The next afternoon, she took too many of her prescription pills for depression and started to convulse. When Cameron came home for work to find her passed out on the bedroom floor, he freaked. He had the presence of mind to call an ambulance, but that was about it. They took her away and pumped her stomach. Afterward, a psychologist came in and did an evaluation. He decided Sienna wasn’t stable enough to be in society, and within hours she was sent to a mental institution for three weeks’ evaluation.
Cameron visited her daily and told her how sorry he was about the fight. He’d never let it happen again. He’d change; she’d see.
But the stress of having to constantly be so accommodating, to always be on the ball and smiling for her, wore on him. After they’d been married six months, Sienna must’ve realized what she was doing to her new husband.
Spring break came and, happy to ditch classes and college for a while, Cameron took her away. They went to the Bahamas and basked in the sun for a week. But Sienna noticed he didn’t try so hard to make her laugh anymore because she mentioned it to him and told him it was okay. He knew
it wasn’t but didn’t argue.
She told him he could leave her. He rejected her idea, of course, and worked extra hard not to let any of his exhausted frustrations show. He didn’t say anything to get them into a fight, and he was constantly nice. Sometimes, all he could do was hold her in his arms and stroke her hair, telling her he loved her.
But she caught him sneaking some of her sleeping pills. When she asked if he was having trouble sleeping, he tried to shrug it off, assuring her he was fine. But she must’ve known better. He couldn’t do this much longer. He couldn’t smile all the time. So Sienna took matters into her own hands. She slit her wrists.
Again, Cameron found her and carried her to the hospital where they stitched her up. This time, she stayed in a mental institution for six weeks.
He went to see her as she lay strapped to her bed. Crying over her, he asked, "What did I do? What did I do wrong this time?"
She merely looked up at him with dull, lifeless. "You’re trying too hard."
Cameron felt about as helpless as he’d ever felt in his entire life.
When Sienna came back after that, things were different. In the beginning, he’d been fresh and ready to make her laugh and pull her from the depths of her sadness. Now, he walked on eggshells, trying to act normal but failing pathetically. One night, after Cameron attempted to make love to her, but Sienna said she wasn’t in the mood, so he lay beside her in the dark and rubbed her back.
"You’d be happier without me," Sienna murmured after a time.
He was quiet for a moment before answering. "I don’t think so."
But Sienna insisted, "You would be."
From then on, it was a lost cause. Everything Cameron did to make Sienna smile was a hopeless endeavor. She’d just look at him as if she couldn’t understand why he bothered.
The third and final time Sienna tried to kill herself, she finally succeeded. Making certain she wouldn’t fail, she first doped herself up on so much medicine, she probably didn’t even feel phase two, which consisted of hacking out parts of her wrists in chunks.
Cameron found her while she was sawing away on her second arm. He cried out and ran into the bathroom, jerking the blade from her hand to throw it against the wall. He had to repaint three times to get out that stain.
Sienna was already so weak, she merely melted against him. Cameron caught her and lifted her into his arms. He drove her to the hospital and carried her into the emergency room, both of them drenched in her blood. As nurses and doctors came hurrying over, he looked down at his wife’s face. She looked bad. She looked dead.
"Why are you doing this?" he sobbed.
Sienna’s eyes flittered open. "It…needs…to stop."
She tried to lift her hand toward his face, but she only got her bloody wrist lifted a few inches before she passed out. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and about four people helped Cameron lay her onto a stretcher. She was unconscious the last moment he saw her, her eyes open but lifeless.
Cameron sat in the waiting room and didn’t bother to call anyone. They’d only get mad at him for running off and marrying a crazy woman. He worried about how long she was going to get stuck in an institution this time. Attempted suicide three times in one year did not look good. He hoped they wouldn’t try to put her away forever. He didn’t want his wife locked away in a nut house.
When the doctor eventually approached him, he got to his feet, expecting the usual. She’s mentally unstable. We’re going to have to keep her for observation, and she’s going to be taken up to the top floor where the crazy people are kept.