Pieces of a Mending Heart Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. No part of this publication may be reproduced , stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 978-1478352938

  ISBN-10: 1478352930

  Copyright © 2012 by Kristina M. Rovison. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph by Kourtney Selak, contact website www.wix.com/kourtneyselak/photography

  For my mother, Kelly. Your strength inspires me daily.

  “I got off track, I made mistakes.

  Back slid my way into that place where souls get lost,

  Lines get crossed,

  and the pain won’t go away.

  I hit my knees, now here I stand!

  There I was, now here I am…

  Here I am,

  Changed.”

  -Changed, Rascal Flatts

  Pieces of a Mending Heart

  Kristina M. Rovison

  Chapter 1

  Loathing clings to you like thousands of miniscule spider webs, invisible yet entirely encompassing. No amount of time, nor wind or rain can wash the webs from your soul. Buried deep within, they claw their way deeper into your flesh, until all you see, all you feel, is their spiny fingers gripping tighter with your every move. Their vice-like presence sends a fog over you, in which you comprehend nothing, feel nothing, see or hear nothing. Nothing, but the hatred that fills your heart with every step you take. Still breathing, still walking, blinking, eating and drinking; in every physical way, you are technically human.

  What people can’t see is the screaming madness within, slowly seeping towards the surface of a visibly healthy looking person. What people can’t see is the red of your blood turning to gray nothingness as your heart beats out the contempt that floods your inner being. The body is a shell, nothing more than a fleshy exterior that is not only temporary, but breakable. It can function on autopilot for days, weeks, years, without ever having a connection to the person possessing it.

  This is the beginning of what I thought was the end, the time I would end my suffering here on Earth and join the loved ones from my past. Shivering, though the water was burning hot, I sit in the bathtub, holding the knife in my right hand. “Goodbye,” I think to myself. There is no point in saying the words out loud when no one is here to hear me say them. As soon as the word echoes through my brain, the notebook that contains my suicide letter drops off the counter to the floor with a thwack.

  It was surprisingly easy to make my decision, the quickness of the cold blade against the vulnerable skin of my wrists. I sit in my parents’ bathtub as I slash away my woes, each drop of blood hitting the water like a burden off my shoulders. Nothing happens the way I thought it would, though. No flashing bright lights, no trumpets sounding from Heaven, not even the cliché “flash-back” moments seen in countless movies. Just, nothing. Nothing but the pain in my wrists and the thumping of a long dormant heart…

  It has been so long since I’ve felt anything; it’s been forever since my heart seemed to beat in tune with my mind. I heard once, somewhere, that the mind stays living a few seconds after the body dies. Whether or not this is true, I can’t be certain, especially now. It feels as if I have been lying here forever, sitting, waiting for the burdens to be swept away.

  Then, I hear it. I didn’t know that light was something that could be heard, but I know instantly what it is. I open my eyes and see myself, lying fully clothed in my parents’ bathtub, face inches below the surface of the water. Looking down at myself, I barely recognized the skinny body that I had once called my own. The light, a ringing in my ears that is indescribable, urges me to look up from the dead body below me.

  I look up to see a man standing there, not three feet away from me. If my heart was still beating, it would have been sent into overdrive.

  “Katherine, what a fool you have been my child,” the man says.

  I do nothing, refusing to speak, but I feel my mouth open. Instead of sound, words fall out. Literally, words fall to the ground, rising through my throat, leaving their bitter taste on my tongue, and passing my lips as they clatter to the ground in an organized array. Not forming any specific sentences, the various words shape themselves into a square formation, their bold letters standing out from the pale tiles of the bathroom floor.

  “Read them,” commands the man.

  Having no choice but to obey, I sink to my knees as I read the words sprawled on the floor. Aloud, I begin to read: “greed, jealousy, hatred, lust, bitterness, grief, fear, shame, blame, regret, remorse, apathy, refusal…”

  The voice that says the words sounds like my own, but I am not in control of my vocal cords at the moment. My entire being feels like it is being electrocuted, hair standing on end and skin whirring with energy. I look down at my hands, flexing and bunching my muscles, feeling the smooth skin of my long fingers gliding along each other.

  “Who are you?” I ask the man, feeling the need to avert my eyes from his gaze.

  “Dear Katherine, you have made a rather unwise decision, have you not?” he says with a grim look on his face as he gestures to my lifeless body in the water.

  Again, I feel the need to look away when speaking to him, as if his skin is emitting a bright invisible light. The ringing in my ears ceases when he speaks, as if the world around us is drowned out simply by his presence.

  “Who are you?” I repeat, growing slightly panicked. Where is Heaven? If I don’t deserve Heaven, where is Hell? Something, anything, would be better than having to stare at the body I have willingly chose to leave. There’s something eerie about having to watch myself bobbing up and down in the steamy red water, and I’m not feeling much at peace.

  “Katherine,” he says, placing his hand on my shoulder. The moment he touches me, my woes disappear. Like the steam from the water that helped end my life, they float to the ceiling of the bathroom and cloud the mirror with their dreariness. “Katherine, why have you chosen to end the life I have given you? These words,” he gestures towards the pile of words on the floor, “hold an opportunity. I cannot allow you to enter my Kingdom when it is not your time. My daughter, so much is in store for you. Tell me, what made you think life was so worthless? What made you think your problems weren’t something we could work through together? I have plans for you, Katherine,” he finishes, shaking his handsome head.

  I feel the desire to drop to my knees and beg for forgiveness. What have I done? God is standing before me, telling me how disappointed he is in my decisions and I have no chance to undo my wrongs. I killed myself to leave my demons behind, but if I paid attention to the years of church sermons I had attended, I would have known my sins could not be washed away with death.

  What now? There are no words for what I am feeling; there is nothing but despair and longing… longing for a second chance. There is nothing, no erratic heartbeat, no heaving for air or salty tears to stain my cheeks. For the better part of my life, this is what I wanted. I ached to be devoid of any emotions at all and be spared from a broken heart. There is too much pain, too little happiness and too much sorrow, so it would be best not to feel at all in this world I feel so disconnected from.

  I was dead wrong. There is not a thing I wouldn’t do to change the fact that I am unfeeling at this moment. The despair that filled me moments ago is gone, replaced by a terrifying nothing
ness that seems to sink into my core. This scares me more than anything ever has before, because I can feel myself slipping away into a black pit of bleak emptiness.

  I feel the weight of a hand on my head and look up, forcing the fingers to slip away. I immediately crave their warmth, the happiness they bring with their touch, but God speaks to me and his words fill my heart with hope.

  “Katherine, you know you made a mistake. You know it is too late to reverse the unchangeable. But Katherine, what you don’t know is of my willingness to give you a second chance. You possess a truly magnificent soul, my child. A soul fashioned in my image; a soul that needs nothing more than love and kindness to bring it out of the depths you continually fall into.

  “Stand up,” God continues, grasping my cold hands in his warm ones. “These words are so much more than they appear. These words are the key to your eternal happiness. If you wish to be granted a second chance, this is your only opportunity. There is so much in you. You need to fight the darkness and not give into it!” he says passionately, making my eyes widen.

  “Heaven is not ready for you, my child. And, quite frankly, you are not ready for Heaven. If you wish to be granted a second chance, say the words and your heart will start beating again. You’ve made this choice before, so listen to your soul.”

  My mouth opens, words threatening to explode into the quiet room around us. A second chance? Am I really willing to go back to the world I intentionally left? There is no time for drawn out decisions, it is now or never. Literally.

  Without my consent, my voice fills the room. “Please,” it says, my eyes falling closed and head bowing.

  I can feel God’s smile burning into my skin, filling me with a yearning I didn’t know existed. “My child, you will do wonderful things. I have sent you an angel, the one to bring you from darkness and into the light. Keep your eyes open, Katherine, because he is not an angel in your sense of the word,” God continues, quietly.

  “What are the words for, Father?” I ask meekly.

  “These,” he again motions towards the square on the floor, “are what you must face when you return. They are your punishment, but also a necessity. Your soul has been fractured for too long, child. Your back has been turned and these are the reciprocations.”

  “Sir, if I deserve punishment, why are you giving me a second chance?” I ask, unable to ignore my curiosity.

  “Katherine, punishment is different than damning you to an eternity in Hell,” he says patiently. “Not one of my children is perfect, but all are worthy of a second chance. I will send you back to Earth, but you will face the consequences of your act. These words I have laid out will be experienced by you; emotions and situations that you will inevitably experience. These experiences will transform you into who you need to be. You have spent so much time cutting me out, Katherine. It is time you feel again, and this is where you begin.”

  He walks towards my dead body and I notice for the first time that he is barefoot. There is a halo of azure blue light around his head, which surprises me considering the person in which it surrounds. I thought halos were supposed to be yellow or orange, not blue.

  Without warning, he turns around, smiling peacefully. “Blue is your favorite color, Katherine. I am everything you have ever loved and more. My Kingdom is waiting for you, but you must let me make the proper decisions. You must fight Satan and sin, because there will be no more chances. Look for your angel, he will make everything right again,” he finishes.

  “Will I experience these all the time, Father?” I whisper, feeling fearful.

  God offers me a small smile. “No, Daughter, you will not. When the time comes, you will feel them much stronger than anyone else ever has, but if you follow the course you’re meant to follow, your time in Earthly purgatory will be short. This is your punishment, but it will make you stronger, Katherine; this will right your wrongs. Not feeling has been an option for you for far too long. Not everything in this world is evil, despite what you may think,” he shakes his head sadly.

  “Father?” I say as he continues to look at me, “I am sorry I betrayed you. I am sorry I am not who I was meant to be.” My eyes feel strange, as if being pricked by needles, as if I am crying tears of vinegar. I cry out, hands coming to my face, but God stops me.

  “Katherine, you are exactly who you are meant to be. All your conscious mind has to do is find that strand that connects your inner-mind to your heart, and it will. Do good with the gifts you are given, child,” he says, placing his hand on my head. The pain immediately subsides, leaving me breathless as I watch wisps of black smoke float to the ceiling of the steam filled bathroom.

  God seems to notice my distraction and gestures to the smoke. “Your sins,” is all he says.

  “Thank you, Father. I will do my best,” I say, looking in his eyes, which are an indescribable green-blue color. Almost like turquoise.

  “Your angel will be searching for you as well, Katherine. Be happy, my child. He is your light,” the Lord says, walking backwards until he stands in the water of the bath with my dead body.

  Never turning his back on me, he puts both his hands out in front of him and splays his fingers in the air over my chest. The bathroom door opens with a squeak and my mother walks in, head down. As she sees my body, I hear her intake of breath before a strangled sob escapes her mouth. She screams and I feel myself slipping. The Lord’s face is the last thing I see before my world flips to black.

  Chapter 2

  Five months later, I am sitting in the first class section of the airplane destined for Shields Valley, Montana- population 2,013. My parents have decided it is best for me to take a break from the fast paced life of a seventeen-year-old Chicago girl and to spend a bit of time breathing in the crisp Montana air.

  I will spend my senior year in a new school, boarding with an aunt I have met no more than three times in my young life. It seems to get an extended vacation all one needs to do is add “mentally unstable” to their rap sheet. The irony of life and its’ simplicities…

  My mind flashes to the day I woke up in the hospital’s psych ward. The lumpy pillow under my head, squeaky bed wrapped in cellophane, flimsy white sheet lying on top of me, and the man standing just outside my door, all added to a very dramatic wake-up. My once icy mother turned into a doting stranger as she took in the bandages wrapped around my wrists, carrying on about how sorry she was that I felt like I didn’t have anyone to turn to.

  She is a coward. This is not the first time one of her children has been in the nuthouse, you see. My older brother, David, committed the same heinous act that I did; it must be hereditary to feel the desire to pull your own plug. When I was fifteen, I remember feeling panic as I raced through the house to get the telephone, terrified I wouldn’t get help in time. Like the cowards they were, my parents sent him away to a reform school in Toronto. He never came back.

  No, he didn’t die. He just got smart. David writes to me twice a month, telling me to be strong and that things will get better. But the thing is they aren’t getting better. My parents, who I would be lucky to see for an hour every day, have never been my parents. Blood is nothing but an Earthly tie to these deplorable bodies we are forced to possess.

  PANG. A knife is twisted into my stomach as I feel the hatred creep in. Like physical pain, I feel the burn twirling my intestines into a jumble of pebbles, leaving a stinging ache in its wake. I take a deep breath, focusing on the pleasant things in life.

  Thankfully, the hatred subsides quickly. I am not angry with God, you see. I am angry at my parents for being who they are. Actually, I have become what many teenagers would call a “religious freak” since my “death” five months ago, but there is no possible way to explain my meeting with God to anyone without getting chucked right back into the ward, so I keep that little tidbit to me, myself and I.

  I remember everything that happened that night with sharper clarity than I have remembered anything before. Meeting God is not something I have ever consider
ed, ever actually thought about happening. Sure, I didn’t think suicide was very serious at the time. I never considered whether or not I would wake up in heaven or hell, which was actually the point. I just never wanted to wake up.

  The drugs weren’t helping much in my decision making at the time, but now I’m cleaner than a preacher’s daughter. Doing drugs was my escape; they were the only things that made me feel. It’s pretty impressive actually, getting away with using drugs for as long as I did. The private all-girls Catholic high school wasn’t as observant as they should have been and, being the rebellious teen that I was, I took full advantage of the fact.

  I run my fingers over the fading scars on my left wrist, the constant reminder of not only my breaking point, but of my meeting with God. He told me to look for my angel, so I have ardently been keeping my eyes open. There was a boy on my street named Angel, but I had never spoken to him because he was three years younger than me. There was the occasional attractive stranger that caught my eye and even some fellow head-cases in the hospital, but none of them seemed any different than anyone else. I’m expecting fanfare: strobe-lights, trumpets, ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Hark the herald angels sing’ playing in the distance as the lights dim… you know, the whole shebang.

  Since I met God- which I’ve grown to refer to as “the meeting” – I feel the way I felt before I grew up, at the time where complete innocence embraced me.

  Feeling the anger creep back into my blood, I take a deep breath and come back to the present. My angel better show himself pretty soon, or else I might have to resort to drastic measures. Maybe an ad on Craigslist, I joke to myself. Thinking about my angel makes me wonder… Is he going to be my age? A best friend? A lover? A teacher, maybe? Just an inspiring, influential person to bring me avoid the pit that is eternally hovering around my ankles?

  Maybe I should stop looking for him. If it’s destined by God that we meet, it will happen soon enough. I trust Him wholly, believing with all my heart that my elusive protector will be someone fantastic. Just thinking about the possibilities sends my heart into an uneven gallop, flushing my face and gracing my features with a small, rare smile.