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Short Story / Coming Undone (Analysis)
Coming Undone
Kimberly sat in her king size bed smoking a Marlboro menthol and staring at the pill bottle that lay atop her designer satin purple and silver bed sheets with tears in her eyes. The bottle was small and orange with a white child safety cap, the label had been torn off, and the bottle contained twenty-three 30 mg oxycodone (also known as percocette).
She had spent every last dollar that she had on those pills. She had bills to pay, but didn’t care. The young girl of twenty years old was lost, scared, alone, and didn’t know what else to do. Kimberly had made a decision…that decision was to quit.
Her tears streamed down her face and fell to the black “inkaholic” tank top that she was wearing. She reached over to the desk, grabbed a hair tie, and pulled her waist-length dark red hair into a ponytail.
Kimberly was a bit hysterical at this point. Thousands of thoughts were creeping and crawling through her head like newborn cockroaches taking their first steps in this hell/Earth. She kept thinking that she didn’t want to do it…but she felt that she had no other choice. “I am out of options.” She thought to herself. For a year, Kimberly had slowly become a junkie. In the beginning it was one pill here and one pill there. “I’m not an addict, and I can handle this.” She told herself and her friends every day. Eventually, however, it became a problem. Ten pills a day, sometimes twelve occasionally even fifteen to twenty. Kimberly had become a different person, stealing and lying, stopping at nothing in order to get her next fix. She disappointed herself and although only a handful of people knew about her secret addiction, she felt as if she was disappointing everyone around her as well. “If only those who were once so proud of the person I was knew what I had become…” She thought to herself.
About and hour later, after pounding on the door until his knuckles were bruised, and screaming her name repeatedly, Kimberly’s dad, Joey, removed the doorknob to her door and let himself and her mother, Lisa, in, only to find their twenty year old daughter lying dead in a pool of vomit in the bed. Lisa grabbed Kimberly’s cell phone and immediately dialed 9-1-1. Joey checked his child for a pulse but found nothing. “She’s gone.” He told Lisa as he held his daughter’s lifeless body in his arms, sobbing uncontrollably.
The ambulance came and rushed her to the hospital. Lisa rode in the ambulance and Joey followed in his Jeep. When they arrived, Joey and Lisa sat in the waiting room holding onto one another, each desperately trying to comfort the other. They both knew the exact words that were going to come out of the doctor’s mouth when he finally emerged from the operating room, and when he did, he came out with a look of empathy on his face. Lisa began to sob as Dr. Miles said, “I’m sorry. We pumped her stomach, but she just took too many…she didn’t make it. I’m so sorry. We can give you folks some information on grief counselors in your area, if you’re like.” Neither of them could speak. Joey somehow managed to shake his head, indicating the answer ‘no.’
When Lisa and Joey finally returned home from the hospital without their daughter, Lisa slowly walked into the room that her child lost her life in, and Joey went to his and Lisa’s bedroom, shut and locked the door, and cried in himself to sleep. What could he do in this situation? His baby was gone…and he would never see her on this Earth again. So he did the only thing he could do; prayed that he would see her again in his dreams.
In Kimberly’s room, Lisa stripped the bed of the vomit soaked comforter that they had found her on. At that moment, Lisa saw her daughter lying dead on that very bed again. That image would be burned into her mind forever, and unfortunately it was the only memory that she wanted to forget about Kimberly. Lisa curled up in a ball in the bed that had one belonged to her first-born child and wept as she took Daisy, Kimberly’s baby doll that she had slept with every night since the day she was born, in her hands and held it to her heart. When Kimberly was four years old she dressed up in her mommy’s high heels and pretty blue sparkly dress that she was wearing the night that they met Kimberly’s daddy. She handed Daisy to Lisa and said, “Mommy, I’m going out. Will you watch Daisy for me so she’s not scared when I’m gone?”
“Of course I will baby.” Lisa told her beautiful daughter. “Thank you Mommy!” Kimberly giggled and kissed her mommy.
As that memory flashed through Lisa’s mind, she wept even harder, clutching Daisy in her arms, and holding her to her chest; almost like a scared child. She prayed that this had all simply been a terrifying nightmare; that she would soon open her eyes and hear Kimberly’s stereo blaring Billy Idol or Rob Zombie at 7:00 in the morning…as she did every morning while her daughter was getting ready for medical school.
Lisa knew though, that none of this was a dream, and that she would wake up in the morning and her best friend would still be gone. She rolled over onto her right side and noticed a piece of paper wrinkled up in the comforter that was now sprawled across the floor. Lisa reached down and picked up the piece of paper, flattened it out on the bed and began to read. What was written on the paper was unbelievable…it was Kimberly’s suicide note. It said:
Mommy and Daddy:
First and foremost I want you to know that I love you guys so much and I am so sorry to put you through what you have gone through tonight. I wish that things could be different, but I have backed myself into a corner and this is the only way out of that corner. I am addicted to painkillers. I started taking them about a year ago with Jen and Herb. I did it to cope with my anger and depression issues. I did fine with two or three every few weeks or so. But then Ryan died…and that’s really what sent me over the edge. I just couldn’t handle it. I missed him so much. So I used the drugs to help keep me going. In a way, they kept me sane. At least that’s what I thought. But I later realized that the pills were making me crazy. And I wanted to get away from it all. I tried so many times to quit. But the pain was unbearable. I have never experienced anything like withdrawals, and that’s why I couldn’t quit. The pain terrified me…the nausea, the chills, the times when I felt like my skin was on fire because the drugs were seeping out of my pores. I couldn’t eat, drink, sleep, or smoke a cigarette when I didn’t have anything. It was impossible to quit. I want you and Daddy both to know that absolutely none of this is your fault. So please, don’t feel guilty. I wanted to tell you guys so many times that I had a problem and I needed help…but I was scared and ashamed. I stole pills from you mommy, many, many, many times. And every time that I did, I hoped that you would catch me so that I could get help. Unfortunately though, that never happened. I suffered silently, never wanting any of you to know what I had become. This was my only way out, and again, I’m so sorry. Please try not to cry for me…and I know it will be hard, but please, do not mourn my death. For I am not worthy of your tears. I was weak and useless…I was a burden. Now you are free of me. I’m so sorry that I wasted and destroyed this beautiful life that I was given. Please, always remember that I love you both so much, and wherever I may be, I’m missing you.
—Kimberly
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reg99 reviewed Version 1 -
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superkleric reviewed Version 1 -
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clele75 reviewed Version 1 -
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Thank you for sharing this story with us. I’m wondering though if your own
personal story wouldn’t be better told through an actual account of your
addiction. The Kimberly character is never really given much of a voice. She
commits suicide. The note is only a detailed apology. But there isn’t really
this distinct person. If you write an essay about your addiction, I feel it will affect the reader a lot more deeply. For instance, I’m curious to learn more about how your addiction slipped from something you thought you could control to something you knew was beyond your control. Also, did any friends/family come to know about your addiction? How did they help? Maybe you’re still too fresh from your addiction to know its true impact, but I hope in time you will bring out your harrowing experiences in a powerful essay that can serve as a deterrent to those who think they can just take a pill here and there.
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Robin55 reviewed Version 1 -
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Ok, wow. This brought back a lot of memeories for me as someone who has major depression and who is bipolar. I have never been addicted to drugs, so I don’t know how that feels, but I do understand desperation and this piece definately captures that feeling very well. This serves as a fine warning. I’d like to congratulate you on your month of sobriety and encourage you to keep sober, one day at a time.
IndyWalsh reviewed Version 1 -
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“The young girl of twenty years old”—This bit here, doesn’t make much sense. Or can be reworded to flow smoother than what it does. You could try “She was twenty years old, lost, scared and alone..” Something to that effect would work fine.
“Kimberly’s dad, Joey, removed the doorknob to her door and let himself and her mother, Lisa, in, only to find their twenty year old daughter lying dead in a pool of vomit in the bed..” That sentence seems to just jump in, I haven’t got much background information about why it happened or how Kimberly felt prior to dying..
Few unanswered questions:
What made Kimberly want to stop? Why did she overdose?
Okay, it seemed like a good enough beginning. A beginning with such huge potential, but I feel you let the story down. Any story about drug and substance addiction is almost always going to attract readers, its such a widespread problem that it’ll always have someone able to connect to it.
Drug addiction is a huge inner battle. I don’t feel you conveyed that, or conveyed enough emotion, throughout your story. I would have liked to see more of the lows. The emotional battle, things like that.
You showed your readers a lot of bare facts without going too in depth with it.
I liked it, it had potential. I feel it could be better written though.
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