What The Hell Happened Here?
Warning: This post contains graphic and potentially triggering content.
By Ashford Evans of Biscuits and Crazy
“I’m not ready for it to be over.”
His words jarred me from my drunken slumber as I tried to bat away his needy hands. He tugged at my waistband as I swatted at him. The liquor blurred my senses and my head was pounding.
“Go back to the couch. We’ve discussed this.” I tried to reason with him.
As he pawed at me groping, fumbling I noticed that something didn’t feel right. In my drunken haze I couldn’t quite put my finger on the offending factor.
“I love you,” he pleaded. He pulled at the straps of my tank top and I swiped at him with some annoyance. As I pulled the covers tightly up to my neck I realized what was out of place. Everything was wet. The sheets, the comforter, my pajamas, everything. My eyes snapped open in alarm and I bolted upright in the bed. By the light of the streetlamp streaming through my apartment windows I could see my cream-colored sheets covered in dark black pools. Confused and alarmed I flipped on the light to reveal that the bed, the sheets, he, and I were covered in blood.
“WHAT DID YOU DO??????” I screamed as I grabbed my phone and bolted out of the apartment into the frigid night. I frantically dialed 911 as my hands shook not from the cold but from the fear and confusion.
The operator asked me a series of mundane questions that I couldn’t answer. In my bewilderment I couldn’t so much as remember my address.
“I NEED HELP!” I screamed as the apartment door flung open and he staggered through the doorway. He stumbled toward the steps leaving a trail of blood behind him.
I managed to describe my apartment complex to the operator enough so that she could dispatch the units. I ran down the stairs following the trail of blood and found myself in the grassy area behind the building.
The wind whipped through the trees as I stood barefoot, in a tank top, covered in blood. The seconds crawled by as the moments seem to speed up. Finally the firetruck arrived followed quickly by the ambulance and the police.
They questioned me as I frantically and nonsensically tried to recount the story.
We had broken up a few months ago when he inexplicably showed up on my doorstep. (I guess it wasn’t “our” doorstep anymore.) He said he was in town for a job interview which I found strange as he had returned home to California several weeks prior. He asked if we could grab a drink to which I politely obliged.
As so often happens, one drink turned into two, which turned into too many. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves huddled in a back booth, both of us with tears streaming down our faces. We just weren’t right for each other. We were toxic. We sadly agreed upon this and embraced. He asked if he could stay the night on my couch (which had not so long ago been where he spent most of his nights). I agreed and we had several more drinks. We returned to the apartment and he made up the sofa as he had done so many times before. I retreated to the bedroom. I collapsed in the bed, my mind foggy from the alcohol and exhausted from the emotions. I quickly fell asleep only to be awakened by his searching hands.
The paramedics found him in an industrial park about two miles away. They had followed the blood trail down the sidewalk as it twisted around the apartment building, out onto the main road, and turned down a construction access road. There was that much blood.
I ran the whole way there still in my barefeet, numb to the 32 degree air by this point. By the time I reached the ambulance they already had him loaded inside and were performing life saving techniques.
“We can’t allow you to see him ma’am,” they said curtly. “You’ll have to return home.”
“Where are you taking him?” I pleaded.
They gave me the address of the hospital but advised that I clean myself up before making the trip. I looked down to see my pajamas dark red with blood. It was smeared up and down my arms and around my face and neck. My hair was matted and sticky, and I knew that it too was covered.
I walked back the two miles to my apartment alone. It was now 2 am.
As I topped the final stair on the third floor and rounded the railing I saw that my apartment door still stood wide open. I stepped inside and entered what looked like (what easily could have been) a murder scene. I stepped over the pool of blood in the entrance and continued down the hallway. Both walls were smeared with thick red streaks as if he had dragged his wrists along them as he tried to steady himself. The carpet was soaking wet and squished under my toes. As I made my way to the bathroom I saw why. The toilet bowl was smashed on the bathroom floor and there was two inches of standing water filling the room. The bathtub was full to the brim with deep red water and a bloody steak knife from my kitchen was carefully laid balancing on the rim. There are no words to describe how to take this scene in. I was numb.
The bedroom looked like a horror movie. The carpet flooded and covered in blood, the bed covered in blood, the sheets covered in blood, the walls covered in blood. What had happened here?
I pulled on a hoodie and a pair of jeans with out even wiping myself down. I tied my hair up in a knot, slipped on a pair of shoes, grabbed my car keys and made my way to the hospital. It was now 3 am.
The ER waiting room was deserted and the doors into the bays were locked. I buzzed on the intercom and fumblingly explained who I was. I was told I was not allowed to see the patient. I curled up in a chair in the corner and proceeded to fall asleep.
It was 5 am when I awoke. I buzzed the intercom again, and again I was told the patient didn’t want to see me. They also explained that he was being transferred to the mental facility, and there was nothing more I could do. I should return home
My face burned hot. I felt like they blamed me for his condition. That they saw me as a monster. Was I? Was this my fault? What the hell had happened?
When I returned to my apartment there was a police notice stapled to the front door. The carpet was ripped up and giant drying fans were placed throughout. The roar of the fans was deafening. The tub was still full of the bloody water and the knife was still on the ledge. I quickly drained the tub, turning on shower, and removed the knife throwing it in the kitchen sink. I peeled off my clothes thick with blood, sweat, and self-loathing. I stepped into the steamy shower and let the scalding water wash away the worst night of my life. I couldn’t feel anything.
Looking back it’s tough to know how to process this experience. Everything is conflicting. There is the very real possibility that instead of using the knife on himself he could have turned it on me. There is the deep guilt at knowing I was the cause of the pain that drove him to this point. There is the embarrassment of having the landlord call to discuss the damages and having to recount the story to her. There is the anger I feel towards him. I can’t even explain why there is so much anger. But it’s there. Burning deep inside me. Even now, 10 years later, it is smoldering. Then there is the relief that he lived and I lived and that we escaped what could have ended so differently. This is overlaid by the relief that the next day he boarded a flight back to California never to be heard from again.
It became a story, a memory. Locked in a dusty box buried in my past with so many things I have yet to understand. Maybe I never will.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ashford lives with her husband, three children, and three dogs in SC. When she’s not pregnant, breastfeeding, or polishing off a bottle of wine she is busy holding down her demanding sales career or working at their family owned business. She blogs about her crazy escapades and living life in between being the bread winner and the bread maker at biscuitsandcrazy.net or you can follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/
