The Harder I Fall (23 page)

“You won’t.” He got us both up and headed in the direction of the parking lot.

We drove in silence. I couldn't bear to voice my fears. He wouldn’t have tried to kill himself; he wouldn’t do that to me. There had to be another explanation for this. Finally, almost two hours later we pulled up to the hospital and I jumped out before Levi had fully stopped. I ran at a full sprint to the door.

“Chad Langer?” I asked at the information desk.

“Are you family?” She eyed me.

“Yes, I’m his sister.”

She typed something into the computer and then looked up again. “He’s in the ICU, third floor. They’ll buzz you in when you get there.”

Levi caught up as I got to the elevator. “He’s in the ICU,” I choked out.

He gripped my hand. “We’ll get through this. I’m here with you.”

They buzzed us through the door and Ruth was waiting for us outside of Chad’s room. She hugged me tightly. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

“How is he?” I looked through the window at my brother. He was hooked up to a ton of machines, cords going everywhere.

“He’s in a coma right now. They pumped his stomach, but it’s touch and go right now.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Am I allowed to go in?” I asked.

“Yes, one at a time.”

I nodded and opened the door to his room. I sat in the chair next to the bed and grabbed his hand. “Chad, it’s me. Sorry it took me so long to get to you.” The tears wouldn’t stop; they fell in a steady stream down my cheeks. “Please don’t leave me.” I put my head down on his bed and sobbed.

I was in his room for a solid day. Levi and Ruth both tried to get me to leave, but I wouldn’t. The thought of Chad waking up without me… I couldn’t stand it.

“Becca, you need to eat something.” Levi said from the doorway. “It’s been a day. You have to.” I was so tired; this was all too much. “Please, just a few bites.” He held out a sandwich.

“I’m not hungry.” I turned back to Chad. I didn't care about food or sleep. I just wanted him to wake up.

Another day passed. I stayed with him. I needed him to wake up.

“Becca?” Chad’s groggy voice came through my bleary sleep-addled brain.

“Oh my God, Chad!” I squeezed his hand. “I’m here.”

“What happened? Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital. You don't remember what happened?” I stood, holding his hand. He looked away, pulling his hand away from mine. He remembered. That much was clear. “Tell me what happened, Chad.”

He refused to look at me or speak. I finally gave up after a few minutes and went to find a nurse. Levi and Ruth were in the waiting room and came over when they heard me talking to the nurse. “He’s awake, but he won’t talk to me.” I huffed out a breath.

“Honey...” Ruth laid a hand on my shoulder.

“He won’t even look at me, Ruth.” I broke down.

We watched the nurse and Chad through the small window to his room. She spoke to him quietly as she took his vitals. I wished I could hear his responses. “Well,” she said when she came out, “he seems to be doing remarkably well for a young man who swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills.”

An entire bottle?
There was no way this was an accident. My heart dropped to my stomach. Chad had tried to commit suicide, and I hadn't even know he was hurting. I stood in the doorway after the nurse had left, unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry.” I whispered.

“Why are you sorry?” He still refused to look at me.

“I had no idea you were hurting like this. I should have been around for you more.”

“Stop it. You will not blame yourself for this,” he said. “I made the mistake. Not all of my problems are because you weren’t there for me enough.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I… I just wanted to stop feeling so awful all the time. Ever since Mom died, I just couldn't pull it together.”

“I can’t lose you,” I said.

“You won’t. I know this was really stupid. I knew it was stupid when I did it, but I was just so tired.”

I sat on the edge of his bed. “We’ll get through this. You know that, right? There’s nothing too big for us. I want to help you; Ruth wants to help you. We just need you to want to help you, too.”

“I do. Now I do. Everything just got so messed up.”

We talked for a while more before he got tired again and needed sleep. I found Levi waiting for me just outside. “How is he?” He hugged me tight.

“I don’t know. Not great, but I think this was a wakeup call for both of us. He needs help. Hell, we both need help. With the crap we’ve seen and dealt with, we both should be talking to a therapist on a regular basis.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” he admitted.

“I need to talk to your mom about it. We need a plan of attack for when he gets to come home. I can’t lose him. This can’t happen again.”

“It won’t. We know what’s going on now, and we can help.”

“How could I have been that selfish?” I asked. “To not realize Mom dying affected him that much? I feel like the worst sister in the world.”

“You know as well as I do that’s not true. It’s not like Chad is a child. He’s going to be fifteen soon. He knows how to ask for help.”

“Have you ever been in that frame of mind?” I asked. “Ever contemplated how easy it would be to end everything? How good it would feel not to be tired anymore, or not to have to worry about if you were going to eat or have a place to sleep?” Tears slipped down my cheeks faster than I could wipe them away.

“No. I’ve never been in that frame of mind.” Levi pulled me closer.

“I have. More than once. Chad was the only thing that kept me here. It would have been so easy.”

Levi pulled back and looked at me, and then led me down the hall to the waiting room. “Did you think about it after you and I broke up?”

“Why do you want to know about that? It doesn’t matter anymore, even if I did,” I said.

“Answer me, please. I need to know. Did you?”

“For a split second, when things were really bad, after my mom died... I knew Chad was taken care of, and I was so tired of everything.”

He gripped my arms. “Never again. Never think like that again. Promise me.”

“I promise.” I couldn’t bear to meet his eyes.

Ruth came around the corner into the waiting room. “Am I interrupting?” she asked.

“No, we were just talking about Chad.” I stepped away from Levi.

“What are we going to do about him?” She sat in one of the plastic chairs that lined the wall.

“I was telling Levi that Chad needs to be seeing a therapist. This can’t happen again.” I sank into a chair next to her.

“I agree with that.”

“I don’t know what else to do for him. I’m hoping that will be enough for now.” I put my head in my hands.

“Honey, you’ve always done everything you could for him.”

“Yeah, everything but know that he needed help.”

“I didn’t know either, Becca, and I saw him every day. I didn’t know it was this bad. I knew he was upset about your mom dying, but that’s totally natural and normal. I had no clue he was this depressed. The important thing, though, is that we know now, and we can be proactive. I’ve already spoken to a few friends and gotten some recommendations for therapists. When Chad is feeling up to it, we can look through them together and find the best fit.”

I loved that Ruth could take charge of the situation. It felt good knowing that I wasn't alone in this anymore, and that we had people who loved us. “Thank you.”

“For what, honey?” She smiled.

“For being here. For all of it. You and Samuel have been lifesaving for us.”

She laid her hand on mine. “I’m a firm believer that sometimes we are placed in people’s lives for a reason. You and Levi found each other, and because of that, we found you and Chad.” She looked past me at Levi and smiled. Her capacity to love was something that I wasn’t accustomed to, but I was getting there.

Chad was released from the hospital a day later. Levi and I had to go back to school, but I promised to come back the next weekend to see him. Ruth sent me off with the reassurance that she was on top of the situation. I wasn’t alone anymore.

I
T WAS HARD TO CONCENTRATE
when so much had happened. I barely made it through my classes the first day back.

“Becca?” Caroline was beside me. I hadn’t even noticed her.

“What? I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I just said I got my confirmation for the Joffrey this summer!”

“Oh, that’s so awesome! We have to see if we can room together.”

She spent the next ten minutes chattering away about all of the exciting things we could do while we were in New York. “Why are you not more excited about this?” She studied me.

“I really am. I just have a lot on my mind right now. It feels like all my professors thought it was a great idea to assign papers to be due the same week. I have no idea how I’m going to get all of them done, and also make time for rehearsals for the spring show.”

“Maybe we could clone you? I’m sure the science department has figured out how to do that right?” She laughed. “Really, though, I know how you feel. I’ve been buried in homework for weeks. Speaking of which, I have a study group in five minutes. See you later at rehearsals?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

Whoever said college was supposed to be the most fun you’ll ever have was wrong. I don't remember ever being so stressed out. It seemed like I wasn't the only one, either. I saw Layla running from the dorm with a stack of books. “Sorry, can’t stop.” She waved and ran the other direction.

Sadie and Mel were inside in the common room with books piled around them. “Hey,” I said. They barely looked up and mumbled something before returning to their books.

I went into my room and flopped onto the bed. I knew I should start on at least one of my papers, but I was just so tired.

“Becca, wake up. We need to leave.” Frannie’s voice was in my ear.

“Don’t want to.”

“Come on, it will be fun. We’ll go exploring. We’ll take Chad out to the big rock we found last time.”

I could hear the anxiety in her voice, and I knew we had to leave. I got up and woke Chad up before we left in the early morning light. As we walked away, we could hear our dad screaming something and then glass crashing against the wall.

“It’s too early. I wanna go back to sleep.” Chad squirmed in my arms as we walked through the tall grass.

“I know, honey, but Frannie brought some blankets. You can sleep when we get there.”

Frannie and I walked in silence, both trying to calm down after leaving so fast. When we got to the clearing Frannie had been talking about, she laid out all the blankets and we tucked Chad in.

“Do you think it will always be like this?” She gripped my hand with her smaller one. “Do you think they will always hate us so much?” Her lip trembled.

“I don’t know. But I do know that I will always take care of you and Chad.” I pulled her against me and put my arm around her as we watched the sun rise.

I woke up with tears on my cheeks. When would the dreams stop? When would I just be able to move on?

I pulled my laptop out and got started on one of my papers, wishing I could stop thinking about Frannie. An hour later, Levi came in and sat next to me. “Is this the official study dorm? Those two are heavy into the books.”

“Must be, or maybe all of our professors have gone insane this week.” I didn’t look up from my work. “Did you come to study? Or to bother me?”

“Both. Mostly bother, or entice.” He slid my laptop away and pounced on me.

“Levi! As much fun as that sounds, I have, like, zero time for it.” I let him kiss me for another minute before trying to push him away.

“Hmm? There’s always time for this.” His lips were on my neck.

“Sadie and Mel are in the other room. This is so not happening. Not that I don’t really want it to. Rain check?”

He sighed and rolled off of me. “I just miss you.”

“I miss you, too. We’ve had a lot going on the last week. I promise I will make time for you this weekend. I only have two rehearsals.”

“Only two?” He chuckled.

“Hey, that’s not many, considering we’re weeks away from the show. I’ll carve out a few hours for you.”

“I can work with that.”

“So I can get back to my work now?” I grinned.

“If you must.” He pulled out his own laptop and we sat side by side and worked for the rest of the afternoon.

“Do you want to grab some dinner?” he asked as it got dark, stretching out on my bed.

“I wish. I have rehearsal in, like, fifteen minutes. What are you doing after? I’ll be starving by then.”

“I’ll meet you back here.” He kissed me lightly and gathered his stuff.

I worked for a few more minutes and then raced out the door to the studio.

“You’re cutting it close,” Caroline said when I ran through the locker room door.

“I know, I know. These papers are going to kill me. I will literally be dead by the time these are all done.”

“Come on, get dressed so we can go dance out all of our stress.”

“Nice of you ladies to join us.” Renatta was standing in the front of the room tapping her foot.

“Sorry.” I smiled apologetically and took my place next to Caroline at the barre.

Renatta led us through our warm up. “Plié.” She walked and studied us as she called out instruction. “Tendu. Dégagé.” She watched. “Rond de jambe,” she commanded.

By the end of barre, I was sweaty and so happy. We paired off and moved into pirouettes. “Caroline, Becca, if you would go first.”

We did our pirouettes gracefully across the floor, another duo following right after.

By the end of rehearsal, I was content. Stress was a thing of the past. Levi was waiting in my room when I came in. “You look happy.”

“I am.” I dropped onto the bed and kissed him, not caring that I was covered in sweat. He didn’t seem to mind, either.

“Mmm, this is an attitude I can get behind.”

“I’m going to shower and then you need to take me somewhere to eat before I eat my hand.”

“Hungry?”