Hurricane

October 2005

They let me go home the next day. Pete was the one who brought me home—my mom and dad both had to work. My mother was originally going to take the day off to be with me but I had reassured her that I was fine.

The ride to my house was silent. But unlike our normal silences, to me, this one felt awkward almost. I felt like Pete was acting differently around me and it made me feel weird. I didn’t know what was going on in his head and I wanted to find out. I confronted him when we were in my room.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“I’m fine,” he said. I sighed.

“I know you’re lying,” I said. “Just tell me what it is.”

“It’s just—I’m still kind of upset about this whole thing,” Pete said. “I mean, you took those pills just because I didn’t call. I understand that you’re insecure, but…I don’t know. I feel like now I need to watch everything I do now.”

“Oh,” I said quietly, looking down. I had a feeling that it was because of what had happened that had made things awkward, but I didn’t know that Pete was upset about it still.

Pete came over to where I was standing and pulled me to him in a hug.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just don’t want to have to be careful about what I say and do. Chances are I’ll do something that sets you off again and it scares me. I really do love you and I don’t want you to overreact.”

I pushed away from him feeling slightly angry. Pete took in my annoyed look and sighed.

“What?” Pete asked.

“You’re talking about me like I’m some kind of bomb that could go off at any moment,” I said. “I think I can control myself.”

“If you could control yourself you wouldn’t have taken those pills the other day,” Pete said.

“I overreacted,” I said. “It’s not going to happen again.”

“How do you know that though?” Pete asked. “After you tried to kill yourself and you moved past those feelings that led you take those pills, did you promise yourself that you weren’t going to do it again?”

“We’re not talking about that,” I said quickly. Pete stared at me in shock from the bit in my voice.

“Why are you always putting off talking about it?” Pete said and I could tell he was getting angry now. “I think now would be a great time to talk about it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

“Why did you try and kill yourself, Molly?” Pete asked, staring me down. I glared at him and I could feel tears building up in my eyes. Why was he acting like this?

“Why did you try to kill yourself?” I asked and I could easily hear how my voice was shaking.

Pete was silent as he studied me, thinking about what he was going to say.

“Fine,” he said finally. “I isolated myself from everyone so much that I basically put myself into a corner. I couldn’t sleep and I overanalyzed everything. I just wanted to shut my mind off completely—to stop thinking.”

Pete continued to stare at me and I knew he was waiting for me to say something. I looked away from him, but I could still feel his gaze.

“It’s your turn,” he said and my eyelids slipped shut and I felt myself shaking my head.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Yes you can,” he said. I felt his hand on my cheek and I opened my eyes. He turned my head so that I was facing him. “Just tell me.”

I took a few deep breaths as my eyes wandered around the room, trying to avoid Pete’s stare.

“Molly,” he said quietly. I looked at him now. He tucked a few strands of my hair behind my ear. “You can do it.”

I left my eyes on his and without realizing it the words started coming out of my mouth.

“I felt like such a failure,” I said. “Everything I tried to do just fell apart. I couldn’t take it anymore and I could just sense that my parents would be disappointed in me. I hadn’t listened to them when they said what I wanted to do would get me nowhere. I didn’t want to admit that they were right. I’d never felt so low before.”

I looked away from Pete was done and wiped the tears that were falling off of my face.

“You don’t even know how much more of a failure I felt like when I couldn’t even succeed in killing myself,” I whispered knowing that if I had spoken in a normal tone my voice would have cracked. “I hated everyone for making me live.”

“I know how you feel,” Pete said quietly. I let Pete pull me into a hug again.

“I’m sorry I took those pills,” I said. “I wish I could go back and treat the situation differently.”

“We all learn from our mistakes,” Pete said. I smiled and Pete hugged me a little tighter. “You promise you won’t overreact again?”

“I promise,” I said.