WARNING: SELF HARM / SUICIDE MENTIONED IN THIS CHAPTER.
PLEASE, if you are easily triggered, DO NOT READ.
I didn't add this dimension of Beth for fun. I wanted to stay true to the show. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. Let me know what you think.
Beth stayed sitting on the edge of her bed like a statue after Daryl walked out on her. She let her eyes become unfocused as she stared at the wall and got caught up in her emotions. Maybe it was dramatic, or maybe it was real, but Beth felt like she was mourning again. Not the death of her parents this time, but the exhilaration that swirled around in her stomach when Daryl claimed her mouth. Ecstasy had come crashing through her like a wave and Beth swore that she's never felt anything like it.
In that moment, she thought that she won the grand prize. She finally got Daryl to admit that he feels something real for her. She thought that they would be able to move forward from there and become something more. She hoped that maybe he could eventually fill the gaping hole that was left in heart from the loss of her parents and maybe she could do the same for him.
That's how incredibly stupid I am, she thought to herself.
Beth's not actually stupid. She's just the type of person that feels deeply and passionately and it leaves her vulnerable. Most people's hearts harden after breakage or loss. Not Beth's. Her heart is big and sensitive but it's defenseless. When it gets broken, she feels the pain down to her bones and it is excruciating. A heart like Beth's is a blessing and a curse.
She was so strongly connected to her family, especially Hershel and Annette. No one but Maggie knows how deeply their deaths affected Beth.
The pain was relentless for Beth and it drove her to the edge. The way she saw it, she had two options. She could walk away from the edge and live with the aching pain for the rest of her life, or she could jump.
She just wanted to turn it off. The pounding of her head. The aching of her heart. She didn't want to feel anything anymore. So she jumped.
For a minute, she just watched the blood spill from her veins. The sight and the feeling of her wrist being cut open allowed her to feel nothing, temporarily. It was peace like she had never known. Everything around her blurred into insignificance like she was hypnotized by the blood.
When Maggie heard glass shatter, she instantly knew what it meant. She ran to the bathroom to get to her sister but the door wouldn't budge. She began yelling for Beth to open the door but Beth didn't even hear her in her state of hypnotism.
"Beth! Move away from the door!" She yelled before bringing her foot up to kick the door in with all of her strength.
What Maggie saw when the door flew open was a sight that she will never be able to forget. Her little sister stood in the middle of the small bathroom with broken pieces of mirror scattered on the floor around her. Beth was pale as a ghost and her eyes didn't leaver her wounded arm. Maggie took two large strides towards her little sister and shook her by the shoulders, desperately hoping to wake her from the spell she was under.
It worked. When Beth looked up into her sister's worried eyes, all of the emotion that had disappeared earlier came back with a vengeance. Grief. Despair. And now guilt.
"I'm sorry." Beth began to sob, grabbing onto her bleeding wrist.
That night as Glenn comforted the oldest Greene sister, he mention a grief counselor that he knew of through a friend of a friend. Glenn spoke highly of the woman who had lost her 2 year old son and had fought tooth and nail to get through the pain. The next morning, Maggie googled Dr. Michonne, the grief counselor in Woodbury.
Beth saw Dr. Michonne twice a week for a month. In the beginning of her sessions with the doctor, Beth found herself wanting to cut again simply because of the numbing that it caused that first time she did it. She wanted nothing more than another moment of peace, a moment of painless serenity. But Dr. Michonne had walked Beth through the process of accepting death and moving on.
Beth and Michonne had made a connection that the doctor didn't usually make with her other patients. She sent Beth off to face her grief alone from here on out with nothing but a business card with her number on it. She hoped that Beth wouldn't need it one day but if she did, she hoped that she would call.
When her counselling came to an end, Beth began packing up their family's home and convincing Maggie that she could live comfortably with Rick Grimes. Maggie had to trust that Beth would be alright. She knew that the worst thing she could do for her little sister was force her into a new environment while still in the process of saying goodbye to her old life.
Beth was still blankly staring at the wall as she recalled her suicide attempt. Oh how she wished that she could access that numbness again. But she knew that the only way to do that was self-harm and she refused to ever let herself reach rock bottom like that again.
Beth finally moved from her spot on the bed. She walked over to where her wallet lied on the chair in the corner of her room. For good measure, she pulled out the business card that Dr. Michonne had given her months ago. She never called. But looking at the card helped her think clearly in moments of possible relapse.
She stared at the card as rational thoughts finally came flooding into her mind.
How had she not realized that Daryl wasn't the answer to her problems? He was a beautiful distraction, at the very least but being with him wasn't going to magically fix the damage in her soul. That was something that she had to do for herself. Or maybe time was the answer? She wasn't sure anymore. But one thing was for certain: Beth Greene was way too damaged to seek a relationship right now. She was still healing.
Letting a man into her heart at this moment in her life was like a relapse waiting to happen.
In the end, Beth was thankful for Daryl's storm out. If he didn't leave when he did, Beth would have given him every piece of her that she had left, hoping that he could put the pieces back together. But the only person capable of putting the pieces back together was her. She had to focus on herself first. Finding love could come later.
Beth admitted to herself that she and Daryl had a lot to discuss the next time that he came over to the house. But for now, sleep was calling her name and Beth couldn't think of a better feeling than dreamless sleep in this exact moment. She just hoped that piercing blue eyes weren't what she saw as soon as she closed her own eyes.