Diary of a Dead Girl

October 13^th 20xx

In the book A Manual for Heartache written by Cathy Rentzenbrink, there is something called the ‘grenade moment.’ A moment, event, action, that destroys everything that was, could be, and was expected. A changing of the landscape of ones life in such a way that it totally unrecognizable. Normal becomes a memory.

My normal died the afternoon my mother didn’t pick me up from school.

It was an ordinary spring day, made exceptional only because summer was on the horizon. I chatted with my friends, practically bouncing in place as one by one I said goodbye to them, I was well used to being picked up somewhere mid-pack… But the clock ticked on, the parking lot grew emptier of students and cars alike. And very soon it was just me and the playground monitor.

This, in itself, wasn’t terribly unusual. My mom sometimes had to work long hours and on occasion I spend time in the ‘Extended Day Program….’ Except she always told me ahead of time when she had to work later, and always let the school know when they had to keep me longer.

I waited, glancing back at the kids who were waiting to leave to go to ‘Extended Day,’ a little embarrassed that I hadn’t brought any snacks or books to keep myself occupied with- When I let out a sigh of relief. A car I recognized pulled into the parking lot.

But it wasn’t my mom.

My dad’s white Lumina was no thing of beauty, ‘If I don’t wash it, no one will steal,’ he used to say with a wink. But I liked it anyway. It was weird that he was picking me up. He usually worked until 5 o’clock, only getting home closer to 6 o’clock- But here he was at 3:42 PM. Weird.

But I was excited, my dad worked so much! Sometimes I’d wake up at 5:30 just to say goodbye in the mornings to him, just for a little extra time with him.

So, I opened the door with a big grin.

“Your moms in the hospital,” with these hurried, blunt words my smile died.

The ride to hospital was one of tense confusion, I asked a lot of questions. But the response I got was a constant stream of, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I. Don’t. Know.’

This continued when we arrived at the hospital. The doctors didn’t have any answers, not for either of us. They could find nothing wrong with my mother. Only that she was in pain, almost paralyzed with it. Seizing for no reason they could find.

So they sent her home. Sent us home with the medical equivalent of a shrug.

Then it happened again.

Waiting in the loading zone for my mom to pick me up when instead it was my dad.

Your mom is in the hospital again. Your mom is in the hospital. Again. Again and again. Andagainandagain. AND AGAIN.

Throughout the day I would sit in class and stare blankly at the white board as my teachers mouth moved. My friends drew away as I stopped talking to them and instead waited with dread for what I knew was coming at the end of every school day. “Hey, what’s wrong?” My dead eyes met their concerned ones. “I don’t know.”

They called her a liar. Nurses hissing, ‘addict,’ ‘looking for her next fix,’ ‘I don’t believe you.’ But they didn’t see what I saw as it continued to get worse.

Crying out and sobbing at the lightest brush against her skin. “Mom?” Tentative fingers reaching out and resting against a shoulder, “DON’T TOUCH ME!” The slam of a drawer, The fork slipped through my nerveless fingers as I stared at the crumpled form at the foot of the couch, “Mom?”  The opening of the curtain, “CLOSE THE DAMN CURTAIN!” Muscles hardening as though turning stone, digging into skin of my forearm, “Mom, your hurting me!’ Hot tears running down cold cheeks- the sound of my father yelling.

And on and on it went.

Spring to summer, until summer became fall. My birthday came and went with me none the wiser.

I was thirteen, and my mom was dying. And no one could tell me why. No one could see that I was dying.

My days were filled hospital visits that never last long enough, Syringes, the smell of antiseptic- Screaming. So much screaming. White paneled walls and popcorn ceilings burned into my brain.

The grenade kept going- my landscape kept changing, getting worse and worse as my reality altered and skipped. Like a glitch in the matrix, I kept reliving the same horrors over and over again.

And then- a visiting clinician glanced at my mothers chart. He called a friend, a doctor who worked with orphan syndromes- and suddenly we had a diagnosis. If not a cure.

The doctor told me that we had made it through the worst of it. He had light and cold on my shoulder…

He lied.

October 15, 20xx

The thing they don’t tell you about monsters is this: They need a way in. When a predator stalks its prey, they don’t look for the happiest of the crop. Surrounded by friends, and family. Strong and healthy. No. When a pack of wolves hunt, they look first for the weakest link. The old, and the sick, the outliers.

The loners.

And through my mom sickness, our house had changed. Our relationship with out extended family cooled, and friendship held at arm's length, as we turned inward. Lost in our pain. Our grief.

And that’s when I met Jack.

October 20, 20xx

How to explain what happened next? Even now, as a grown woman, I struggle to put into words what happened after we got the diagnosis. My memories of that time are a torn thing. Bloody scraps of visceral grief doused in fear. And loneliness. Aching, biting... loneliness.

It was in the depths of my new reality, when I had the first nightmare. If you can call it that.

Sleep and I had never been the best of friends. I enjoyed reading late into the night, and often times I would become so caught up in my imagination that I would be too excited to sleep… But then sleep had become an escape of sorts.

When I was sleeping, I could not hear my mom's pained whimpers or my dad's not so silent curses coming from down the hall. It was a reprieve… until it wasn’t.

Jack is what I came to call him. Though he never introduced himself as such… An innocuous name for the thing that dug into my mind and made a home for itself in my soul.

Jack.

Give up. He whispered in my ear as I stared up at the ceiling, unable to move. My body as frozen as my mothers. Sleep now. He crooned, as skeletal fingers slid over part of me no one had ever touched before. It’s okay, just give up.

Then I’d wake up.

I dragged myself through my days, my mom’s syndrome manageable even if it was degenerative. Things were hitting a new normal… Except.

Give up. Give up. Give up.

So tired, numb, and confused.

Give up. Give up. Give up.

Was I crazy? These dreams, they felt so real, but they couldn’t be.

Shadows lengthened and darkened, “Please…” The barest whispered broke through my frozen lips and something approached. Eyes squeezed shut, “Please…”

Just give up.

At first, it happened every night. Then every night for a week, only to stop for a few days, and pick up again as if it never stopped.

As the weeks turned to months, and the months became years I finally figured out the pattern.

It was stalking me. Waiting for me to let down my guard, waiting for the fear, the despair.

The loneliness.

Then it would slip back in, reaching out from the darkness of my shadow, and use it against me. I ran screaming through my own mind, desperately seeking a way out. Monstrous creatures on my heels, roughened fur and slavering fangs… Trapped in a room with a monster that looked like my teenage boyfriend, but wasn’t. Leaning up for a kiss only to find long yellowing teeth grinning down at me. Bloody chain that I knew better than I knew my own name.

Jackjackjackjack. Jack.

My closest companion. My brother. My sister. My enemy. My friend. My soulmate.

My Jack.

And I was his. I hated and feared and loathed and ran. But looking back I know, even then. I was his. Even as I screamed and raged and swore revenge. I was already lost, wasn't I?

October 22, 20xx

Eight years this went on.

I lived my life between. Not quite awake, never asleep. Not for long. Pulled to another world. His world. His hell, my hell. Home.

I can admit that now, with years and distance. I spent longer in that hellspace being tortured and manipulated than I spent anywhere else. Time didn’t mean anything there. 12 to 13 years in the waking world? What is that compared to the years I spent with him in hell?

Cooking dinner, chopping up vegetables, I’d stop mid chop and wonder if I was awake? Was it another trick? I’d stare at the carrots and wonder when the veil would lift and reveal I’d been cutting off my own fingers the entire time.

My soul hurt inside me.

I hated it there, in that other place. My hell. Jack’s home.

But sometimes… Sometimes there wouldn’t be any pain at all, he’d wear a skin that was ill fit. Wear a face of someone I knew, someone I loved, and he’d hold me. Kiss me. Give up.

And I’d always reply, No.

He only hurt me because I resisted.

I know that now.

October 27, 20xx

I thought I’d won, you know?

Banished him, won the day- cast him out and embraced the light.

But Jack was smarter than that, wasn’t he? He was playing the long game. Ruining me for anything else, except this.

I can feel him there, at my shoulder... his cold breath on my neck. Whispering... Always at the edge of my hearing.

This is all I am.

And I’m going home.

To Jack.