Page 65 of Kill Me

“My dad! Someone needs to call my dad!”

“Don’t worry, babe, I’ve spoken to him. He’s on his way to the hospital now.”

“But what about me? Why doesn’t he want to be with me, too?” I cry harder than I did when I saw Eric lying lifeless on my mother’s bed. She’s rejected me. He’s rejected me. WHY AM I NEVER ENOUGH?

Think you need to take a lesson from your mother.

Swipe a knife at those arms, fuckface.

I follow Manda; my body and mind numb. I hear nothing. It's silent. Serene. I feel nothing. For the first time in my life, I feel absolutely nothing, and it's invigorating. This is the feeling I've been chasing for the last eleven years, and I never want to lose it. Just like always, I’m relegated to the bottom of the priority pile. Unless I’m ill or have some kind of drama going on—and even then it’s selective—I’m never a priority. They never want to love me or be with me. So maybe this is the way forward… Maybe the only way to win over the people who are supposed to love me the most is to hurt myself. To pretend the monsters inside me are louder than they are. Or at the very least follow in my mother's footsteps.

It felt like days until my dad came to get me. And the funny thing is, it was. I had crashed out on the sofa at Millie’s that night after a movie marathon of Dirty Dancing and Grease; she was acting out the dances and trying to make me laugh, and I was rejecting every attempt she made.

Calloused hands running across my cheeks woke me, my dad, I thought, whispering in my ear. “Come on, Quinn, you need to wake up. It’s time to go to bed.” I jolted upright, panic setting in. “Are they dead?” I mean, if they weren’t, surely someone would have told me by now. In my sleepy state, I realised it was Scott waking me, and not Dad, and disappointment flooded my body. I didn’t know why I was surprised; there was nothing left inside me, but a hollow emptiness where I supposed the love of a parent should be. “Come on, Millie is already in bed.”

We walked towards their stairs, the layout of their house identical to mine, but opposite, and we shared a wall. “They’re alive, love. The worst is over. But you’ll need to stay here for a few days and give your dad time to clean the house. You don’t need to go back there and see that.”

“Why not? Not like it would be the first time, is it?”

He sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you, kid. All I know is that if you were my daughter, and I’d just gone through what your dad did, I would want you as close to me as humanly possible. But everyone is different. Some people need space after a tragedy. Yes, this is a happy ending—if you can call it that—but it’s still a tragedy. For your mum to feel like this was her only way out, it’s just that, tragic.”

“She did it for attention, Scott. You know that.”

“For anyone to do that for attention and drag their kid along with them is truly terrifying. And if that’s the case, maybe you are better off here for a few days. At least you’ll be safe.”

“They don’t love me. Not like they love Eric. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You guys love me, so why can’t they? Am I that bad of a daughter? I look after Eric, and I care for Mum when she’s bad, but it’s never good enough. No matter what I do, I never match up to him. They only care when I’m sick.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Quinny. Every parent loves their children. Sometimes, they just love each one differently. It’s not that you’ve done anything wrong; it’s just that they don’t know how to love you how you need to be loved. You have us, though, Quinn. Remember that. We’ll always be here for you.” He kissed me on the cheek, and I plodded along to Millie’s room.

“Mil…” I whispered. “Are you still awake?”

“Yeah. I heard what my dad said to you. You’re right, you know. They don’t love you. But it’s okay. I’m sure my mum and dad will make up for it.” She smirked before she shut off the lamp and turned her back to me, leaving me shrouded in grief and darkness. Maybe I imagined it, but her tone was different. Like she was angry at me because her parents loved me? But we’d been best friends forever; they’d always cared, so why would that matter now?

I felt around in the dark for my pyjamas next to the blow-up bed on the floor. Too anxious to switch the lamp back on for fear of reprisal from her. I crawled into bed, exhausted from the events of the day, and before I knew it, sleep had taken me, which made a change. Usually, the monsters in my head kept me awake for hours. I survived on very little sleep with no escape from the torture my brain inflicted on me. My mother had always been moody. My dad said it was PMS; that she was just quirky, that I would understand once I started my ‘time of the month’. Why he couldn’t just say my period, I didn’t know. It’s not like it was a catchable disease. She was someone who didn’t know how to regulate her emotions. But that night, I was led in my bed, and for the first time in my entire life, I felt like I finally related to her. Like maybe we had something in common. Imagine the only thing you ever have in common with your mother is the fact that you both want to die. But I wasn’t stupid enough to think it would change things. What was the point? All it would ever do was reiterate to me just how unloved by her I was.

I was eleven years old. Desperate for acceptance. Desperate for some crumb of affection from them, that realistically, I knew I would never get. I listened to Millie rave about her parents and my friends at school about theirs. They didn’t know what it was like in our household. They met my mother, and like a hypnotic snake charmer, before I knew it, they were coming to our house to see her, begging for sleepovers, because she was their new bestie. I could never have anything or anyone to myself. I don’t know what was different about my friends or her friends' kids that magically gave her the ability to bond and connect. It was almost like some being inside of me would rather the physical abuse. Between her and Eric’s newfound violent streak—which I was too scared to tell anyone about—and my dad’s indifference when it came to me, I was at a crossroads—or a dead end—whichever one it was was to be determined.

Harley - Present Day.

It’s been roughly an hour, and she looks emotionally exhausted. “Okay, I’m calling time for today. That’s enough.”

“But I can do a bit longer,” she protests, sitting forward to try to convince me.

“No, Quinn. You’ve put your body and your mind through a lot. You need ample rest between now and tomorrow. There’s a reason it’s called intensive therapy. We need to replenish your food, get you out in some daylight, and rest. This will be taxing on your soul, and we can’t risk a relapse of the voices and your suicidal ideation.”

She relents reluctantly. “Okay, you’re the boss.”

“And don’t you forget it.” I wink as I stand up and stretch out my body, putting my notes in my bag safe from prying eyes. If she asks to see them, then I will show them to her, but it’s up to her if she wants other people to know any of this information. I hear the others clattering around preparing our evening meal—which is called tea you dinner heathens—and Ted bolts off to see them as soon as I open the door.

Fickle bastard.

“Just when I thought I’d found a loyal man in my life,” she quips. I spin to look at her.

“Don’t ever make that joke again, please.”

She stares at me. “I’m sorry, Bones. Sometimes my brain is too fast for my mouth, and it just comes out.” She stands on the other side of the room, nibbling on her lip nervously, like she’s anxious to approach me, and I kick myself for such a quick reaction. I walk over to her, and she flinches, looking at the floor as I reach for her. My hand snaps back. “No, I’m sorry, Little Magpie. I guess knowing the things you’ve been through gets to me more than I thought it would, so you thinking that any of us wouldn’t be loyal to you makes me a little more sensitive than usual.” Slowly I lift my hand towards her face, using my fingertips to lift her chin so she’s looking me directly in the eye. Her eyes bounce everywhere but where I want them to. Which is normal for traumatised patients.

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re loyal to me, Bones. But in the grand scheme of things, you guys know all of these things about me, and I know nothing about you. If I can’t expect my family to stick around, then how can I expect a bunch of relative strangers to?”