Made to Live Alone

Chapter 6

Thursday, July 8th

I didn’t even know if I went to school today. I could have very well been asleep until this very moment. For once, the night had not taken away the numbness, everything I felt last night stayed with me this morning, or afternoon, whatever time it was. I was on autopilot. I had no idea what hour it was, had no recollection of getting up, getting dressed or even going to the bathroom. Everything from last night on the couch until now was a complete blur.

I looked around and noticed that I was standing in my bedroom in front of my dresser mirror. I observed my surroundings for the first time, noticing my neatly made bed, my laundry basket emptied and placed in my closet and the alarm clock which read 2:43pm. Upon further examination, I noticed my school bag beside my bedroom door, which I normally kept in the dining room. Apparently I did go and teach today. I wonder what I taught.

I focused my eyes back in front of me and for the first time in a long time, studied myself in the mirror. To anyone else, I would look tired, but to me, it was like staring at a complete stranger. I looked defeated, hopeless, sad, pathetic and most of all, indifferent. The eyes looking back at me were completely empty. There was nothing there, no sign of life at all. I lifted my right hand to my face and noticed an angry purple mark along the back of my arm. My eyes shot from the mirror to my arm and noticed what looked like a bruise on my forearm. I gently prodded the bruise with my left hand but felt nothing, no pain, no pressure, not even skin. It was as if my arm had not even registered a touch. I pressed harder into my arm with the first and second finger on my left hand until the nails on my fingers turned bright pink and I felt the smallest bit of pressure in my arm.

My eyes slowly floated back up to the mirror to finish observing the stranger in my reflection. My face was sickly pale, almost taking on a ‘pasty’ look. My lips were dry and chapped and my hair was slightly greasy and hung lifelessly down my shoulders. I looked at the black silk button up T-shirt I was wearing, which had the buttons misaligned, and the wrinkled, black dress pants I was wearing.

I turned away from the stranger in my mirror and headed out of the room. But before I got through the door, a beeping stopped me. I didn’t know why this sound registered when nothing else in my day had, but the single ‘beep’ stopped me in my tracks and made me turn around. I followed the beeping noise to my bedside table where I realized that it wasn’t a beeping sound, but the ringing of my phone.

Without thought, I answered the phone with a dead “hello”.

“Bella? Is that you?” The voice sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. I pulled the phone from my ear to look at the screen. Apparently I was talking to Alice.

“Yes.” I answered her.

“Are you ok? You don’t sound like yourself. Are you sick?”

“I’m fine.”

“Bella what’s wrong? Rose called me and said that she was doing a test drive and drove past the school and saw you just sitting in your truck. She honked at you but you didn’t even flinch.”

“Sorry.” I wasn’t even giving any thought to my responses. I didn’t know what to say and I hardly even registered what Alice was saying. I lowered myself onto my bed, and could hear Alice talking through the phone, but had no idea what she was talking about. After a couple moments of silence, I heard Alice speak up again.

“Bella, what the hell is wrong with you? Why aren’t you talking to me?”

“Sorry Alice, I’m just not myself today.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and hung it up. I knew that it wasn’t the polite thing to do, but the emptiness inside me really didn’t care. I placed the phone back on my bedside table and went back towards the bedroom door to leave. The phone started ringing again, but the indifference in me ignored it. I stepped through my door and made my way downstairs into the living room.

I sat there, in the middle of the couch with my legs crossed under me just staring straight ahead. There was no music, no TV, no book or even a cup of coffee to occupy me. There was just nothingness. I sat there staring at the wall ahead of me, thinking about nothing, noticing nothing and caring about nothing.

In the back of my mind, I could hear faint noises of soft nocks and whispered voices, but there was no clarity or recognition to the sounds. For the first time in my life, there was absolutely nothing, no sight, no sound, no feelings, no emotions and no cares. I was completely oblivious. I was dead.

I stared at a bare spot of beige paint above my TV until the earth around me started to shake and my left cheek started to sting. Without thought, I lifted my left hand to feel what was causing the sensation in my cheek. When I touched my cheek, the earth started shaking again. There was nothing in front of my eyes and nothing but the faint background whispers in my ears. The shaking got harder and more violent as I lowered my left hand back into my lap. Suddenly my left cheek stung again, this time proceeded by a slapping sound.

The earth continued to shake around me as I cradled my left cheek in my hand. The whispers got louder and louder until I recognized the voice. It was the same one I heard on the phone before. It was Alice.

“BELLA!!!!”

Her voice was screaming my name and it wasn’t until another sharp sting ran through my cheek that I noticed how loud the screaming was or that it was coming from right in front of me. I slowly turned my head to the left and registered Alice kneeling before me, continuing to shake me by the shoulder.

“Bella? Can you hear me?”

I blinked a few times until my vision cleared and the nothingness morphed into reality. Alice was crying, shaking me and slapping me in the face. She was kneeling in front of me, panic in her eyes with her cell phone open on the floor beside her. What is going on?

“Alice?” I asked as everything started to re-enter my body. The sights, the sounds, the feelings, the emotions, everything. And as much as I wanted to push it all away again and go back into my oblivion, everything was coming back too fast for me to barricade it shut.

Alice stood up and threw her arms around my neck holding me tight. “Oh thank God,” she cried into my ears. I sat there completely stunned, not hugging her back, just trying to come to grips with what had happened in the past 24 hours. “Bella, I was so worried.”

“Alice?” I still wasn’t sure if this was really happening or not, “what’s going on? What are you doing here?” Alice pulled back to look me straight in the eye. A small smile lit up her face as her eyes shone with relief.

“Jazz?” Alice asked while still looking at me. I quirked my eyebrow at her, wondering why she was asking me about Jasper.

“What’s going on Alice?” The voice sounded far away, as if it were coming from a toy radio. My eyes searched the room until they followed the sound to the bright pink cell phone that lay open on my carpet. Jasper was on speaker phone with Alice.

“She’s back,” Alice told him with a bright smile, a few tears and relief in her voice. “We’re ok, Jazz. I think we’re ok.”

“Bella?” Jaspers voice asked through the phone.

“Um…yea?” I answered, not really knowing what to say or what to think or even how to act.

“You ok over there, kiddo?” I had to smile at the ‘kiddo’ remark. For some reason, even though Alice was so much smaller than me, Emmett and Jasper had been calling me ‘kiddo’ since we had known each other. I looked up at Alice and saw the smile grow even larger when she saw the small smile on my lips.

“Um…sure?”

I could hear Jasper laugh through the phone and Alice laughed along with him as she settled down beside me on the couch, holding a death grip on my left hand.

“Yup, it sounds like she’s back”. Jasper’s voice sounded as full of relief as Alice’s did. “Alice,” he continued, “do you still want me to come over? I’m about 5 minutes away.”

Alice looked at me with an analytical eye, but slowly smiled at me again. “No,” she said, “I think we’re ok.” I couldn’t take my eyes off Alice as she told Jasper that she loved him and would call him if she needed reinforcements. She bent down to pick up and close her phone before sitting back and facing me.

She said nothing, just stared.

“Um…” I started but was immediately stopped in my path by another slap across my left cheek.

“OW! Alice! What the hell?” I yelled at her as I, for the third time, brought my left hand up to try and relieve the stinging pain in my cheek. I looked at Alice with complete confusion which only deepened as her eyes teared up and the waterworks started.

“Don’t you ever do that to me again! Do you understand me?!?! You scared the living crap out of me!!!” Alice was yelling at my confused face as she angrily swiped the tears from her cheeks and crossed her arms over her chest.

I honestly didn’t know what to say. I just sat there, looking at her, rubbing my left cheek.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on or am I going to have to slap it out of you?” She was still sniffling and I could hear the tension in her voice. I had never seen her more upset or concerned in my life.

“I don’t know what to tell you Alice. All that I remember was sitting down here last night, watching a movie, you calling me this afternoon and then you shaking me and slapping me. I was hoping that you would be able to fill in the blanks.”

Alice and I just stared at each other until the tears started to stream from her eyes again.

“I was so scared, Bella. I called you last night after we got back from seeing the justice of the peace but you didn’t answer, and then after what Rose said when she called, I called you right away but, again, you didn’t answer.” She stopped to sniff before she continued. “When I called this afternoon, you sounded so…dead. It sounded like you didn’t even know who I was or that you even cared. I got so worried that I called Jazz at work.”

She looked down as she took both my hands in hers, ultimately making it so that we were both sitting sideways on the couch facing each other. She didn’t look up as she told me the rest.

“Jasper said to just leave you alone, but I couldn’t. I knew that there was something wrong. So I came over here and saw you just sitting there staring at the wall. I was banging on the door, ringing the doorbell and even knocking on the window behind you but you didn’t notice. I let myself in and I swear to God, I thought that you were dead.”

Her voice was completely breaking by now. She lightly let go of my right hand to wipe away the tears before she returned her hand to mine, took a deep break and looked up at me. There was a look of fear in her eyes and I knew that she was truly afraid of what was going on.

“I stood there, Bella, for ten minutes,” she whispered, “and you did nothing. It was as if you were staring right through me. I was calling your name and lightly shaking you but…you did nothing. I called Jasper and told him what was going on and he said that he would come straight over and try to help. I tried to dissuade him but my hysteria was scaring him too and he was already in his car.”

Her eyes moved to take in the left side of my face and what I assumed was a large red mark on my cheek. She tentatively raised her right hand to touch it. “I’m sorry” she pleaded as her tiny fingers brushed against my, assumedly, now red and swollen cheek. “I didn’t know what else to do. You just sat there like a zombie, staring off into space and completely unresponsive. I had Jasper on the line, trying to get him to help me, but all he was saying was to just wait, that he would be there soon, but I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing.”

We both just sat there looking at each other, holding each other’s hands as if our lives depended on it. As Alice was telling me what had happened, my mind went back to the memory of the nothingness, the complete numbness and emptiness that had surrounded me. It scared me how disengaged, how deep in my own despair I was to not even know any of this was going on. I licked my lips and took a deep breath, preparing myself to do something I now realized I should have done a long time ago.

“Alice? Um…can you do me a favor?” I had to look down at our entwined hands to find the strength to continue. “Can you call Jasper back and ask him to come over? I think…I…um…need his help.” Tears were running down my cheek before the final words left my lips.

Alice leaned forward to encircle me in a tight embrace. “Of course,” she answered with a slight sadness to her voice, “of course I’ll call him.”

She pulled back and grabbed her phone with her left hand, never letting go of my hand with her right and placed a call to Jasper.

“Hey hun…no we’re ok…no she’s still with me, she’s actually the reason for my call. Jazz, Bella wants you to come over. She said she wants your help.” There was silence on her end for a moment as she looked at me with tears in her eyes and a small smile growing on her lips. “Ok, I’ll see you in a sec. I love you.” Alice shut her phone and stood up. “He’ll be here any second. He didn’t turn around after we hung up last time and he’s just pulling onto your street.”

I looked up at Alice with a sudden panic rising in my chest. Am I really going to talk to Jasper? Am I actually asking for help? “Alice?” I started, “I’m scared.”

“It’ll be ok, Bella. It’s just Jasper and all he wants to do is help. Maybe he can help us figure out what happened.”

She walked to the front door just as I heard Jaspers pickup truck pull into the driveway. I heard their soft voices outside on the stoop, followed by their footsteps entering my foyer and the front door closing. I sat there terrified, as if I was about to face my executioner. Jasper slowly walked around the corner and into the living room, followed timidly by Alice. He came to stand in front of me and knelt as Alice resumed her seat beside me on the couch.

“Hey”, Jasper said as he looked up at me with worry, but relief in his eyes.

“Hey” I said back, realizing that although he was still worried, the relief I saw was not only for the fact that I was ‘ok’, but because I was asking for help. Without warning, Jasper lifted up on his knees and took me into a tight hug. “It’ll be ok, Bella. I promise. We’ll make it ok.” I nodded into his shoulder as I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck and started to cry.

He pulled back, still maintaining contact with me by holding the tops of my arms, and took in my tears and the look of acceptance on my face. He gently wiped away my tears with the Kleenex Alice handed him and returned to his position of kneeling on the floor.

“You want to tell me what happened?” he asked. I was surprised that it was Jasper talking to me and not ‘Dr. Whitlock’. I felt that if it was Jasper, I could be more honest, if only I knew what to tell him.

“I don’t know what happened,” I told him in a shy voice, “all I remember is watching a movie last night and then ‘coming to’ this afternoon when Alice called. The next thing I know, she’s here slapping me.” I looked over to Alice and noticed that she was sitting there with her head down, fully ashamed of her actions. I grabbed her left hand in my right and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you” I whispered to her, and I honestly meant it. I didn’t know what state I would be in if she hadn’t slapped me back to reality.

“So you don’t remember anything from last night or this morning besides sitting and watching a movie?”

I returned my gaze to Jasper and just nodded.

“What movie were you watching?”

“P.S., I Love You.” I could see the wheels turning behind Jasper’s eyes. He got up off the floor, went to my kitchen table and brought a chair out so that he could still sit in front of me, but so that we were the same level.

“Bella,” he hedged, “this might sound like a weird request, but can you tell me what you were feeling yesterday when you were watching the movie?”

I turned my head to face Alice and we both shared a little smirk. Clearly he’s never seen that movie before.

“What?” he asked as he intently observed Alice’s and my reaction to his questions.

“It just that,” I paused to make sure my wording was correct, “it’s probably one of the saddest and most romantic movies out there. I don’t know anyone who’s seen it and hasn’t balled their eyes out.”

I turned to face Alice to see her nodding along with me. Suddenly my smile lowered, as I realized that I still needed to open up and be honest with my emotions. Alice squeezed my hand and told me it was ok.

“To be honest, I was feeling like shit.” I started, facing back to Jasper but immediately lowering my eyes to my lap. “It made me feel even more alone and hopeless. I was having a hard day and kept making it harder on myself so that I would just break and cry.” Tears were stinging behind my eyes again at the memory of the ‘Yeah, right’ folder I had created. Yup, I’m definitely masochistic.

“Why do you think you did that? Why do you think you would purposely do things to make yourself break?”

“I honestly don’t know, Jasper. It just felt like everything kept boiling up and I just needed to let it all out, but instead of feeling better, I just felt numb.”

“What do you mean?” I could tell he was trying to get me to open up even more, but I had to take my time, do this on my own terms. It was hard to try and remember what happened yesterday and this morning, not to mention my mental state during that time.

“It’s just that, when I went to get your rings, the sales lady thought they were mine and that I was getting married. It hurt to have to correct her, and I realized that it may be the only time I would ever go ring shopping. When I got home, I don’t know why, but I started looking at engagement rings on the internet, then I started looking at wedding dresses. I even created a folder on my computer of the one’s I liked.”

I had to stop to push back down the lump that was rising in my throat and to take a deep breath before continuing.

“After a couple of hours, I put on the movie. About half way through, I had to stop it because I was almost out of Kleenex’s and I could barely see anymore. I realized I had to stop torturing myself and accept the fact that, that life may never happen for me.”

“What life?” Jasper whispered. It was then that I realized that I was no longer holding Alice’s hand. I turned to my right to look at her and saw that she was gone. It was just Jasper and me.

“A happy life. I may never have all these friends who would drop everything to take care of me, I may never find someone who wants to be with me, I may never be in love, and I may never get married. I may never have ‘that’ life, and I just had to stop the movie and tell myself to accept it.”

“Why would you tell yourself to accept something that you don’t want?”

“Because if I keep hoping, I keep hurting myself. I’m tired of always feeling hurt and alone and rejected. I would rather just accept my fate and be numb than live like that.”

“So what did you do after you came to this decision?”

I stopped myself from automatically answering him to try and remember, but nothing came. There was nothing.

“I don’t remember” I said, as I continued to stare at the floor. My voice kept getting softer and weaker the more the conversation went on. “There’s nothing, Jasper. I remember nothing, feeling nothing. There was the movie and then…nothing.”

I heard Jasper push his chair back and stand up, he left the living room and went into the kitchen. I heard the cupboards open and the faucet running, just as he walked back in holding a glass of water. He sat back down in front of me and handed me the glass.

“Thanks,” I timidly said as I took the glass from him and drank half of it down.

“Bella,” he gently asked once I put the glass on the side table, “how did you feel when Alice called you this afternoon?”

“Completely empty and numb,” I answered honestly. “I was just staring at myself in the mirror, not even remembering how I got there, if I went to school this morning or how I even got dressed.” I lifted up my arm to show him. “I got this bruise somehow on my arm, but I don’t remember how I got it. I just remember all of a sudden standing in front of my dresser, looking at myself in the mirror and talking to Alice. It wasn’t until Alice actually slapped me awake that I realized something was wrong. I was just walking around this morning, completely void of everything and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.”

“I’m going to be honest with you Bella,” Jasper started as he pulled my hands into his and waited for me to look up at him, “I think that you just gave up. You gave up on everything, on your emotions, your feelings, on any hopes, and on yourself. You just quit. And what scares me the most is that it sounds like you just didn’t care about living anymore.”

I lowered my head again as tears ran from my eyes. All I could do was nod along with him.

“I don’t think it was that I gave up on living,” I stated, still staring down at our grasped hands, “I think I just gave up on this life. I don’t want this life anymore, but I don’t know what other life there is for me to live.”

“We’ll find it, Bella. We’ll find a life where you don’t feel so alone.”

Jasper and I continued talking for another hour, going over how I had been feeling and even going over some of the things I said last weekend at brunch. It was hard to open up to Jasper and I didn’t know if it was helping, but I had nothing to lose. I had lost almost everything last night and as much as feeling loneliness and rejection hurt, feeling nothing at all was worse.