I’VE ABANDONED MY BUSINESS AND given up the Endicott job along with every other project I was working on. I don’t care about the loss of business or about any of the furniture that was made for the store. I told my dad to sell all the completed pieces and to throw the rest away. I am never doing that again. As a matter of fact, I’m never doing anything again. My family is dead. My life is over.
I’m still living in my cottage because I need to be here when Alyssa and Alex come home. I have to believe they will because if I don’t, I really have no reason to live. Ironic since I’m not living now. Everything is too painful. I’m so fucking angry and so incredibly sad.
I’ve lost contact with everybody except for my two best friends, Justin and Chance, my sister, Riley, and my parents. They all mercilessly refuse to leave me alone. They pick me up off the floor and bathe me. They keep my refrigerator stocked and attempt to feed me. They also walk and feed Po. Po…he’s so sad. He lies next to me on the floor by the door and waits with a sad expression on his face. Yes, that’s right—I live on the floor by my front door so I can be the first thing Alyssa and Alex see when they return.
These people and my dog are the only reason why I haven’t killed myself…yet.
When I do leave the house, on those rare occasions, I avoid the intersection where my family was murdered. At. All. Costs. That is the intersection where some drunken asshole ran through the intersection at full speed, never even slowing down for his red light. The cars in his path were demolished; all passengers dead on the spot.
My family was in one of those cars; D’s husband in the other. It just so happens that even though that intersection is usually very busy, they were the only two cars crossing at that exact moment. Apparently, the car D’s husband was driving was struck first, flipped and landed upside down on top of my wife’s car. Yes, I was told everyone had died instantly. No, it doesn’t help, and it doesn’t help D either. Not by a long shot.
I learned about D through my grief counselor. After the accident, I had to see a counselor, as did D. This, in part, was because the asshole who decimated our loved ones was a city employee, apparently a high-level one. Grief counseling was required as part of the settlement because yes, the murderer had lived.
The place D and I have been forced to go for grief counseling is called Our House and is about a half an hour away from my home. My mom insisted on driving me and spent the entire ride, before my first session, alternating between trying to get me to read the articles flooding the internet and trying to persuade me to attend the court proceedings. I’m not going to read what some asshole has to say about my family and I’ve made everyone promise they wouldn’t either. I’m also definitely not going to the trial. The minute I see the man who murdered my family, I’ll lose my shit and that wouldn’t be good for anyone, especially me.
Our House usually holds group sessions but because our sessions are court-mandated and high profile, D and I are able to meet separately with our counselor, Barbara Macintyre, on a one-to-one basis.
Since we’re both barely hanging on by a thread, Barbara decided to do something very extreme and very risky. She came up with the idea that connecting us with one another could help us get through the grieving process. Her thinking was, since we’re both going through the same thing, we could potentially help each other and to her that was worth the loss of her license.
She gave us each a new cell phone that contained only each other’s new phone numbers along with the first letter of our first names. She wanted us to have a dedicated line to one another and her only stipulations were that we only communicate through text message and never reveal our real names or other personal details. This I agreed to because I had absolutely no intention of ever contacting her.
Except today. Today I have to. So I turn on my phone and type:
D, this is E.
I can’t believe I’m actually doing this. I don’t see how it’s going to change anything but I can’t stand this anymore. I’m at my breaking point. I’m in constant pain. It feels like a huge band is crushing my chest and getting tighter every day. All I do is cry! Everybody has been trying really hard, I know that. I just don’t have it in me to give a shit.
I lost it with my mom yesterday. Said things no son should ever say to his mother. All she did was ask me to move in with her and I lost it. It got so bad that she ran out of the house crying with a very mad Riley on her heels. Sure she’s asked me before but that’s no excuse. My dad laid into me, took Po, and left. I’m now truly alone; being sucked into an inescapable vortex of grief. I’m so lost.
They haven’t been by yet today and I hope they don’t come by at all; this way I can die in peace. I’m falling down the rabbit hole very quickly and that’s why I need to contact D, the only other person who could possibly understand what I’m going through.
So I continue.
I wasn’t planning on contacting you, but here I am. I’m sure you feel the same way since you haven’t reached out to me and I don’t blame you if you don’t respond. It’s been almost a month since my world ended and let’s just say, unfortunately, suicide isn’t an option. Even though I really wish it were.
I push aside my tears but not my pain, it refuses to leave. I take a deep breath and continue.
I’m dying! With each second that passes, I keep dying more and more. I never leave my house, I just sit by the front door waiting for their return. So yeah, I’m contacting you. Are you going through the same thing? Why does it hurt so much? How am I ever supposed to move on or whatever the hell that even means. Why did this have to happen?!
Through my agony I type the plea that just might save my life.
I really need you to text me back. I’m scared, sad, lonely, and extremely desperate.
My thumb hovers over the send button, my world has fallen apart. All the endless, empty platitudes, hollow words spouted by well-meaning people, to make them feel better, still echo in my ears.
Why do people feel the need to apologize? It’s so stupid! “I’m sorry I squirted ketchup on your shirt,” sure. “I’m sorry that your entire family was murdered,” FUCK YOU! Time heals shit and it’s not going to get better. IT NEVER WILL! One asshole actually thought that he was being clever by saying, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” What’s that even supposed to mean? And if one more person tells me they’re in a better place…!
Every day I pray for a miracle. Every time the door opens, I hold my breath in the hope they’ve come back to me. But hope is a dangerous thing because every time I realize it’s not Alyssa and Alex, I slide even further down that dangerous hole.
I stand and go to the window. I spend a lot of time looking out the window, but instead of seeing the two people who I need to see the most, I see nothing. Nothing but yellow ribbons. Since the accident, the neighbors have rallied together. They’ve blanketed the streets, tying yellow ribbons on all the houses that line the neighborhood.
There was a ceremony by the flag pole in the front of Alex’s school. My mom and Riley went in my place. I just couldn’t bring myself to go. Many of my neighbors have also been to city hall, demanding justice. The monster is in jail, but that isn’t justice. He should have been the only one dead!
There were so many people who wanted to attend the funeral that my parents held a wake in the gym at my old high school. I was forced to go. I didn’t want to be there! It made everything more real. I went though, I went for them.
The place was packed because everybody loved Alyssa and Alex. Several people spoke, saying things they remember about them and kids even came up to talk about Alex or just hand me drawings. Alyssa’s best friend, Cami, sang Alyssa’s favorite song, the Hawaiian version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”—and Chance made a montage of pictures set to other songs she loved. He actually used the playlist I created for her when we were eighteen.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t breathe. I was a zombie. I walked in, sat down, and walked out. I don’t remember what anyone said. The entire day was a surreal blur. I just remember hearing a lot of crying.
If I thought the wake was hard, I was wrong because the funeral was impossible! I barely made it past the gates of Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City. Watching the people I love most in this world being lowered into the ground destroyed me.
“WHYYYY?!” I bellow into the emptiness that surrounds me while I sit alone, a prisoner of grief, praying that death will also take me.
And it’s for that reason, I hit send. Not because I want to, but because I have to.
And I wait.