Redemption

My mother had me by cesarean. My head wasn’t down, it perfectly up. Maybe I was just trying to avoid being born. Maybe I knew what my life would be like and I didn’t want to come out.

But I did come out.

I came out screaming, one of the loudest babies they had heard the nurse told my mom. I was screaming from the moment I was born.

Well, back to the cesarean. My mother said she felt so much pain afterwards; it was as if a maniac went at her stomach with a butcher knife. Sometimes when she got extremely mad at me she would bring that up. Saying that I did it to her, I gave her a scar, I caused her pain, and now she had to cause me pain.

All I could think about was her cesarean when I regained feeling in my body. My stomach was on fire, it felt as if though it had been stabbed and beaten to a pulp. My eyes wouldn’t open but they began leaking tears it hurt so badly. I felt a touch and someone spoke but it was muffled. Then I felt warmness in my throat and this taste and my eyes opened slightly and I threw up all over myself.

I began coughing and more throw up came, but when I threw up it hurt my stomach to the point where more tears just poured out and my body shook.

“Calm down, calm down Mallory, it’s okay,” a woman with red hair said as she ran to my side and pushed a button on the hospital bed I was lying in.

“Is she gonna be okay?”

The voice startled me, startled me so badly that it accompanied with the pain led me to throw up on myself again. My eyes glanced over to Joe and more tears came. He looked worried, but furious.

I looked down at myself, covered in vomit and realized that this was no story book waking up. There was no fluttering of the eyes and a loving man waiting there that gave me a passionate kiss and a handsome doctor that said I was okay. No, there was vomit all over me, my stomach in so much pain it was unbearable, and a man that looked as if once he knew I was okay would leave forever.

“Okay Mallory, good to see you awake. Nurse, let’s clean her up please,” a doctor said as he walked in. He had white hair and a yellowish smile, but seemed comforting enough.

The nurse nodded and disappeared out the door while I sat there in my vomit and the doctor took my pulse. The nurse came back by the time the doctor was done taking all my vitals. She set the bucket of water down on the little table next to the bed. She took the cloth out of the bucket and began cleaning the vomit off of me.

I looked over at Joe but saw he was looking at me, so I looked away. He sat in a chair not to far from the bed. I tried to imagine that he wasn’t there, but it was hard when he was looking at me.

The doctor finished scribbling something on his clipboard and looked me dead in the eye. He let out an exhale and then suddenly everything flashed back to me.

I was sitting in the plane, crying to God. I was going to test him. If he had a plan for my life he would save me, I would live. I overdosed on Advil. And I’m alive.

More tears came to my eyes, even though I was already crying like a baby from the pain. I was alive. I was alive. I was alive. God had a plan for my life. I tested him, he was there, I wasn’t alone. Things might just get better, and now things felt overwhelming and I felt as if though maybe God hadn’t left me but maybe was waiting for me to test him. And I did.

“Mallory? Did you hear me?” the doctor asked, taking me out of my thoughts.

“What?” I asked and my voice sounded hoarse and sickly.

“Why did you try to kill yourself?”

“My father raped me.”

The doctor seemed very taken aback by this. He was at a lose for words and the look on his face showed that he didn’t expect me to answer honestly. He thought I say ‘because no one loves me’, ‘because I felt like it’, or even better-‘I don’t know’. But I said it, and saying it made me angry, and saying it made me feel a pain in my heart as well as my stomach, but I had to say it.

I looked at Joe and his mouth hung slightly open. His fists clenched and I wanted to know if he was imagining beating my father, who he had never met, until he was dead. The nurse finished cleaning me off and gave me a sympathetic look and then went off to go and blab to all the other nurses about the patient they had who’s father raped her.

“Excuse me?” the doctor asked.

“My father fucked my brains out, without my consent,” I said and I knew I must be feeling better because my bitch side was coming out again. The pain in my stomach made it hard for me to deal with anything and I was trying to find that peace I had earlier. I wonder if God would want me cursing. Probably not.

“I mean, my father had sex with me, without my consent,” I said knowing that that sounded a lot more civilized.

“So you decided to try to kill yourself? On an airplane?” the doctor asked and I nodded yes.

“Well Mallory we had to use a stomach pump on you, that’s why you are feeling the tremendous amount of pain. We will release you tomorrow but you are required to see a psychiatrist and be on suicide watch.”

“Psychiatrist and suicide watch? Why?” I asked, wanting to yell but my voice felt too feeble.

“Hospital procedure. We can’t just let you leave and assume that you won’t try to kill yourself again. We have a psychiatrist here in the hospital that you will see once every week for two months and during that time you will be under suicide watch. Which means that someone will need to be with you at all time, do you have anyone that can do that?”

“My father raped me doctor and my mother hates me, I have no one,” I said as a jolt of pain went through my stomach and more tears flowed from my eyes.

“We can assign someone to stay with you, but it’s normally just more comfortable for the patient when it is someone they know staying with them,” the doctor said and wrote something on his clipboard.

“Someone has to be with her at all times?” Joe suddenly asked.

“Yes, every hour of every day. As time progresses they will only have to be with them for certain hours, and if the psychiatrist says that they don’t need to be under suicidal watch anymore then the person doesn’t have to be watch them anymore,” the doctor said to Joe.

“I’ll watch her,” Joe said and gulped and my eyes widened.

“Great and your name?” the doctor said with a smile as he scratched something out on the clipboard.

“Joe Jonas.”

“My daughter loves you,” the doctor said with a chuckle as he realized that Joe was in an extremely famous band.

“Tell her I say hi,” Joe said as he looked at me and I could tell that the last thing on his mind was my doctor’s daughter.

“Okay so Mallory we will give you some more morphine, should help with the pain, and you need to rest,” the doctor said and left the room.

“You can’t,” I said.

“Don’t tell me what I fucking can and can not do right now Mallory,” Joe grumbled as he put his head in his hands.

“Since when do you cuse?” I asked.

“Since you left your dog on my doorstep and ran away, leaving me worried for days and thinking something had happened to you! And then I get this call saying you overdosed? Damn it Mallory!” Joe yelled as he stood up and nurse came in.

“Sir if you don’t lower your voice you will need to leave.”

“Sorry,” Joe whispered and sat back down and the nurse left.

“I couldn’t stay-we were getting attached and-“

“I didn’t mind getting attached Mallory and neither did you! And now look at this! I am going to have to watch you and you know what that means? I am going to have to tell my parents that I had sex with you and that you are a stripper who got raped by her dad and tried to kill herself and now I have to watch you! And by the way I am going to kill your dad,” Joe said, his voice rising a bit but staying at a level that would keep the nurse from coming back in.

“Oh I’m sorry Joe, I’m sorry that I was raped and that all this happened and you have to tell your parents. I’m so sorry for you. But I had to,” I sobbed and the heaving made my stomach feel even more pain.

“Don’t play that crap with me, trying to make me feel bad for not wanting my parents to know. And why did you just have to do this?”

“I was testing God,” I whispered and Joe just looked at me.

“If I wasn’t just here to be in pain, to be messed up and never loved, then I wanted to die, but if I was here for a reason and if maybe someone out there cared for me then he would save me, God would rescue me and show me he was real,” I sobbed, the words coming our muffled, but Joe heard it loud and clear.

He got up and came and hugged me. I wrapped my arms around him, the action hurting my stomach but it was worth it. He kissed my neck and kissed up to my cheek and then put his hands on my face, wiping tears from my eyes.

“I care and I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to be easy for either of us Mallory. Telling my parents is going to be one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, they will probably disown me for all of this, but I do care about you. You have no idea how scared I got when I got the call from the ambulance. I didn’t know why they called me, but I guess they found out you had nobody but me. I got scared and then I got here and I got angry, seeing you and knowing the pain you caused me. You caused me pain when you left. You can’t leave me like that, promise me,” he said and his eyes began watering up.

“I promise,” I whispered and he kissed my forehead.

“Umm, sorry if I am interrupting something but she needs her morphine,” a nurse said as she walked in.

Joe nodded and moved away from me. The nurse came and put the needle in the IV and let the morphine run into my system.

“She’s going to fall asleep for a while,” she told Joe.

“I’ll be here when she wakes up,” he said and gave me a faint smile.

“Are you family?” she asked as she began walking to the door and I began feeling sleepy.

“No.”

“I’m sorry but we only allow family to stay,” she said.

“Well I’m Joe Jonas and I’m all she has,” he said as he smiled at her.

“Oh my god I thought it was you but I didn’t want to say anything,” the nurse squealed and a small smile came to my face at how star struck she became.

“I love you and your brothers, well not love, not in the creepy way but well ummm you can stay! I’ll just lie and say you are her brother or something,” she said happily and the world began spinning for me.

“How do you know her?” the nurse asked, curious.

“I’m her boyfriend,” Joe said and that was the last thing I heard before I fell into a deep sleep.