Endless Love

As I lie here on this small, twin sized cot, my slender form sprawled out over the surface and my midnight black hair spread out in all directions, I think about everything that happened yesterday.
Just a few hours ago, I was lying on my own bed in my Grandma’s house thinking about all my mistakes, everything it seems like I caused, my imperfections, and my unworthiness. “Depressed again and wanting to die,” I reminded myself quietly so no one would hear.
Quickly, I get up, open my C.D. player that has been broken for as long as I can remember, and remove my perfect, sharp razor blades. Silently, I sneak into my Grandma’s bathroom and tell myself, “For all the pain I’ve experienced, problems I’ve created, and every other bad thing I feel about myself and my life, I will take the final step because I have nothing and no one left for me in this pathetic world.” Suddenly, I feel the pulsing pain coursing through every fiber of my being and the warm, crimson red blood pouring in thick streams down my arm and instantly I know that I have succeeded in the unimaginable. Immediately, I start to think of everything that will happen next. Will I find an afterlife like the ones so many people dream of, or will I be so unfortunate as to be saved and continue living this meaningless life? Before I can ponder any longer, though, everything goes black…
Only the deathly scream of my younger sister, Melanie, pierces through the black and brings me back just as my grandma rushes in to find me draped over the once pearly white bathtub, now stained with blood, bleeding and dying with my razor blade still in hand. Sheer panic crosses her face as she realizes what has happened and, as fast as I’ve ever seen her move, runs across the bathroom to me, phone in hand calling 911. Using her knowledge as a surgeon, she immediately grabs a towel from the rack on the wall and wraps it around my still bleeding arm, applying the necessary pressure to staunch the blood flow.
“Get down stairs into the living room and wait for me,” I hear her calmly tell Melanie, obviously trying to calm her down and stop her shaking and wailing.
“What have you done Alice? Come on stay with me. We’ll get though this and you’ll be just fine, you just have to stay awake. Talk to me, Alice.”
“Grandma? Where is Melanie? I didn’t mean for her to see all of this. She’ll be traumatized for life!”
“You’re lying here dying and still, all you can think of is your sister. You’ll never change, will you?”
After what seems like hours, I finally hear the wail of the ambulance as it speeds into our drive way.
That was the last thing I remembered. The anesthetic must have made me forget everything after. When I woke up again, I was being pulled out of a beat up van, and wheeled into the big steel front doors of a place called Spring Meadows.
“What kind of name is that?” I think to myself.
Finally the realization hits me as they push me down halls and halls of weird rooms and people in strange uniforms, following these weird strips of color on the floor, until they reach “my” room, the Pacific Room, as the board next to the door says.
I was in a Psychiatric Hospital with a bunch of insane freaks, much like myself, because I tried to kill myself.
Now, back in the moment, I just lay here in these ugly, gray sweats (the proper “uniform” for the patients in this place), but worst of all, I was on lockdown. Although I’ve only been here for a few hours, it feels like I’ve been stuck in here for days, months even. For the first time since getting here, I decide to take a look around this small, dreary room.
The first thing that catches my eye is the rectangle next to the dresser that is: A. a painting made to look like the outside so we don’t feel like we’re in a cell, or B. an actual window so we can stare outside (guess I’ll find out at night), where we won’t be able to go for a long time. Seems like a nice gesture, but if you ask me, I’d say it was more rude than comforting to show us something we can only dream about having for a long time.
A few hours later, a woman comes into my room, whose name I assume to be Guinivere, because of the name on her badge. She looks and seems nice, so I expect for her to be a kind, patient nurse, but when she opens her mouth, I realize I had her pegged all wrong.
“Alice Devero, is it? Not like you need to know my name, but just for the record it’s Guinivere. You’re just like the rest of these psychos. I hate all of ya’s. But whatever, it’s not my choice what we do with ya, ‘cuz if it was, things would be a whole lot different. Well, here take your antidepressants. Another employee will bring your dinner later,” she rudely says before she walks out the door.
Suddenly, a giant wave of exhaustion comes over me. Attempting suicide must take a lot out of you. Drowsily, I take the antidepressants and then collapse on the bed for a night of sleep, not even bothering to wait for dinner. I’m not hungry anyway. “I just can’t wait for tomorrow’s wonderful surprises,” I think as I, almost immediately, fall into a deep sleep.
The next morning is about as bad as my normal mornings are. I wake up to find creepy nurse Guinivere yelling at me to wake up and take my medication before I have “Individual,” as they call it here. Then, a nicer looking nurse, Tina, comes into the room to deliver me a plate of food because, being a level zero still, I can’t go eat in the cafeteria with everyone else. After I finish my “delicious” breakfast, I go sit in a small room with a psychologist who is called Dr. Miller, for an hour long session spent listening to him complain because I would not talk.
The next few days were pretty much the same, except for my beginning to wake up on time and uttering a few words in Individual. On around the fifth day here and my fourth appointment with “wonderful” Dr. Miller, I finally, to his great pleasure, began to talk about my life. Grades, school, home life, my BPD (Bipolar Disorder), friends (the few I had), and the fact that I had been cutting for about a year before attempting suicide. Making sure I don’t reveal too much, but just enough for him to learn a thing or two and have no time to ask questions of his own, I talk until he tells me my time is up and he’s proud of me for finally opening up. As I begin to leave, he hollers, “Alice, good work today, I think you’re ready to be level one. Enjoy it, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Back in my room I have a little one person party for myself finally reaching level one. Then, after receiving my medication (that looks different, somehow. Maybe it’s just the joy getting to me) and dinner, I drift into sleep, eagerly awaiting tomorrow, where I can eat in the cafeteria with people, and do some fun level one activities.
The next morning, I wake hearing voices traveling down the hall. “I wonder what’s going on. I didn’t get my medication this morning, and by the sound of things, there must be a show outside my room.” Quickly, I get dressed and head out of the room just in time to run into a girl, beautiful with a small body and perfect blonde hair, who appears to be the same age as me.
“Hey. You know what’s going on here?”
“I heard that Guinivere got caught distributing the wrong medicine, discreetly trying to dispose of us all,” she said politely, with a musical, velvet voice.
“I was just going to check it out. Would you like to join me?”
“Sure. At least now I’ll have someone to talk to.”
I actually think I made a new friend already. She’s not normally the kind of person I hang out with. She seems more like a polite, well mannered church girl and my friends are exactly the opposite of her, but in a place like this, I’m thrilled to have met a friend. It’s hard to believe someone so idealistic like her, tried to die, but ended up here like I did. I wonder why she did.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she suddenly shouted, startling me out of my thoughts.
“My name is Amber.”
“My name is Alice,” I said so unenthusiastically.
“Wonderful. It’s bad enough that she looks, acts, and sounds perfect, but now I find out that she has a perfect, beautiful name like Amber. I’ll never be able to measure up to someone like her,” I depressingly thought to myself.
Just then, we reached the cafeteria just in time to hear what looks like the whole staff screaming and yelling at Guinivere for what she did. A few minutes later we witness someone I don’t recognize scream, “YOU’RE FIRED. Now get out of this place at once, and don’t come back.” Then, they all followed her out of the room, making everyone else wait here, answered with a room full of groans and boos to clearly show their disappointment.
“I wonder who they’ll hire to give out the medicine next.” Amber mused beside me.
“I don’t know, but I hope whoever it is will be better than her.”
“That’s for sure.”
Compared to the morning, everything else was normal, except for the group session I quietly sat through. After that, I talked to Dr. Miller about my new friend, Amber, for a little while (at least until I had to leave), and then sat with Amber at dinner, even though neither of us really talked, until I went back to my room. This time, Mike came by to give out the Antidepressants, so I guessed that they still haven’t hired anyone yet. After taking my medicine, I decide to go to sleep, dreaming about Amber, and the new employee.
I wake in the morning, take a shower, come back to my room and get dressed, waiting for my morning medication, hoping for someone new to walk through the door. Just then, a guy walks in. At first I think its just Mike, but then I realize that it’s someone new. As he walks in, I study his every beautiful feature. Every thing about him is just perfect. He’s paper white, but he is muscled and tall, about 17 looking, with beautiful copper hair and golden eyes, and most importantly, besides his Greek god beauty, was his heart melting smile that made me float on clouds.
“Good morning, Alice. My name is Adam Carter; I’m the new medicine distributor.”
“Mmmhmmmm,” was all I could say.
He gave me my medicine and then left with a goodbye as I quickly swallowed it and ran off to the cafeteria to talk to Amber about him. As I entered the cafeteria full of wild screams and other people talking about him, Amber rushed over to me and we spent the whole lunch time and the walk to group talking about him.
In group today, I decided I’d join into the conversation with a few stories of my own about my family and my BPD, much to Dr. O’Reilly’s pleasure, which later rewarded me level two for opening up. Then, in Individual, I decided to tell Dr. Miller more about myself, after learning about the unpleasant news of having to see my grandma’s sadness in a family session the next day.
First off, I started telling him about my family. I told him about my mother and how her BPD drove her to insanity and she beat me when I misbehaved because that’s what the voices told her to do, and I told him about my dad and how he cheated on my mom when she went insane and then ran away with the other woman and got remarried. I told him about how I never had any really close friends because the only one I let get real close stabbed me in the back and I learned never to trust anyone that much again, but did have a few friends I hung out with, and I talked about how I never had a serious relationship (which of course was a big lie, but he didn’t have to know all the details). When I started to tell him about my sister, Melanie, he interrupted me and said that time was up, but to make sure I remembered what I was going to say because he wanted to hear it later. He also said that he was starting to see a big improvement and was pleased by my work. Then, he said I was free to go and get a good night’s sleep so I can be ready for visitor’s day tomorrow and if it worked out well, I would get awarded with level 3. I wanted that level 3, too, so I did just what he said. I went to dinner, headed back to my room, took my antidepressants, and went straight to bed.
I awoke in the morning sweating. I was terrified of visiting day. I really wanted to see my grandma, but I didn’t want her to see me like this, I didn’t want to see her pain, and I didn’t want her to have to deal with the same psychologist interrogations I did. In a quick attempt to look my best, I ran off to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, took a shower, brushed my hair, got dressed in my best clothes, and ran back to my room. Right when I opened the door, I had a shocking surprise. Adam was sitting on my bed waiting for me! Immediately, I turned as red as my blood, but he didn’t seem to notice (either that, or he didn’t mind).
“Hey Alice, Can I talk to you for a minute.”
Oh my gawd! He wanted to talk to ME!
“Um… yea, I guess,” I tried my best to mumble out.
“Well, I was reading your files-”
“You were reading my files!”
“Yes. To tell the truth, Alice, you interest me. I wanted to know more about you, but didn’t find it appropriate to ask you until I learned some things on my own.”
I was speechless. I couldn’t believe someone like him would be interested in me.
“Alice, I know this might be strange, but I like you, a lot, without even knowing you.”
I freaked out then. I started sweating and shaking. (So much for that shower)
“I want to know everything about you. And if you’re thinking I’m just making this up to get information out of you for the psychologists, I swear I’m not.”
I don’t know why, but I believed every word he said. It might have been because I could sense the sincerity in his voice or just because he was drop-dead gorgeous. It didn’t matter much though.
“I believe you,” I quietly told him.
“Will you tell me everything about you?”
“I don’t think I’m ready to tell anyone everything.”
Then, he came real close, his lips only centimeters from mine, so close I could feel his cool breath on me and smell his scent, and looked up at me from under his eyelashes and in a begging voice said, “Please.”
I couldn’t resist; I told him everything. All about my serious relationship, how he almost raped me when I refused to let him have me, my sister, my mom, dad, school, and everything in between.
“Now was that so hard?”
Just then, my life changed completely.
He leaned in, and unable to stop it, pressed his cold lips to mine, and held me in a cold, but sweet embrace. After that, I confessed my love, and shockingly, he confessed the same.
After that morning, things just seemed to float by. I went to the cafeteria, talked to Amber about the morning, periodically hearing her gasp or stare in awe, then went to see my grandma, talked to her, got promoted to level 3, and spent the next few weeks doing the same, stuck in a daze. Every morning when I saw Adam, though, we talked and he held me and it was all perfect.
Finally, after a few weeks, while I was sitting with the psychologist, I decided to confess everything. This extremely pleased Dr. Miller and he decided to give me level 4. I opened up in group a lot, too. Everyone was pleased with me and thought I was making good progress.
Then, for the first time in about a week, Amber and I sat down in the entertainment room and talked. I asked her what was wrong with her and how someone so perfect could be here. Her answer was saddening.
“My family is Mormon. I was raised in a religious family and was always treated like a slave. I constantly watched my mom and my older sister gets beat and used as slaves. My dad was an alcoholic. No one liked or respected me. After a few months, I met a boy that I fell in love with. We shared many beautiful moments, but I had to keep it a secret because he wasn’t the kind of person a Mormon family would allow me to be with. Finally, after a few more months, despite me being a Mormon, he asked me to marry him. I was so thrilled and immediately said yes. My life was bad, but after Tyler came along, everything was good, but as we all know, people like us can never have happy endings. My priest found out and told my family. One day, two weeks before my marriage, my dad followed Tyler and me and when he caught up, he demanded to know everything. Of course, he had a shotgun with him, so I confessed. Outraged, he shot Tyler right before my eyes, and made sure he was dead before dragging me home. Nothing was the same after that. I was heart broken and alone, and started cutting for comfort. Finally, I could take it no more so I over dosed, slit my wrist, and shot myself back to back to try to make sure I died, but unfortunately, my sister found me and rushed me to the hospital. My parents didn’t care at all, didn’t even come to see me, and a few weeks later my sister was beat to death by my drunken father. I have no one left. No one to return to. No life. No love. Nothing. I don’t want to go home. I can’t go home.”
By the time she was done she was drowning in her tears. I tried my best to soothe her, but knew after hearing all that I would never be the same, knowing how much she had suffered. After that I quietly returned to my room and drifted off to sleep, dreaming about my perfect Adam. My dream turned to a nightmare, and I imagined mine and Adam’s fate just like Amber and Tyler’s fate.
I woke later with a scream. Adam rushed into my room a few minutes later. He ran to my side and started soothing me and saying things like “I’m so sorry,” and “I’m here for you.” At the time I had no idea what he was talking about. I found out a few minutes later as I drifted into the hall.
Amber had killed herself only a few hours after I left her.
“I could’ve done something. I knew she was in pain. I should’ve told someone, or at least stayed with her, but I didn’t and now she’s gone. It’s my fault. Why did I ask her about it? If I didn’t, she would be here still. It’s all my fault,” I thought, on the verge of tears.
Unable to control it any longer, I crumbled into Adam’s arms and cried, for about two hours, before I was finally able to dry my tears.
A few hours later, Dr. Miller and Dr. O’ Reilly came and told me to stay in my room and sleep and I would be excused from all sessions today.
Everything was dreary after that. I walked under a cloud of gray and not even Adam could bring me out of it. He was always there and I was glad, but it wasn’t enough.
A month later, I developed a sickness from my BPD. I was diagnosed as having a week left before I would die. I didn’t care. I was glad. Things took a turn for the worse, and I couldn’t cope with it. I was sad about leaving Adam, but I had to do it sometime. After all, I wouldn’t be here forever.
Adam came by every time he could. I could see in his eyes, though, that something was troubling him. A few days later, I found out.
On the third day of my disease, Adam came to me and sat on the edge of my bed.
“Alice, I have something to tell you.”
“What is it, Adam? You know you can tell me anything.”
“I know I can, I just don’t know how.”
I just waited, giving him time to sort out his thoughts. Finally, he just came out and said it, leaving me in shock.
“Alice, I am a vampire. Not the kind in movies, a real one. No coffins. No bats. I can’t sleep, don’t melt in the sun, and am not affected by crosses or garlic. I don’t want to lose you. I’ve lived alone for 124 years, and I’ve finally found love and it’s in you. I need you. There’s only one way I can make you live, but I don’t want to kill your soul. It seems I have no choice though. It’s up to you. I can bite you, poison you and not kill you. In a few days you will be turned into a vampire like me. It will be painful but you will live, and you will live for eternity, but no one can know. I love you and I don’t want to lose you. Please consider it.”
I was unable to even comprehend everything he said for a moment, but when I did it all fell into place. I calmly assessed it all, and thought about my decision. No family. No friends. Adam forever. Endless Love. I would live with him and his family. He told me about them once and they seemed perfect. It was either that or I die and end it all.
I knew what I had to do at once.
“Turn me now, Adam. I would rather live with you forever or die now. I love you and I always will and I’m willing to spend the rest of eternity with you. I know the consequences, but I can deal with them as long as I have you forever.
Then, he said, “I love you,” and pressed his cold lips to my neck.
It burned and stung for days. Felt like a fire and at times was unbearable, but all the while I had Adam with me so, in the end, I survived. Finally, it was over.
I felt different and I had to check myself out. I looked at myself in the mirror and immediately could tell I was a vampire. I was sheet white, beautiful, and I had pointed teeth. Adam found me right after.
“Mmm. Finally you don’t smell so irresistible. I don’t have to fight the urge to bite you.”
“That’s nice to know,” I sarcastically said while rolling my eyes.
“Ok, So I pulled some strings. They said that I could quit if I want to so I can be with you, and after everything that has happened and all you have told them, you’re free to go. So let’s say you and me leave here and go meet my family.”
“I’ll do anything you want me to do as long as I can be with you. I will love you forever.”
“I will love you forever, too. For all of eternity, our love will stay as strong as it is now, right?”
“Sounds perfect.”
We walked out the big doors and off into the twilight. I knew it would last forever. Mine and Adam’s love was perfect. So we walked, and kissed, in the moonlight, knowing that whatever happens, as long as we are together, we would always have an endless love.