I Ain't Me No More by E.N. Joy

again.”
    By now I could hardly understand what Ms. Daniels was saying because she was crying so hard. This was his first suicide attempt, to her knowledge, so I could tell she was in complete shock and disbelief. Neither Dub nor I had ever shared with her his hanging attempt. Maybe if we had, she could have gotten him the help he needed before he made this second attempt.
    â€œI don’t want to lose my baby.” She sniffed and got herself together. “I was thinking, maybe if you could just go see him, you know, to calm him down, that would help.”
    â€œMs. Daniels, I—”
    â€œWho’s that on the phone?” I heard my mother call from the dinner table, where we’d been sitting and eating before the phone rang. “Tell them you’ll call them back. You’re eating dinner. Your food is getting cold. You can gossip later,” my mother huffed.
    â€œLook, Ms. Daniels, I have to go,” I told her, relieved that my mom had come to the rescue for the second time today.
    â€œDub told me everything that went on,” Ms. Daniels said, beginning her plea, “but I know you wouldn’t want him to die, would you?” There was no way I could answer that question candidly. So I said nothing. “If you don’t go see him, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. He’s going to kill himself. So please, Helen, just go see him for a minute, will you please? Please, Helen. He’s my son.”
    â€œMs. Daniels, I—”
    â€œPlease, Helen, you’re the only one who can help him.”
    â€œHelen, did you hear what your mother said?” my stepfather called out.
    â€œI really have to go,” I told Ms. Daniels.
    â€œFine. I’ll let you go,” she said, “but just tell me you’ll do it.”
    The pressure was on. My mom started yelling from the kitchen again, while Ms. Daniels cried in my ear.
    A decision had to be made.

Stone Number Twelve
    â€œSo you’re the one who’s causing my baby all this pain,” the nurse said to me as I entered Dub’s room at the Hilltop. She was standing over his hospital bed, rubbing his forehead in a comforting manner.
    I just looked at the chubby little brown woman with gray hair and black-rimmed glasses. Had she really just said that to me, and in front of him?
    I looked at Dub, and when his eyes locked with mine, he immediately broke down in tears.
    The nurse shook her head and continued rubbing his forehead. “It’s going to be all right, baby. Keep your head up. God’s gonna keep you,” she told him.
    God was keeping him, indeed, from the angel of death. He’d made his second attempt at taking his own life, and God had spared him yet again. Why? I just couldn’t understand it. Dub was far from a saint. I mean, I wasn’t a saint, either, but dang. What was so special about Dub? But then I recalled a scripture, something about God not being a respecter of man. What He did for the saved He’d do for the unsaved. If that was the case, I figured why bother trying to do good if God was going to bless a person, anyway, even in their sin?
    â€œI’ll leave you alone with her, because I know that’s what you want,” the nurse said to Dub, giving me the evil eye. Evidently, it wasn’t what she wanted to do, leave him alone with me. She acted like I was going to finish him off or something. I could see it in her eyes as she brushed past me. If she could have things her way, I’d be the one tied down somewhere.
    â€œI’m so glad you came,” Dub cried. “I knew you would come. I knew you would.” He said it with somewhat of a sinister grin on his lips. As if he had no intentions of actually dying. He just knew that it would have to be practically over his dead body for me to ever be in the same room with him again. He had probably even timed everything just right, waiting to take all those pills at just the right