I found myself disappointed with death. I imagined a spectacle of lights with the voices of my dead friends and family beckoning to me from the other side, bribing me with peace and eternal rest. Instead, I was blinded by blackness and relieved that finally, I had erased my existence from Earth and had moved on to a better place. Quietly, a faint beeping sound echoed through the black fog. Could it be that I have company in my little hell? The beeping came again, and kept coming, growing louder and louder with each new wave of sound. It was then that I realized I was not in fact dead, but very much alive and confined to a hospital bed with an IV plugged into my body.

I inhaled a big breath and watched my chest rise, feeling my lungs filling up with air. Damn it, I thought, I was so close. I exhaled, but hiccupped and began to cry, my whimpering muffled by the starched bed sheets that were soaked with my salty tears. I didn’t plan to survive. I thought I covered all my corners, I thought my plan was foolproof. But, in my failure, I caused myself to suffer this fate that is worse than death: confrontation. A surge of shame and frustration pulsated through me like an electric shock; I bunched my hands into fists and slammed them against the bed, wincing with pain as my arms ignited with an invisible flame. I looked down at my forearms, bandaged almost all the way to my elbow. Scarlet blood had seeped through the gauze and was scattered across the white cloth like constellations. Tracing the patterns with my pinky finger, I laughed to myself. Emma Hart, prom queen and valedictorian, tried to kill herself? My poor mother, embarrassed by my public disgrace, is probably out there right now, trying to salvage what’s left of my reputation. I glanced around my hospital room, which was clearly empty. No cots, no belongings, no nothing. That woman will never change.

I screamed out loud, barely containing my excitement as I read my first acceptance letter into the prestigious Queens University. Bolting up the stairs, I ran to find someone to share the news with. My mother stood in the kitchen, sorting through the mail. One hand supported her back, recently diagnosed with arthritis, but she looked like she was generally in a good mood, a rare moment for my mother.

“Mom, I got accepted into Queens! Can you believe it?!” I spun around the kitchen holding my letter, twirling with girlish delight.

“That’s nice, Em.” She didn’t even look up from the fascinating mail pile to congratulate me. “Did you get a scholarship?”

I stopped in mid-spin, “No, well, at least not yet, I just need to get my average up – “

She looked up sharply, her eyes boring into mine, “I have expectations of you, Emma Louise, and you’re not meeting them.” She furiously slapped the pile of mail onto the counter, “This is unacceptable. You have to do better. “
I rubbed my wrists, trying to soothe the burning sensation that still lingered on my shredded skin. Oh God, I thought, she’s going to lock me away with a team of therapists and I’ll never see the light of day again.
“You’d be surprised at how compassionate your mother is,” said a low voice. I whirled around in bed, finding a man looking comfortable with one leg crossed over the other in one of the chairs lining the wall of the room. He was wearing a brown tweed suit, with a cream shirt and a blue tie. His shoes were impossibly shiny as if soaked in a bath of shoe polish. His pants slid up on the leg that sat upon his knee, revealing a sliver of ankle that was decorated with a small black cross tattoo. Wrinkles creased his eyes, but he had a young, tan face and a tidy beard with a mane of brown hair on his head. His bright green eyes glowed against his complexion, wide and round and full of mystery. He smiled curtly with his lips pressed together, waiting for my reaction.

“I have a variety of other words I’d use to describe her, compassionate not being one of them,” I said bitterly, looking straight into his eyes, “who are you anyways; a doctor maybe? Are you here to fix me?” I spit out each word as if they were dipped in poison.
“As a matter of fact, I am,” he chuckled, reaching a bony finger in his chest pocket to retrieve a white business card, which he handed to me. The card was blank except for small black font that read:
Dr. J. H. Elohim, PhD. Counselor

He must be Jewish, I thought, that sounds like an Ancient Hebrew name.
“I know you probably don’t want to talk to anyone right now, but – “
“You’re right, I don’t.”

His smile widened at my interruption, and it aggravated me further that I seemed to humour him. “But,” he said, “I can help. I need you to trust me. Believe it or not, I’m a professional.” He leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his glossy hair, “you know, you and your mother are strikingly similar. Both of you are so driven and determined with the goals you set for yourself. I know you cope with failure poorly, but I’m not the only one who is quite glad that you failed at this task.”
I looked away, feeling my cheeks turn rosy as I blushed furiously into my hospital gown.

“I know you didn’t want to survive. But death is not an escape from life, Emma. Death is the end, yes, but it is also the beginning of an entirely different adventure. This is why each person has their own time to leave this world. Now is not yours.” Dr. Elohim talked very matter-of-factly, almost as if he had died himself and come back to tell the tale, “Did you know that it was your mother who found you in the shower that morning?”

Heat washed over my face and I could feel my neck turning red. Guilt began tug at my heart until my chest hurt. That wasn’t a part of the plan. I could barely remember that night, but I was never supposed to be found. Ever. I let out a long shaky breath, moving my head side to side. “Everything went wrong,” I said, “I had it all mapped out, but I honestly don’t know what happened to it all. I just remember wanting to get it over with,” I mumbled, averting his piercing gaze, “is… is she okay?”
“Look at your bedside table.”

I turned, finding my favourite stuffed animal that I had been around since the day I was born. A small, tattered bunny leaned against the lamp on the table; it’s limp whiskers and crooked button eyes revealing its old age. I picked up the little guy, named Wabbit for simplicity’s sake, and stroked the matted fur on his paws, which felt newly damp with water. Suddenly, as quick as a coin flip, I was overwhelmed with a strange episode of déjà vu and I knew someone had cried into Wabbit’s poor little paws. “My mother was here, wasn’t she?” I asked.

Dr. Elohim nodded. “Yes, she was. You already know what she said to you, don’t you?”

I remembered the room now; I had been awake the night before but only barely. The morphine blurred my vision and saturated everything, blinding me with an overdose of colour. For this reason, my eyelids were only slightly open, and I looked sound asleep. The IV beeped persistently beside me, and I heard the soft cries of my mother who held her face in her hands while hugging the weary little bunny.

“I’m so sorry Em.” She whispered. Too drugged to register the shock, I lay motionless, and waited.

“I am so proud of you, and I am sorry I never told you. I let you down, Emma, please don’t leave me.” She took a breath, and began to cry again, and kept crying for a little while. The morphine was strong and I felt myself fading away, my vision starting to flicker. “I love you to the moon and back,” she muttered before I totally blacked out, the room disappearing into darkness.

Dr. Elohim watched me intently from across the room, and I wiped my eyes, embarrassed again.

“It’s okay to feel the way you’re feeling Emma. It’s normal to feel angry.” He said, his voice as steady as an anchor. I was surprised he knew I was angry, but I was already bursting with emotions, my bottled up rage finally unleashed like an animal from its cage.

“That b****,” I sneered, letting myself cry in front of him, “ how… how dare she say that now, after everything she put me through, after everything that has happened.” I began to pull my hair, an old habit I had when I was frustrated. “Nothing I ever did good enough for her. It is nearly impossible to live up to her expectations, and it killed me that I was worthless to her. “ There. I said it. I shook with heavy, uneven breaths, but already I felt myself starting to relax. It felt so good just to say it, to just let it out.

“But that’s not all, is it?” he prompted.

“She just needed me to be the best in everything. I used to love school and playing sports and being involved, but I began to hate it. I hated it all. I woke up everyday, already defeated. It takes all the energy I have to get out of bed in the morning. It just… felt like I was drowning.” I looked up at Dr. Elohim, sniffling and wiping my nose. He hummed with understanding; his big eyes seemed to be all knowing. “I couldn’t see a way out of my own misery. I felt so hopeless.” I had never said this out loud before, but it was rejuvenating to release these secrets I had buried so deep.
“They almost didn’t save you, you know.” Dr. Elohim said, standing up and walking over to the window, brushing the curtain to the side. The faint rays of morning light poured in from the window. It was almost 7am. “You were a miracle, actually,” he continued, staring out at the view, “You were technically dead for 1 minute and 37 seconds before they restarted your heart.” The doctor pushed up the musty window, and I could hear birds singing and the rustle of leaves in the trees outside. “You and your mother both, you rush through this life, trying to succeed in everything you can and achieve all these wonderful goals. But you are missing the point,” he gestured out the window at the start of a beautiful day, “THIS is what life is all about! Each new day brings lessons to learn, moments to enjoy and hardships to endure. Each new day will change you and mold you into the person you are meant to be. You must embrace life with both hands, Emma, and ride the waves of both happiness and tragedy. Never stop feeling, do you understand?”

I stared in wonder at this man, spouting wisdom like a Greek Oracle. I was speechless.
“You beat the odds. You survived. Don’t ever think you were given a second chance just because. You have a purpose on this Earth and in you resides the power to make a difference. You are so strong, Emma, I want you to know that.” He came over to the bed and sat down, placing both hands on my shoulders. “And your mother needs you. She may never show it, or tell you, but you are the only thing that keeps her going. She lives for you.” His thumb brushed my cheek, wiping the tears away. “Don’t lose focus on what’s truly important, Emma Louise Hart, you have so little time in this chapter of your life.”
I gave him a confused look. How did he know my middle name? He smiled back at me just as the door to my room creaked open, and a nurse waddled in.
“Oh, lovely to see that you’re awake dear, Dr. Karpinski would like to check up on you.”
“I’ve already seen a doctor,“ I turned to look for Dr. Elohim, who had vanished from the foot of my bed. He was gone, and I assumed the side effects from the painkillers had muddled my memory. “Never mind, I guess.”
The nurse smiled and waddled out again, leaving me alone with the window open and a warm breeze blowing in; it was almost summer. The doctor’s white business card still lay on my bedside table. I picked it up and scanned it for any other details, perhaps a number or an email, but there was nothing. I called the nurse back into my room, asking if she could search the doctor on a Google Browser. She came back 5 minutes later, grinning to herself.
“You teenagers think you’re so funny,” she said to me with a twinkle in her eye, “Elohim means God in Hebrew. A real person would not have such a surname, that would be blasphemous.” She gave me the card and left the room again, clucking at me like a mother hen. Confused, I reread his name, analyzing each letter. At once, all the pieces fell into place.
I could have sworn that I heard a familiar chuckle echo around the room, but for the first time in a long time, I was happy to be alive. Thank God.