and apparently this is what it looks like when blood comes up from the intestines.

Firefighters arrived to take over CPR while paramedics readied a stretcher. Roommate and I sat together, held hands, and prayed. His phone rang; it was a paramedic – she’d passed on the way to the hospital.

The autopsy showed there were large amounts of pills in her digestive tract. It’s likely that she committed suicide. Everyone else justified how it can’t be, it can’t be, she was so smiley and happy and so on. Never smiled like she did when she came from Chicago. Never in her life. Clearly, she wanted to live.

I played along a bit. Sometimes even fooled myself. It’s a pretty, half-comforting lie.

The truth is never really that pretty, though, is it? When did this poor girl ever seriously want to live? She was roasting in pain. I guess that no one will ever officially ‘know’ but I feel like I already do, and I don’t want to play denial.

I still remember just lying in bed the following morning coughing like I’ve never coughed in my life and just, couldn’t even cry like I wanted to because of it. Hurt from the inside out back on in. Writing futile letters to her and wondering what would happen next.

She dragged me by the tail end out of my comfort zone, (both of us) kicking and screaming. She shattered my world. She wasn’t my first love, but she was definitely the least diluted. Sometimes that was frightening. We fought constantly. Sometimes cops were called. One time she limped to the hospital while I sobbed on the phone to my landlord, him barely containing his rage to show me some of the greatest grace I’ve seen to this day as he worked to deescalate me and told me what to tell the cops to have no one wind up arrested. Even if he only did this to prevent himself any trouble, which I doubt given the man’s character, I was so thankful.

I’m where I am, off of meds, out of therapy, working a job while looking for another, and pursuing my dreams, galvanized the whole way by her. My boyfriend’s role is so important in this stage of my life, and what I am trying to say is absolutely not meant to devalue him by suggestion that his contributions are somehow lesser than hers. If anything, I would say his are infinitely more important, given that he has provided the patience, space, devotion, stability, and support that I desperately needed in order to heal and grow, and he is the one with whom I will stay committed. However, the truth that he might find hard to hear is that for all of her destructive tendencies, for how bad we could be for each other, and for how both of us knew that it couldn’t possibly last, there has never been a force in my life more energetic nor intimidatingly large as hers. It was what I needed to even get to him in the first place. No one else can match it. Sometimes I find myself crying alone in grief just for that alone. Sometimes I wouldn’t even care how bad it hurt just to have it back for a little while.

She taught me not to be afraid. She taught me that even though she died at the hands of her demons, demons are still nothing to stand in one’s way. She believed in me unconditionally. Our last heart-to-heart was over the phone while she was in Chicago. She told me that I was the most intelligent person that she has ever dated and that I have the ability to become anything I want. I just have to stop being afraid.