True Confessions. Electa Rome Parks

know what’s going on. I’m kinda tired. I think I’m going to nap for a while.”

      Even though I didn’t see her face, I knew Mother was staring at me with that worried expression on her butter-pecan face. It was the expression she tried so hard to disguise when I was looking directly at her.

      “Baby, that is not acceptable. You just woke up. You’ve only been awake a little over an hour. We have a beautiful day ahead of us and you can’t spend it sleeping all day.” To prove her point, Mother strolled over to my bedroom window and boldly opened my mini blinds so that the early morning sunlight greeted me with a blinding, direct glare.

      I groaned and shielded my eyes with the back of my hand.

      “Here, sit up,” she commanded, attempting to fluff up my down pillows, and gently propping them behind my back. She reached for the journal that sat on my nightstand.

      “Why don’t you write in your journal for a while?” she asked, holding it out to me like she was offering a piece of candy to a small child.

      “Mother, I really don’t—”

      “That nice doctor said that writing down your thoughts would help you, be therapeutic. Help you come to grips with this, uh, this situation. Here. Take this and let me go and find you a pen. Or do you prefer a pencil?”

      “A pen is fine, Mother.”

      Reluctantly, I sat up completely and resigned myself to writing in my new journal. Actually, I had kept journals in the past, especially during my college days when life was so new and exciting. I wrote everything down. Up until that point, I had led a somewhat sheltered life.

      Reading and writing were major parts of my life; at least, they were before Drake. Reading took me to places I had never been and enabled me to meet bold and exciting new friends. In my books, female heroines did and said things I could only imagine and read about. They were powerful. Something that I wasn’t.

      Maybe if I pleased Mother, cooperated, and pretended to feel better, she would go home, back across town to her townhome, sooner rather than later.

      Today was my first full day back home from the hospital and Mother decided on her own that she’d move in with me and nurse me back to my old self. The problem was that I didn’t know if I wanted to go back to my previous existence. I didn’t like the old me.

      “There you go, baby,” she said, walking back into the room and handing me the Uni-ball purple pens I adore.

      “Thank you.”

      “You entertain yourself and I’m going to clean up around here until lunchtime. What do you feel like eating today? I know you are glad to be away from that nasty hospital food.”

      I shrugged my shoulders because I really didn’t care. Food was the furthest thing from my mind at the moment.

      That didn’t derail Mother; she continued to chitchat. “What about a nice salad and a baked chicken breast?”

      “That’s fine.” I attempted to offer a smile.

      Mother seemed pleased as she ran her hand across my dresser top. “You really should dust around here. Got dust bunnies everywhere. I found one behind your sofa that was big as a small cat. You know I didn’t raise you like that.”

      “Okay, could you shut my bedroom door behind you? Please?”

      There it was again. That look. I saw that look flash across her pretty face again. Just for a quick moment, a second. If you weren’t careful, you’d miss it. That look that said she was afraid to close the door. Afraid of what I might do to myself behind closed doors. Frightened I might try to hurt myself again.

      “Mother, I’ll be fine. I promise. I’ll call you if I need anything.” I even managed a faint, small smile again.

      Hesitantly, Mother left my bedroom and closed my door, with an inch left ajar. That inch spoke silent volumes. I heard her moving around in my living room and tiny kitchen. Drawers were opened and closed. Water was run in the kitchen sink. I lay back and closed my eyes as I felt that familiar blackness attempt to engulf me; completely overtake me. I pulled my comforter around me like a cocoon of protection and security. My temples were throbbing.

      Meanwhile, in the living room, the vacuum cleaner started up, with Mother humming loudly in the background. Crooning one of her favorite tunes, “Amazing Grace”. Then, I heard the familiar sounds of a morning talk show coming on. There was definitely no sleeping now. I looked down and once again examined my brand-new leather journal and thought why not. It had tons of blank, lined pages to write on. Maybe if I wrote some of my thoughts down, I could make some sense of the turn my life had taken. But where to begin? I remembered a college professor telling us that every story has a beginning, middle, and ending. Simple enough. I’d start at the beginning.

      Chapter 2

      My name is Kennedy and I’m a coward. Coward. Such a small, simple six-letter word. A word that has applied to me for most of my life. I know I’m a coward. Always have known. I accept that fact just like I accept air to breathe for my very existence. I’ve been afraid of so many things during my twenty-eight years of life. Ask Mother and she’ll tell you how, as a child, I was afraid of spiders, snakes, rats, hairy monsters, and, the biggest one of all, the dark. Like most children, I was a big scaredy cat when it came to dealing with those imagined or unimagined fears and things that go bump in the night.

      For most people, when we become adults, our fears subside. Not me. I’m still afraid. I’m terrified of not being loved. I’m afraid of not being wanted. Of saying the wrong things. I’m afraid of showing my true nature. I’m afraid of saying no and standing up for myself. Bottom line, I’m petrified of living life to the fullest for fear of someone disapproving. And that’s how all my problems begin and end. Plain and simple, I’m a coward because I realize these things and won’t do anything about them. It’s easier to turn a deaf ear and hope they’ll magically go away. Not.

      Don’t let anyone tell you any different. It’s easier to take your life than to deal with your reality. Taking your life, committing suicide, doesn’t take an ounce of courage. The courage is in living and tackling your issues head on.

      I guess you’ve figured it out by now. I survived my suicide attempt—thanks to Mother. You see, she calls me every Sunday night at exactly seven o’clock P.M. on the dot. Rain or shine. She never fails. You can set your watch by her, almost to the second. We use this time to catch up on our individual weeks, even though we don’t live that far from one another. The majority of the time, it is Mother who goes on and on about something or another. I usually listen and make a comment here and there to let her know she still has my captive, undivided attention.

      I consumed the bottle of pills at approximately 6:45 P.M. Talk about a pathetic case of crying out for help. Could I have been any more obvious? When the cordless phone sitting on my nightstand started to ring at exactly seven o’clock P.M., I couldn’t ignore it. With each ring, the noise became louder and louder as it wracked my nerves to no end. I just had to pick up the receiver and hear her voice one last time. By seven o’clock, I was slipping fast into an unconscious state, but I had enough strength to murmur a faint greeting.

      You can figure out most of the rest. As I had predicted, even through my haze, when I heard Mother’s voice, I told her everything the best I could in my foggy state of mind. I stumbled on about Drake and how unworthy, undesirable, and unhappy he made me feel.

      Mother kept me talking, awake, sent help, and saved my life. She was able to dial 911 on her cell as she talked and listened to me on her home phone. The doctor on call in the emergency room pumped my stomach, and then I rested as comfortably as I could for the remainder of the night.

      I vaguely recall Mother faithfully by my side, holding my hand and uttering soothing words in between her muffled, hidden sobs. I turned my head away because I couldn’t bear to see the sadness in her brown eyes, unhappiness that I had placed there. The nurse asked who Drake was because she said I called out for him a few times in my fretful sleep. I dreamt