Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
I was happy for Richard, I was. So friggin’ happy that he got a second chance at life. But all I could think of was Cillian. That maybe if I’d been better at CPR, I could have saved him. I could have brought him back and we could have gotten him help like Richard and these other men got help.
As the group shared their testimonies, their stories were all different, but one aspect shone out that was always the same. The disabling depression they were all suffering with. The oppressive disorder that made many feel like life was not worth living and that death was the only way out.
I knew Cillian had felt this. The note that still rested in my wallet told me so. And by the stories being told to me, I knew that many had suffered alone, in silence. But to my shame, the anger I had always felt toward Cill was still there. I’d been able to conquer my outbursts and the way the rage controlled my life. But when it came to how I felt about my brother, I couldn’t shake it. I was just so pissed at him. I stayed and listened to everyone’s story, to not be disrespectful to those opening up to me, but the minute the last person had spoken, I got up from my chair and exited the room.
I needed to breathe. I needed to move. Because Cillian could have told me. Should have. We were so close.
Why didn’t he just tell me?
“Cael?” Simon, the group leader, came to stand beside me as I paced the patch of green grass outside the retreat’s therapy room. I saw Leo in the doorway, watching on.
“I can’t,” I said through gritted teeth. “I can’t speak about it.”
Simon sat down on the bench nearby and said, “Can you sit?”
I didn’t want to. I felt charged with endless energy. I needed to run, to jog it off. I’d been running again every day, and my fitness was returning. It was helping. But now I wasn’t sure if running a million marathons would help cool this burning inferno inside of me. I didn’t want to be angry again. I couldn’t go back to that person I had been before.
“Please,” Simon said. Leo went back inside to the group. I didn’t think even he would get through to me right now. Simon waited several more minutes for me, until I sat down beside him. My leg still bounced, but I did as he asked. When I sat, I looked up at the palm trees and the bright sun. It was scorching, but I felt like winter inside.
“I didn’t share my story in there,” he said. I stilled but kept my gaze straight forward. “I didn’t try to take my own life.” I concentrated on breathing. I respected the men back there so much for telling me about themselves, about how depression had stolen everything from them until they felt no other way out but death. But I still couldn’t understand why Cillian had not told me how he was feeling. There were no two closer brothers. We’d told each other everything.
“When I was eighteen, my brother took his own life,” Simon said, and I stopped moving. I felt like a hammer had been taken to my chest. Slowly, I turned to Simon. He was staring up at the clouds but then met my gaze when he felt me watching him. His eyes still held some sorrow.
“I was like you. Angry. We were close, my brother and I. Thomas.” He smiled. “We did everything together. I was the youngest, just like you.” Simon sat forward, elbows on his legs. “And just like you, he didn’t tell me how he was feeling before he left us. I was furious. I became so angry it ate away at me like a disease. That was, until a therapist asked me a question that completely turned everything on its head.”
“What was that?” I asked, voice rough but laced with desperation. I wanted to know anything that could take this anger away for good. That would help me see Cillian differently than I did. I loved him. I just needed a way to understand.
Simon sat back and faced me again. “We all know that depression is a nasty, destructive mood disorder. But the problem is, many people skirt over just how debilitating it can be.” Guilt, swift and strong, wrapped around my heart.
Simon sighed. “Let me ask you this, Cael.” I hung off his every word. “If Cillian had had a terminal illness, if he’d had a long battle with, let’s say, cancer, would you be angry at him for dying?”
Just picturing Cillian dying that way made my stomach fall so low it was endless. “Of course not,” I said vehemently. “Who would think that?”