“You’re absolutely right. Our marriage is over. And now you’re free. Congratulations.”
“Rosie…”
“I said, get out, Nick.”
I don’t know what I expected Nick to do, but what I don’t expect is the way his eyes fill with tears. I’ve never seen him cry before. He even kept it together in front of me when we lost the baby, although I caught him with bloodshot eyes a couple of times. But now I’m scared he might lose it.
“Rosie.” He sits beside me on the bed and runs a shaking hand through his hair. “Please don’t do this. I love you. I made a huge mistake. Don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry. My mind is made up.”
“But…” He looks down at my legs on the footrests of my chair. “What will you do?”
“I’ll figure it out. It’s not your problem anymore.”
I have a very specific plan for what I’m going to do after Nick leaves. I have a lot of medications in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I can just barely stand well enough to reach them. My plan is to take all of them.
It will be a relief to be done.
“Please don’t do this.” Nick reaches for my hand, and I don’t shake him away. “Rosie, I love you. I’m so sorry. Please. Give me another chance.”
I look into his brown eyes. All I see is love. He doesn’t seem like he’s sticking around because he feels sorry for me or out of obligation. He wants to be with me. Even after everything I’ve put him through, he still wants to be with me.
But I keep seeing his arms around that other woman. The way he kissed her… he certainly wasn’t thinking of me then.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t forgive you.”
“Please, Rosie.” He squeezes my hand. “You have to give me one more chance. Please let me make this right. I can make this right. I swear.”
“Nick…”
“I love you.” A single tear gathers in the corner of his right eye, but he swipes at it before it falls. “I promise you, I’m going to fix this.”
“Get out.”
He takes a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll go. For now.”
Whatever. I’ll be dead soon anyway.
He glances at our bed, where we’ve been sleeping side-by-side for the last year without even touching each other. “Do you need help getting into…？”
“No. I’ll manage.”
He looks doubtful, but he stands up—something I can’t do anymore without support. He takes one last look at me, then he leaves the room, shutting the door gently behind him.
I wonder if this is what that psychic foretold at the carnival all those years ago. He’s effectively killed me, even if he doesn’t know it.
I consider enacting my plan right then and there. I’m so sick of everything—it will be nice to just be done. Then again, Nick might come back and save me. And if he discovers what I was trying to do, he’ll have me put in a psych ward. As if someone in my situation would have to be crazy to want to kill themselves.
Ultimately, I’m just too tired to go through with it. I’m literally too tired to kill myself.
Instead, I attempt to transfer myself to the bed. I’ve done it a handful of times, but usually with Nick nearby. Dr. Heller tried to convince me this is something I should be able to do myself, but I couldn’t motivate myself to go to physical therapy and learn. Now I’m paying the price. I put one arm on the bed, supporting myself. I hold on to the armrest of my wheelchair, preparing to scoot myself over.
It should be no surprise that I fall. But somehow, it still is.
I spill out onto the floor in front of my chair. The impact sends a sharp pain through my right hip, and my wheelchair overturns. And moreover, the wind is knocked out of me. For a moment, I just sit there, stunned.
And then I have to figure out what to do. I’m lying on the floor of my bedroom, incapable of getting back into my chair or onto the bed. I don’t have any idea what to do next. Crawl over to my phone? Call 911?
I wish I hadn’t been so lazy and just taken those pills like I planned.
I drop my head down against the floor and sob. I hate what my life has become. I used to have everything. A loving, faithful, sexy husband. The job of my dreams. A baby on the way. And then in three short years, I lost it all.
I wish the floor would just swallow me up.
I’ve been sobbing for several seconds when I hear the soft knock on the door. At first, I think I must be hearing things. Then the voice: “Rosie?”