55. Lydia
Lydia
The room smelled like disinfectant when I took in a deep breath as I tried to open my eyes, tape pulled at the inside of my elbow, and something hissed softly near my head—a nasal cannula pushing air into my nose, telling me to keep breathing, like I hadn’t just tried to tell my body we were done.
The plan wasn’t to be saved. It wasn’t to create some sad mess of a redemption story. I wanted to fucking die. And I’m pissed off that someone dragged me back to this place. To the one place I’ve never known real peace in. I was just looking for peace, damn.
That anger seemed to evaporate on the spot as soon as I looked over and saw Simone curled up on a small chair beside me, asleep. Seeing how much of a ghost of herself she was. I did that to her…again. I don’t want to keep doing that to her.
* * *
Time dragged for days after that. Nurses kept coming in and out, adjusting the curtains, soothing me back down, trying to keep me comfortable, checking every vital, and giving me meds to make what I was feeling easier—not possible.
Then the storm started in my bones. No one warns you how loud withdrawals are.
Well, maybe they do, just…no one ever listens or believes them until they’re the ones going through it—sweating like you have a fever that won’t break, while being covered in goosebumps and shivering from also being cold, pupils too wide, nose running, every movement feeling worse than the one before, legs that wouldn’t stop twitching, feeling like they were short-circuiting.
My back would hurt so badly, then my hips, then my teeth.
My stomach flipped itself inside out until a nurse had to bring me one of those gray basins, and I threw up too many times to count.
She pressed a cold cloth to the back of my neck and told me to breathe with her like she’d done this a million times, seen a million cases just like mine.
They kept asking for a number—pain, nausea, anxiety, craving. They’re all a ten. Everything is a fucking ten.
Everything inside me is constantly screaming Leave me alone, and Please don’t go simultaneously.
They have me on the bare minimum amount of medication, nothing too strong for the little druggie who tried to kill herself—something for the nausea that finally turned the volume down, clonidine to keep my heart from running out of the room, and only ibuprofen for the crawl inside my bones.
The psych NP offered me buprenorphine, and I said no at first because I wanted to hurt.
Then, after a night of fire crawling under my skin and my legs kicking the sheet into knots, I begged them to give it to me.
The pain got quieter, and I cried because the relief didn’t feel earned.
Eating was a chore. Just a bunch of broth, crackers, and popsicles that tasted like hospital and a childhood I didn’t get to experience.
They kept making me sit up for all of it.
“Position is medicine,” my nurse kept saying, pulling on little grippy socks to my feet because I keep flinging the blanket away when I’m irritated and feeling overwhelmed.
People with clipboards rotated through the room like a carousel.
The social worker kept saying everything so slowly, like she knew my brain was syrup.
“Who can you text at two a.m.?” she asked, pen hovering over her notes.
“Who is safe?” Simone, Lani, Sarah…I almost said my sister’s name, but tucked it back into my mouth.
A psych resident asked me if I still wanted to die. I said, “I don’t know, I guess not, doesn’t seem like the world wants me gone yet.” That felt like the closest thing to the truth.
A chaplain asked if I wanted prayer. I said no, and then did it myself later anyway—“If you’re real, tell these people to leave me alone. I’m tired.”
Simone and Lani came every day, trading shifts like parents with a newborn.
I feel as useless as a newborn. Lani read me memes in a dead serious tone until something like a smile twitched on my mouth.
Simone learned the nurse’s schedule and took pictures of the whiteboard and bullied me into sipping on my water.
Sometimes I snapped at them for breathing too loudly.
Sometimes I apologized right after. Sometimes the apology had to wait because my body was busy trying to climb out of itself.
They always understood, and I hated that they understood.
I hated that they were so patient with me. I didn’t deserve their patience.
Sarah and Mark arrived the night after I was admitted.
They came straight to the hospital, still in work clothes, eyes glassy and overly tired.
When Sarah saw me, she just…folded. Quiet crying, hands over her mouth like she was trying to hold the sound in.
Mark kept his arm around her, jaw working, the way men try to hold back their feelings to keep everyone else upright.
They don’t have anyone to lean on because they’re always the one people are leaning on.
They all just hovered mostly, trying to do whatever they could to help, whatever they could to pass the time, whatever they could to pretend the elephant in the room…
wasn’t still in the room. No one had talked about what happened.
No one has wanted to say the words out loud—overdose, suicide attempt, drug addiction, withdrawal.
All the monsters were still standing in my closet, even though the door was wide open, and we were all staring at them as they stared back. No one wanted to acknowledge them.
On the fifth day, when my head wasn’t pounding out of my skull 24/7, and my stomach wasn’t in knots anymore, I finally found the courage to try to ease into the conversation we all needed to have.
“So…who, um, found me?”
I have no memory from that night. I only remember leaving Atlas and then waking up in the hospital with a whole two days of memory missing. I have these weird flashes of feelings and emotions, but no picture in my mind to go with them.
They both stilled. Simone’s eyes flicked to Lani, then back to me. “Um, that guy…what’s his name…Bash,” she said quietly. “He found you in one of the dorm lounges and called 911. He carried you outside. Answered your phone when I kept calling.”
“Pretty sure he’s the same guy from that party,” Lani adds in. “The one who…who beat up that dude who—” she stopped. We both knew the rest of the sentence—didn’t need to say it. “Do you know him or something?”
I shake my head. Not really. Just a name I can’t forget, eyes I can remember without even trying, and a voice that could soothe any bad thought. Who is he? Why does he keep showing up? Why does he keep rescuing me? I don’t need rescuing.
I push that thought away, and I’m hit with everything I still haven’t said to any of them.
“I’m sorry,” I tell everyone, staring at my hands.
“I’m so sorry. I was…I was just in so much pain.
Nothing helped, nothing made it better. Nothing made it stop.
I couldn’t handle it, and everything just seemed like…
it would get better without me here. I hated who I turned into, and I thought if you all found out how bad it had gotten… you’d hate me too.”
“We don’t hate you,” Simone says, walking over and grabbing my hand. “I’m mad at the drugs. I’m mad at the people who hurt you. I’m mad at myself a little for missing pieces. But I don’t hate you. I love you. We love you. We’re not going anywhere.”
Lani stands up, trying to swallow her emotions down.
“I’m pissed at whoever or whatever made you think this world would be better without you…
it wouldn’t, Lydia. We would all be broken without you.
You’re one of the most beautiful souls I’ve ever met, and I couldn’t imagine a life that you weren’t in.
I know we only met less than a year ago, but the imprint on my life that you’ve already left is irreplaceable. You are irreplaceable.”
I can’t hold the tears back, and they take away any words I could say back to her, so I just nod, trying to keep myself together.
I turn to where Mark and Sarah are sitting on a couch in the corner, and I see Sarah crying with Mark’s hand on her back.
It breaks my heart that I keep doing that to people.
“I’m sorry, Sarah…I’m sorry, Mark.” They look up, both with tear-filled eyes. “That’s why I haven’t been back home…I was…I was embarrassed by how bad it was getting, how much I was relying on the drugs to get by…I didn’t want to be a disappointment after everything you’ve done for me.”
They both get up and walk to the other side of my bed. Sarah places a hand on mine, and Mark stands behind her with his hand on my head, wishing they could fix this for me, wishing they could fix me.
“You could never disappoint us,” Mark tells me.
“You’re our girl,” Sarah says through the tears. “Nothing will change that.”
The plan for how my summer break will look slowly forms together over the next two days.
I’ll finish detox here, meet with Psych about meds, leave with a safety plan, fly back to Charlotte, back to all my nightmares, start the rehab program everyone was shocked I even agreed to…
and with support, group sessions, therapy, and all the prayers people can send to a possible God out there, try to resemble a normal person for once in my life.
I don’t think I’m ready. But I don’t think I have a choice anymore.