A day after the accident, or it might have been two, I walked out of the house around six in the morning leaving Tim and Jake sleeping, and retraced the steps I'd ran to the scene. When I got to her spot, I just stood there, the horror washing over me, every sight and sound back in tortuous real time. I took the few steps to the curb, and poised myself there, toes just over the edge.
I knew what I'd come there to do. My insides were churning, not with fear but with the worst mental pain I'd ever experienced. I was too scattered to begin labeling or sorting out my emotions. All I knew, and what I knew with every molecule of my being was that I wanted everything to stop. Everything needed to hurry up and stop while I could still see her face and hear her voice. I could not imagine living without her. I could not imagine ever missing her less. I could not live with the guilt of what I had done. I did not deserve to.
I rocked unsteadily on my feet, and started watching cars. This was all about timing. The last thing that I wanted was to finish this day alive, with a broken back, mourning Cory from a wheelchair. I had to find that perfect vehicle that was big enough and moving fast enough to do the job completely.
This was my first experience with suicidal thinking, and for me it wasn't a question of did I really want to or not. It was a question of making good on the attempt. As my head whipped left to right, searching out some unfortunate driver that I was about to run out in front of, I spared not a single thought to anyone I might be leaving behind. I stood there, no one knowing where I was or what I was up to; now was the time. I braced myself for that feeling, the sudden smack...would the pain be hot and searing? Would I feel anything at all? What had Cory felt? Had she seen the car at the last second, but remained frozen in mid step, the terror making her already big round eyes bigger and wider? Did she have time to scream? Would I? Did it matter?
Knees knocking together, the sound practically audible, I folded at last, falling to the curb like something built with weak supports, destined to crumble. It just wasn't sure enough. What if I survived? That was the scariest part of the whole concept to me...not dying, but living.
I put my hands over my face and did that silent, tearless weeping that comes from dehydration. Whooping in great big gulps of air and holding it in, involuntarily, I began to see stars. Without someone beside me to remind me to take a breath, I just didn't bother.
It must have been the shock, but I remember long silent periods during those first few days when I just couldn't cry, my face a big shock-stricken slab of stone. I remember vaguely noticing Tim wandering around the house shuffling his feet like a zombie, shreds of toilet paper stuffed up both nostrils. He, a man who seldom showed any type of emotion, had cried so much he gave himself a bloody nose.
I picked myself off the curb, head down, and stumbled home. I still remember how my body felt, as if it wasn't attached to my brain, but just a heavy thing I was forced to drag along. I realized my arms didn't move with my body when I walked, they hung slack and apelike, at my sides. I couldn't look anyone in the eyes- to meet their eyes would drive me the rest of the way out of my mind. I would share my pain with no one; it was all I had left of her.
My first concrete plan thwarted, I crawled reluctantly back inside myself, my brain going so fast- the images of her body on the road popping up unbidden every few minutes. I took to my bed; my next suicidal impulse just days away.
---To Be Continued
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