Occiditur

Oh Miss Believer

Sam had taken Ami and moved back in with her parents. I called them to make sure they were okay, and her father cussed me out over the phone and told me never to contact his daughter again. He told me that she was going to stay with them until she found someone who treat her right.  

The next week a manila folder appeared in my mail.

I knew without having to open it that divorce papers laid inside. I refused to face them, again. I refused to read them, I refused to even look at them.

Mike and the other boys helped me move all of my belongings from the house me and Sam had shared to a country house I had bought for vacations. I decided that Sam should have the house and everything in it that was hers or ours. She deserved it.

When I got there I couldn't remember why I had ever bought it. It was drab, and secluded. Nothing happened in or around it. And I had to drive an hour to find civilization. I stocked the fridge with the needed food and took up drinking to get Sam and Ami off my mind.

Mike and Peter visited regularly. But never at the same time. They were no longer speaking to one another. A tremendous argument had broken out between the three boys in my absence. I dared not even ask what it had been about. I knew it would only dampen my mood. Not that it was bright in the first place. I was the farthest I've ever been in depression. Not a minute went by when I didn't think about a new way to end the suffering.

But one thing kept coming back.

I had always kept a gun under my bed.

I know what you're thinking: "You've had a gun this whole time and haven't thought to use it?"

But that's not the case. I've thought about it plenty of times. But have you ever seen the mess a gun to the head creates. I want to end my life yes but I don't want to have such gore associated with my death. But then again it is suicide, how much more graphic can you get?

Through all my fails it seemed that my options were being narrowed down to the revolver under my pillow. I cried myself to sleep each night above it, and every morning I woke up even more depressed than the day before, above it still. The gun dominated my thoughts during the day and my dreams at night.

When one of the boys came over to see me, not a thing would get accomplished. I had to listen to them complain about one another, and their crappy lives. Lives which to me sounded much happier than mine. For starters none of the others were clinically depressed. And I'm sure they would have mentioned it if they were. Each man brought me his personal struggles and I being a good friend, listened, and made them my own.

When they would leave, I would go to my room and curl up under my blankets, where I felt the safest, and I'd cry.

I sound absolutely pitiful, I can't help but wish that I'd stopped pitying myself. I accomplished no good feeling sorry for myself. Suicide is a selfish act, even though it seems quite the contrary at the time.

But I cannot change the past and at that moment in history I spent many hours crying. Sometimes I'd search my mind for the reason why I was sobbing and came to no conclusion. I cried over nothing and it made me angry that I couldn't name what I was depressed about.

Feelings of anger, grief, sadness, and regret built up inside me and boiled to a fever pitch so high I could scarce handle it. I allowed my mind to marinate on Sam, and Mike and Peter and Davy, and my failing career, and then I would pull the gun up from below the bed and stick it to my forehead. I would swear to myself that this was the night. I would pull the trigger and end it. I would bar my teeth and try my hardest to make my finger clinch.

But every night it was the same...

I would almost do it, and then a thought would jump across my consciousness. 'Ami needs her daddy. No matter how messed up; she needed him. Or eventually would need him.

The thought of my daughter never really knowing me forced the gun from my temple and returned it back to its rightful place, below the bed.

One morning I woke up to a knock on the door. I walked to the door expecting Davy or one of the others to be there waiting to spill all of their woes to me. But as I slowly pulled the wooden door inward I saw a flash of golden curls and bright pink. A flower of happiness in a world of desolation and despair.

Ami stood fidgeting on my porch.

She rushed to me as I opened the door the rest of the way. She grabbed my leg as I bent down to her level and scooped her into a gigantic hug.

"I love you so much." I whispered into her hair. I hugged her tight and rocked her from side to side. I kissed her head many a time and then let her go. I knew that Sam was there as well, but I didn't think I could face what she wanted to say to me without first showing my daughter the happiness she brought me.

"I need those papers Micky." Sam directed.

"Yeah, well I'm not signing them." I said angrily. I stood up and walked into my house, Ami skipping beside me. Sam followed me inside.

"You have to."

"I don't have to." I informed her. "I'm going through a tough time in my life, Sam. I don't need a divorce, I need you!" I yelled.

"If you wanted me, you should have been honest. You should have taken better care of yourself. You shouldn't have tried to kill yourself twice." She yelled back.

"Four times." I whispered with my head hung low.

"Four?!" She yelled. "That's news to me. When was the other time?"

I sighed loudly. "I tried to jump off the balcony at an auditorium the boys and I had that fight at. The second time I tried sitting in the road. Drowning was my third resort. The fourth, the overdose, that one was a mistake."

"Your right about one thing," She sighed. "It was a mistake."

I glared at her. "You know what I meant!"

"Do I Micky?" She asked. "I didn't know you hated yourself." Sam didn't look at me. She was examining a picture on the wall.

"Why did you come?" I asked in a whisper.

Sam sighed. "My daughter wanted to say goodbye. And I wanted those papers back."

I closed my eyes and took a long, deep breath. I stood with my hands on Ami's shoulders.

Samantha pushed past me into the kitchen. She came back with the papers and shoved them to my chest. I grabbed them to keep them from falling to the floor, but handed them right back to her after she let them go.

"You can forget it." I said calmly.

"Why can't you just set us free!?" She screamed and threw down the collection of documents. I stepped back so they wouldn't hit me. Sam and I stared angrily at each other for a long while. I then picked up my almost two year old daughter and carried her outside. I trotted down the stairs and into the yard.

"Where are you going with her!?" Sam yelled desperately.

"Just chill out! Im taking her outside to play so we can fight in peace." I topped this with a patronizing grin.

Sam stomped her foot and growled, obviously feed up with me.

I returned after telling Ami to go and play on a play set in the back yard.