Chapter 8 Drowning in Silence
Chapter Eight
Drowning in Silence
NORA
Sipping my glass of wine, I shift in my chair.
I smile at the family pictures hanging on the walls.
Candlelight flickers across happy faces and silly poses, reminding me of what I’ve lost. A year ago, I couldn’t tolerate looking at these.
Pain would consume me and before I knew it, I’d be curled up on my parents’ bed sobbing and unable to move for days.
I could barely breathe then. Olivia would wrap me up tightly in her arms and hold me until I had no more tears left to cry.
I’m glad she moved in here with me. I wouldn’t have made it through the last year without her.
Her friend with benefits, a military guy who’s rarely free is home for the weekend, so she’s at his place tonight leaving me alone here to drink my wine and deal with my thoughts.
Those thoughts are surprisingly quiet tonight and have been since I was released from the hospital a week ago--since feeling like darkness was closing in on me, watching from the shadows and waiting for me to follow it into the unknown.
This peace is exactly what I need right now.
Rain trickles down the window, and I watch as a solitary drop slowly makes its way to the bottom of the pane, merging with the puddle forming on the ledge outside.
There’s something so peaceful about rain, about the way it comes hurling toward earth before it’s stopped in its tracks and laid to rest. But it never really dies.
The cycle of life for this single, fallen rain drop carries on.
What a beautiful thing to witness, rebirth. If only people could be the same.
Finishing what’s left in my glass, I stand and make my way to the dimly lit kitchen, the flames from my candles dancing and swaying, leaving moving shadows on the walls.
The new, plush carpet beneath my feet is a comforting reminder that it’s okay to move on and necessary to heal.
Remodeling the house my parents left to me felt wrong.
At first it hurt. But I’m trying to move past it, and I know this is what they would want.
The medications Dr. Cooper ordered for me glare in my direction from the marble counter.
After what happened on the bridge, the dissociation and attempted suicide, you’d think that would be enough to convince me to take them, but it’s not.
I turn on the water at the sink, followed by the garbage disposal, then open the lids and pour them all down the drain.
It’s the same thing every month, but I have to pretend I’m trying.
I have to pretend I’m taking the meds and that they’re working, too, which is the hardest part of it all.
Dumping money down the drain feels like it should be a crime, but I have no choice.
I will not let prescription medications numb me more than my depression already has.
Standing at the kitchen window, I watch as the waves rise and crash to the shore, beckoning me outside to rise and fall with them. It has been so long since I’ve enjoyed our private little beach. The memories that come with it are like little daggers straight to my heart.
Memories of my dad fishing and cursing the wind for ruining the perfect toss of his line into the water.
The laughter of my mom and the twinkle in her bright blue eyes as she watched me chase after seagulls, mimicking their panicked squawking as they ran from me.
The sighs and squeals of Olivia sunbathing on her favorite pink towel, swatting away bugs and mosquitoes.
Those days were the best days of my life. I would give anything to have them back, to have that pure, unfiltered happiness in my life again.
I rinse my glass out in the sink, then head to my bedroom, pulling my sundress up and over my head as I enter the room.
I quickly change into my red and white flowery bikini, then throw a towel over my shoulder and head to the sliding glass doors leading out to the beach.
Stepping outside is like stepping into a time capsule.
The chilly lake breeze rushes into me and I close my eyes and smile, breathing in the long-forgotten scent of joy and laughter.
As I walk toward the edge of the water, the grainy sand beneath my feet makes the memories feel much more real.
Sometimes they feel so far away, so lost to time and darkness that I wonder if they ever happened at all.
Gazing up at the twinkling stars made brighter from the dark clouds hiding the moon, I admire their beauty. There has always been something about the stars that sends hope into my heart.
Without darkness we would never appreciate the light.
I toss my towel on the ground as I slowly make my way into the water, walking further and further away from the shore.
It’s freezing cold as it reaches my waist and then my neck, but I don’t care, I push off the floor of the lake and swim anyway.
I fight against the icy waves, propelling myself through the water until the chill disappears and I feel nothing.
Something far below the surface, or deep within my mind, whispers to me to continue swimming and not look back.
It feels right letting the waves carry me away, giving them the power to drag me out of my thoughts.
I don’t stop swimming even when I know I should, even when it dawns on me that I’ve never been out this far before.
Like a siren, the depths of the lake sing to me, calling out so I can follow it into eternal darkness.
I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to go back.
I want to stay here forever floating with the waves, forever one with the lake and the darkness or the siren who whispers that I should stay.
I dive underwater, swimming deeper and deeper toward the vast, empty floor.
I can’t see the bottom, but I want to feel it beneath my feet. Down there, no one will ever find me.
I’d like to stay here in the darkness where it’s quiet and I’m free. In this place where pain and heartbreak no longer haunt me. I can find myself again, here within the darkness.
I smile as I swim faster. I’m so far away but so close to being one with the waves, eternally bound to them and them to me. The whispers surround me, caressing the broken, painful pieces of my soul.
Nora… Nora... soon you shall be free…
I kick harder and swim faster. I push the last of the oxygen in my lungs out, preparing my body to never need it again. I will need nothing else as I drift along with waves and darkness wrapped around me.
Ouch. Something grips my arm tightly and I scream, though there is no air in my lungs and nowhere for the water to go except for down my throat and into my airway. Screaming, choking, and spitting out water, my lungs burn and my heart quivers in fear.
No. No, I can’t go back.
I resist the hold of whatever grips my arm, even as it drags me quickly through the water and toward the shore.
It doesn’t let go even as I beg for it to set me free.
It clutches onto me tighter. My vision blurs as tears cascade down my cheeks, but the waves crashing around me wipe them away.
They tug at me, forcefully attempting to pull me back to where I belong, but the grip on my arm is stronger, refusing to let me follow the whispers from the darkness.
The voice, the siren or the darkness, screams my name now, the sound haunted and tortured and pained.
She’s broken just like me. Her voice fades away as my head rises above the water, but her screams fill my mind like claws scraping down my subconscious, begging, urging me to follow her, the sound muffled and far away.
Hands grip underneath my shoulders and carefully drag me to shore.
The sand beneath my damp skin brings awareness to my surroundings, and I make out a dark figure standing above me.
The darkness in the lake still calls for me.
The screaming continues, but now it’s only my screaming cutting through the silence on the beach as I crouch over, coughing and spitting out the taste of bitter water as it bursts from my lungs.
The flap of wings thunders loudly above me, but I see nothing in the sky or here on the beach, though I felt him here for a moment, the one who watches…
the one who seems to be determined not to let me die.
He saved me. For the second time now, he has protected me.
The whispered voice releases me from its grip, and the dark pull toward the depths of the lake fades away.
It’s gone. And he’s gone. I wish he were still here, because I’m absolutely terrified to be out here alone.
That was real. It was so damn real and this time I remember everything.
The night on the bridge, though I can’t remember how it happened, was similar to what happened here tonight.
Something took control of my mind, and my thoughts and actions weren’t my own.
It wants me dead. It’s not going to stop until I’m gone.
Trembling from the cold, chest heaving out of hopelessness and fear, I dig my fingers into the sand, taking a deep breath in and out…
everything is fine. Maybe I’m just spiraling again.
Maybe I’m hallucinating. No. I can feel the darkness inside of me, running deeper than I probably know.
It will wrap its claws around me tighter and tighter until I have no choice but to give in.
I gather the courage to stand, brushing sand off my legs as I steady myself and catch my breath.
I don’t want to look behind me at the lake or the waves or the darkness that has its sights set on me, for fear of what might happen if I do. It controls me. My mind is not my own.
I need serious help, and I’m almost certain it’s not the kind I’d get from prescription pills or therapy. Deep down I’m afraid I might need a priest to cleanse my soul, because this darkness I’ve struggled with for so long suddenly feels like a possession over my mind.
This is no longer a struggle with depression or grief, it feels more like a haunting.
I need Ere. I need his comforting voice to calm my nerves and tell me I‘m alright, but I can’t tell him about this.
He’d think I’ve lost my mind. I should wait to talk to him tomorrow when I’ve had time to recover from whatever the hell this was.
What I need is to talk to Katie immediately.
Maybe she has some witchy tincture or potion that can help me.
If nothing else, maybe she’ll reassure me that I’m just going completely insane.
At this point I would accept it over the alternative.
At least that would mean there is hope for me in the end, that I can fight whatever this is.