Blink of an Eye

Trigger Warning: Mental health, substance abuse, suicide and self harm.

I was curled up on the couch watching TV with my family when I heard a door slam. This is the moment when my life went from a soapy bubble of carefree smiles to a haunted house of jump scares.

‘I need help! Amy’s taken a whole lot of pills and there’s so much blood,’ I hear my brother shout. 

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t even blink. Suddenly, everyone sprung into action. Dad grabbed the car keys off the hook. While Mum snatched her jacket off of the stairs. She told me and my older sister to stay here because Amy wouldn’t want us to see her like that. But what if it’s the last time I get to see her? What if it’s the last time I get to see her purple hair and the smile that could light up a whole room?

I’ve only known her for the past couple of years since my brother brought her home, but it feels like she is my sister. I was losing a sister. Ben has had so many girlfriends over the years, but Amy was different. She was like a bird who has had her wings clipped and was only just learning how to fly again. Now she was coming crashing back down.

I heard the car come racing back up our cracked driveway from the bottom of our property where Ben and Amy are living. I didn’t even know what I was doing, but suddenly I was outside walking towards the car with tears in my eyes. Mum was frantically trying to get my sister and I back inside, but I’d already seen her, lying in the back of the car against Ben, with her mouth open groaning, blood dripping down her chin. She looked so broken and helpless, like shattered glass that everyone was trying to put back together. Ben was shaking and I could tell he felt as helpless as I did.

Before I knew it, I was dragging my sister back inside and standing at the door. I was straining to hear what my Dad was saying to the paramedics on the phone. Why weren’t they here yet? Amy was dying and all they were doing was talking on the phone, asking whether she had been to any of the Covid Hotspots in the last 14 days. 

‘Just stop talking and save her!’ I was screaming in my head over and over again, but no sound came out of my mouth. I couldn’t speak. I just wanted to hear her laugh again, to feel love radiating from her, to see her soar after falling so far from her nest. I wanted to rewind and start the day again when I was happy. When she was happy, or I thought she was. 

I felt tears streaming down my face. I didn’t even realise I was crying until my nose started to run. I started to frantically wipe them away. I needed to be strong for her. I needed to be strong for Mum and Ben. My family didn’t need to have another person to worry about. 

I felt like hours had passed, but it must have been only a few minutes because Dad was still on the phone with the paramedics. I slowly opened the door so I could see her again. I needed to know if she was still alive. I stayed by the archway leading to the driveway where the car was parked. I couldn’t move another step. I didn’t want to face the reality that she was dying and there was nothing I could do about it. Amy was dying and there was nothing I could do about it. 

I heard the ambulance before I saw it. ‘Finally, it took you guys long enough,’ I thought. The red and blue flashing lights were enough to knock me out of my desperate thoughts. That’s it. I was desperate. I was desperate for everything to go back to normal, desperate for Amy to be okay again, desperate for me to be okay. 

The ambulance pulled up and they were asking Mum and Dad a multitude of questions. I just want them to save her. Not asking questions. I needed her to be alright. I saw the paramedics call out Amy’s name like it was nothing. Like she was just another person who had taken some pills and couldn’t stay conscious. Like she was just another person who was dying.

They pulled a stretcher out of the ambulance and wheeled it over to the door of the car. Ben got out and laid Amy’s head gently on the seat like she could break at any moment. But he was so lost at sea he didn’t even realise she was already broken. 

Everything after that just went by like a blur. They finally got her onto the stretcher while she was starting to become semi-conscious. Moaning into the night wind. I will never forget the way she was moaning. Like a dying animal. Which she was, so I guess it fits the situation, but I couldn’t get that sound out of my head. 

Then they wheeled her over to the ambulance and hooked all these wires into her arms, shouting medical terms and stuff I didn’t understand. The next thing I knew, I had crept towards the car. Standing beside the hood, watching everything. Mum saw me and decided that I wasn’t going back inside. That I couldn’t go back inside. So, she called me over to the side of the ambulance. 

They were asking Ben if she had any existing medical conditions and he said she had broken her hips and shoulders in a snowboarding accident when she was 16, which we all knew, but then he said she had Bipolar Disorder, which we didn’t. Amy never told us that either. Yes, we knew she had problems with her mental health, but we didn’t know she had Bipolar. Everything clicked into place then. Her major mood swings going from ecstatic to not being able to get out of bed. It all made sense now. 

Suddenly, Amy opened her eyes and tried to get up. She was groaning and she had a look in her eyes that made me want to take away her pain. I wanted to turn away, but my eyes were stuck to her face like a person frozen in fear. I couldn’t look anywhere else but her. The paramedics pushed her back down and she fell back into unconsciousness. Apparently, she responded to pain stimulation, so they were pressing against her sternum to keep her awake.

Then Dad told me to go back inside, so I just walked away. I heard the ambulance pulling out of the driveway and Ben’s car starting up to follow her to the hospital. She was like a sister to me and I could lose her tonight. But all I could do was go back inside and sit on the couch. 

Waiting was the worst part. Waiting to know whether she was alright. Eventually, we all went to bed, but nobody could sleep. I just stared blankly at the ceiling. Feeling nothing, seeing nothing, thinking nothing. I was numb and I hated it.

Apparently, Amy had taken 9 grams of antipsychotic medication and split her chin open when she fell down the stairs after taking the pills. When Amy came home the next day, she acted like nothing had happened. Like that night wasn’t a living nightmare, like every time I closed my eyes I saw her lying there dying.

I know now that life can change in the blink of an eye without you even realising it. I will never forget that night for it haunts me like a ghost haunts the house it grew up in when it was alive. Except that house is my head.