It felt like it came out of nowhere the morning it all went down. Tori woke up and left the house without saying goodbye. That was completely unlike her. Before that morning, I would be woken up by her fingertips stroking lines up and down my torso. She’d have her head on my chest, looking up at me with her beautiful eyes until I opened mine. Then she’d smile, the smile I fell head over heels for way quicker than I had ever fallen for a smile. But when I woke up alone, I knew something wasn’t right, even if we had only been dating a few months. I called her phone a number of times, but she must have had it off or pushed my calls right to voicemail. It must have been less than an hour before I heard the front door of my place open and close, followed by the bathroom door slamming shut. Less than five minutes later, that same door flew open and Tori ran out, left the house and didn’t come back for an entire week.
When she finally came back, she informed me that she spent the week trying to get an abortion before anyone found out, but she was already past the point of time doctors would do unnecessary abortions. We had no clue she was pregnant until she was twenty-five weeks and her stomach started to grow. It was never a thought in either of our minds since we were being extra careful, sort of.
I tried not to overreact when she told me what she had been trying to accomplish, but I failed at that. Someone else was trying to take a child away from me, and I lost it. I lost it like she lost it. We both fucking lost it. Then she mentioned the word adoption and it wasn’t pretty. I told her she could go away, and I’d take care of our baby. She seemed surprised by this, considering neither of us wanted kids. At first, I thought she was scared to tell me she was pregnant, for fear of my reaction, but as time passed, I realized it was never me she was afraid of. It took a week of fighting for her to give up the battle. I promised her marriage. I promised her a good life. I promised our family would be okay, and we’d grow to love the idea of having a child in our lives. I must have been pretty damn convincing, but I haven’t been able to fulfill those promises, because in order to do that, Tori would have had to ignore all the reasons she didn’t want kids—and apparently she can’t do that.
Lost in my rationalization for her behavior, I didn’t see her hand reach up to the counter and grab the pill bottle. I didn’t see her pour more pills into her hand or mouth, but I hear a crash and open my eyes to see that the bottle is on the floor, broken, there are pills spilled out, and Tori’s collapsing heavily to the floor as if she were attached to a falling anchor. The glass of vodka falls from her grip, and she crumples into a loose ball right here, on the middle of the kitchen floor.
I should have seen the signs. I should have done something about them. This is my fucking fault. I’ll probably never know what made her like this, because she’s likely going to die on this goddamn floor tonight. Shit! Where’s my phone?
“Tori!” I leap across the floor, falling on top of her. “Tori, how many of those pills did you just take? Answer me, babe. Tori!” I press her eyelids up, finding nothing but the whites of her eyes. Jumping to my feet, I circle around the house wildly until I find my phone on the coffee table in the living room. With complete disbelief that I have to call an ambulance for her, I dial the number carefully, feeling like I’m asleep and stuck in some awful nightmare. The words coming out of my mouth are words I’ve never had to use before.
“I think my wife overdosed on Valium. She said she wanted to hurt herself but I was watching her. I took my eyes off of her for less than a minute and—”
“Sir,” the operator addresses me. “I need to ask you a couple of questions. Please state your full name and your address so we can send someone over.”
“It’s uh, Fifty Lightside Lane in Parkett.”
“Okay, please wait for a brief hold so I can get you to the Parkett Police Department.”
The hold feels like more than a pause as I wait for someone to pick up.
“Parkett Police Department,” a man answers.
I explain once more what happened and the questions continue. “Okay, sir, can you give me your name and address?”
“I repeat all of the information I gave a moment ago, waiting for more direction on how I can help her.
“And which room in your house is she currently located in?”
“The kitchen,” I answer, sitting down beside Tori. “Now what?” I ask.
“AJ, I need you to stay calm. Can you tell me if she is conscious?”
“No, she’s not. I can’t wake her up. I have a baby here. I don’t know what to do.” I’m panicking. I can’t do this to Gavin. I’ve watched what Hunter and Olive have gone through without a wife and a mother, and I’ll be damned if I put Gavin through the same pain.
“Okay, can you tell me if she’s breathing?”
I place my fingers in front of her nose, feeling a bit of air flowing. “Yes, she is. I’m not sure how well, though.”
“That’s great. That’s good, we want her breathing right now. I need you to sit with her and continue to make sure she’s breathing. Help is on the way.”
“Okay, I’m real worried about her,” I tell him.
“Do you know what kind of pills she took, AJ?”
I grab the bottle from the ground, spinning it around, trying to focus on the name again to make sure I read it right the first time. “Valium.”
“Do you know how many she took?”
“I didn’t know she had the prescription, and I don’t know how many pills were in the bottle. I took my eyes off of her for only a second.”
“Okay, does she have a medical condition needing the Valium at the moment?”