Never Alone

Chapter 1

Chapter One

I listened for the sound of peace as I awoke, but instead my ears were filled with the noise of my worst nightmares. I knew before I even opened my eyes that I wasn't dead like I wanted to be, and now this act of terror against myself would be just another inexplicable behavior my parents would try to understand so they could fix me. Hot tears slipped from beneath my pinched eyelids as I prayed for any god listening to please just take me. The force of my silent cries was painful as the body I'd long since decided was no longer my own shook on the hard mattress beneath me. They couldn't fix this, and neither could I.

I'd spent the better part of six months trying to disappear—not an easy task when you're the senior class president and an academic overachiever. Everywhere I turned I had adults looking at me with morose expressions, reaching out to try and help pull me up when all I wanted was for them to let me fall. Let me fall into the space where no one was looking, into that space where the unremarkable kids existed and weren't talked about. I just wanted to be forgotten. Erased.The urge to scrub at my skin washed over me again as it had so many times in the past months that where I was once smooth and unblemished I was now marred with healing scabs and open wounds. They itched and festered, but I wasn't sure if that was real or just in my mind.

When I was younger I used to play a game with my grandpa. He would tickle my feet and tell me not to laugh. "It's mind over matter, Koralee. Concentrate." I would close my eyes and try to think of other things, sad things, but in the end the sensation was too much and I'd give in, dissolving into giggles. He'd passed many years ago, but I always remembered his words and the way he seemed to have the answer for everything. I tried to use them that year when I felt the first tingle on my thigh. I told myself I was just imagining it, the memory of pressure and the slight dig of a nail into the skin above my knee, but my mind was weak and I'd drawn blood before I'd even realized how frantically I'd been wiping, clawing at the skin, desperate to rid myself of the feeling.

I could feel them then as I lay there, refusing to open my eyes and see for myself what I already knew. If I didn't open my eyes I wouldn't have to see my mom as she wept in the corner, her hope for my recovery fading as my dad held her, promising to get me the best help money could buy. I could feel each wound, but this would be the first time they were seeing them. I was exposed in the short hospital gown, six months of self-destruction on display for all to see. I wanted to tell my mom not to cry for me, that it wasn't my body anymore, but until I figured out how to get out of it I knew she wouldn't understand.

"We're going to fix this," my dad whispered comfortingly into my mom's hair as he held her.

"I don't want to be fixed," I managed to say, my throat tight from the tears and sore from the emotion I kept bottled up there. I turned my head and let my eyes drift open, looking straight into their faces for the first time in six months because I needed them to hear me—needed them to stop trying to save me. "I want to be dead." I didn't look away as their shock registered and as the hope they had mustered from finding me this time and saving my pitiful existence drained from their faces. It was the first time since the night of the party that I saw in them something like what I felt inside. In that moment they let me see that they feared I'd be successful at ending my life one day, and that they could do nothing to stop me. Fear and despair. Those were two emotions I could connect with.

The door to the hospital room opened and a young woman stepped through. Her face was cast downward, focused on the information shining brightly from her tablet. Her hair was piled in a messy bun on top of her head. She paused to look at the data as if she'd been in such a hurry she forgot to double check before stepping inside. Then with a quick shuffle of her thin tablet to her left arm she flicked up the sleeve of her white jacket and looked at the time on her wristband. Finally, she met my eyes. "Koralee Benson."