The Discovery of Herself

(Brace yourself. Vivid and raw content below)

When I jumped into the steel elevator, I could feel the pounding beat of my heart in my throat. The black and white checkered floor of the elevator kept me distracted while hearing each ding to signify the floors we were passing. I had one hand occupied with the tight grip of the cold metal bar and the other hand clutched my phone. My destination was the fifth floor of our building, the last floor of the parking garage. I never went to that floor because the car was always parked on the fourth.

I heard a robotic voice that belonged to the elevator slowly say, “Level Five.”

I would give a lot to go back in time and stop myself before I dashed out of the elevator. I would pause and give myself a kiss on the right and left shoulder, wrap my arms around my chest, and apologize to that innocent Chelsey whose eyes would want to be ripped out.

It was the fifth floor, and I remember I was wearing one of my favorite zip-up sweatshirts. As the elevator door began to open, I blacked out. Danger was in the air, and I could feel the sensation of the running car stationed in front of me. I leaped over the parking spots to his car, but my legs were not connected to my body. My oversized sweatshirt was flopping left to right, and I was only focusing on opening the car door. My feet were running for me while I was blessed to have found my missing boyfriend.

Correction: my dead missing boyfriend.

. . .

After returning from a long night clubbing in downtown Miami, I ran into Charlie’s room to wake him up, letting him know I got home safely. Typically, he waits up for me, but that cute little boy had his computer open to Rick and Morty, with his eyes closed and teeth exposed. Waking him up made me laugh. Charlie would tell me how furious it made him when people woke him while he was sleeping, but if he opened his eyes to see that it was me, it was an overwhelming amount of happiness.

It is crazy to witness how influential your impact is on another person’s heart. I never thought I could mean so much to somebody and I saw that unspoken language through our eyes.

Hurrying as fast as I can, I stripped off my cut-out black pants and little black bra top, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and jumped into the new bedding he just bought. That new bedding was specifically bought for me because Charlie knew how much I loved being cozy. I wrapped my legs and arms around his entire body, fitting together like puzzle pieces. I knew that tomorrow was just going to be another day; my first day as an intern for an electric scooter company, and Friday the 13th.

I woke up the next morning and immediately launched for my phone. The night before there was a minor incident with my girls because a friend was feeling left out for some invalid reason. With my phone in my hand, I sat up and was going to head to my room to discuss the girl drama with my roommate. Charlie grabbed my hand before I pushed myself off the bed and said, “Where are you going?” I said, “My room, flu shots are at 9.” I bolted out of his room, to my room, where my roommate and I met in giggles. The mornings after going out are so funny for some reason. Either we did not get enough sleep and still feel goofy, or maybe somebody made a silly decision with a boy, or even possibly, we were looking at photos from the night before that was forgotten.

We both got dressed in a few minutes and Charlie walked in. He was dressed in his new Madhappy set that we bought together in the car on the way down to Delray where he is from. At first, I forgot Charlie was coming with us to get the flu shots. I hesitated and said, “Oh you’re still coming with?” That took him back for a moment and he said “Should I not? Do you want to just take the car?” I gladly said no and urged him to come with us. Charlie always lightened the mood and he enjoyed helping me get things done. Charlie, my roommate, and I had a ton of fun together. From picking up food from new restaurants to early morning breakfast runs, and scooping friends up from one-night stands, the humor was always unmatched. Even better, Charlie’s new Land Rover Defender had three seats in the front so we could all sit together. But on this day, I let my roommate take shotgun and I was now the one sprawled in the back.

Everything was running normally. Charlie was being his goofy self, my roommate was rambling about boys, and I was content to be with my squad. When we arrived at our appointment for our flu shots, Charlie and I got out of the car together and walked over to the tent located by the Lennar Center. I clutched my thigh as the injection penetrated my arm. I was working myself up for no reason. Charlie sat down next to me and started to calm me down like he always did. Then it was Charlie’s turn. He took the shot like a champ and barely flinched. I never saw an ounce of pain come from that boy. He never spoke about pain or ever announced he was in pain. If anything, he would involve himself in my pain; the self-doubtful and self-consciousness Chelsey that was projected onto others, seeking affirmative validation from her peers. Charlie’s affirmative words like “You are all good, Chelly. Nothing to worry about” are a craving of mine.

Sometimes I will hear a voice in my head and the sentence will start or end with “Chelly.” That's how I know Charlie is connecting with me. It proves how our relationship is still continuing while being in two different dimensions.

His simple words struck the voices in my head that were filled with negative self-talk, into a voice that was quiet and humble.

We jumped back into the car and sang some jams on the way to the gas station. Charlie turned back to look at me and said, “I am not going to fill my gas tank up all the way.” Charlie was so impulsive and did not like to wait on things, so for that reason, he never filled his gas tank up all the way. I said back to him, “Don’t be weird and fill your gas tank up all the way. There’s no rush.” He threw me a smile and turned his beautiful blue eyes back to the road. The conversation and humor continued, and we rolled up to where my friend’s location was planted. She was taking a while to come outside, and I started to see slight agitation on Charlie’s face. I made my roommate switch spots with me so I could be sitting next to him in the front seat. As we were sitting in the driveway, something started to diffuse within Charlie. It feels like a light switched from on to off. At first, I thought he was annoyed that my friend was taking so long but when she ran outside and jumped in the car, I still could feel this peculiar feeling. His smile became neutral, his enthusiasm became calm, and his bright eyes became dull. Something was up.

I am an incredibly intuitive person. I have always been this way and I admire myself for that. On the night before the 13th, I was sitting in the car with Charlie and felt a deep pain in my chest. The pain I’m describing isn’t physical pain. It is this deep internal notification that something bad is about to happen. I clearly didn’t know something this terrible was going to happen, but I started crying because the feeling is so disturbing and unsettling. I looked at Charlie and said, “Something bad is going to happen, something really bad is going to happen soon.” He didn’t think I was crazy at all. He trusted my intuition more than I did. He let me crawl into his lap while I wept for a few minutes about how nervous I was. His reassurance calmed me, I stepped out of the car to feel the warm breeze in my hair, and he went off to his friend’s house.

…

As we pulled up to our last stop, Starbucks on S. Dixie Hwy, this was exactly when I felt the energy in the car flip off. I believe it to be the moment Charlie’s soul left his body. It was a happy car that suddenly got quiet and suspicious. Internally, it felt like a plant died. On the outside, his bark, branches, and leaves were still there but on the inside, he appeared dead. Something within the greater picture of life died while we were sitting at Starbucks.

I wonder what that scene looked like from an energy perspective because there was a big hole missing from just moments before.

There was no emotion on his face, his body was still, and he wouldn’t take his eyes off anything other than what was right in front of us; the yellow Starbucks concrete wall. I didn't think much other than Charlie acting weird. I asked numerous times if something was wrong, and he kept telling me everything was fine. I asked for a kiss, and he gave me a kiss. Whenever Charlie was not telling the truth, which rarely happened, I knew instantly he was lying. The more time I spend with someone, the more I can read their thoughts and play into their energy field. In the car, there was no energy field for me to play into. I was caught up in my own stuff; my phone, my upcoming internship, my Instagram, Snapchat, friend group chats, and anything other than the present moment.

When we arrived back at our apartment building, he parked his car in the same spot as always; the fourth floor. We all jumped out and I noticed Charlie did not move from the driver’s seat. I opened the door, he looked at me with such an unfamiliar gaze, and goes “Oh, right, coming.” Waiting for him to get out of the car, I kept asking what was wrong. At this point, if somebody asked me if I was okay the number of times I asked him, a fire would be fuming out of my ears. But he was lying to me, and I did not deserve or appreciate his blindness to answer my questions. All I wanted to do was make him feel better.

All we loved to do was make each other feel better.

So, what did I do?

I followed him back into his room. Charlie was my only neighbor because I was at the end of the hall. Earlier that day, I asked to borrow one of his Adderalls. We were both prescribed and liked switching pills because they called for different measurements and different hours of release. When I reminded him of the pill I wanted, he opens the bottle and practically pours all his medicine into my hand. He said, “I don’t need these anymore.”

I took a moment and was shocked beyond belief. There was truly nothing in Charlie’s eyes. He was consciously not there. I started to laugh at how difficult it was to get through to him. This never happened before. My frustration started to build up and I certainly did not care to ask him if he was okay anymore. I said, “Alright if you are not going to tell me what’s wrong, I am leaving. I know you are lying to me Charlie and it’s not cool at all.” Without hesitation, I hear behind my shoulder “I love you, Chelsey.”

The last words that casually rolled off my tongue were “I love you too, Charles.”

. . .

Around 3 o’clock I heard a knock on my door.

I was laying in my bed, a computer on my chest, putting information into an excel sheet for my boss.

I yelled, “Come in!” but no one came in.

Weird, I thought.

“COME IN!” I yelled once more. Nobody opened the door.

I said to myself, “Alright, I guess I should get up now and see who is at the door.”

I grabbed the handle of the door and whipped the door open. It was a short brunette boy standing at my door. I immediately connected the dots that the person standing in front of me was one of Charlie’s friends that I met at the club last night. His name is Cram and he has a very sweet vibe to him. He was in a casual shirt and sweats.

“Do you know where Charlie is?” he said.

“What? He was going to his parents to pick up his new iPhone…”

“Yeah, he never showed up. He was supposed to be there like 3 hours ago. Nobody can get a hold of him. His location says he is in the building, but he is not in his room.”

Bizarre, I thought. I gave Cram my card to walk the parking garage to see if he was sitting in his car somewhere. “Check from the fourth floor down,” I told him. The fifth floor was foreign to us. But before he left, I had this urge to take his phone number.

I called Charlie a few times and there was nothing. He usually texts me throughout the day with adorable messages but today there was nothing.

Nothing.

I went into Charlie’s room and found his friends snooping through his stuff. The door was unlocked with his Golden Retriever, Mookie, inside.

The door unlocked with his prized possession inside? Not right.

That’s when physically, I felt something was off. Charlie never left Mookie unattended, let alone, the door unlocked. Charlie wouldn’t even leave his apartment without stopping in ours first. We always knew where each of us was and what one was up to. After all, we were such great friends. I called one of my best friends, Bri, and told her to come to my room immediately.

“Charlie is missing…”

Within seconds she was walking into my room.

“Okay, Chel. Tell me what your day was like. Where did you go? What happened?” Bri said.

I gave her the run-down of the day and thought to call his credit card bills to see where he last made a purchase. The last purchase was at the gas station from earlier that morning. My friends and I decided it was time to start dialing numbers.

Bri’s aunt had committed suicide and when I walked out of the room, she looked at my roommate and said “Izzy, the fact that Charlie gave her all those pills isn’t right. That’s what my aunt did. Time is on the clock. This is not good at all.”

I walked back into my room and saw them sitting on my bed, staring at me with eyes of distress. It was now around 4:30 pm and we had called the Land Rover dealership to see if we could track his car. We phoned a couple of other people.

Nothing.

The nothingness is what started to slowly haunt me. Why was there no progress being made? Why was it so silent? Why was it so difficult to reach Charlie? The air felt altered, my chest felt unusual, and his apartment felt distorted. The last idea we had was to check with security to see when Charlie swiped his card to exit the building.

I remember feeling my intuition agreed with this choice.

I grabbed Mookie’s leash so Bri and Izzy could take him on a walk cause God knows the last time Charlie took him out. Cram and a friend left the building to go back to their place. When we got down to the lobby, the three of us approached the man behind the desk. His name was Gary. When we explained the situation to him, he said Charlie hasn’t left the building since the morning when we were together.

“FUCK!” I screamed.

Bri had exited the lobby to take Mookie around the corner.

As I was walking out of the Lobby, Gary goes “Wait a second. What does his car look like?”

“It is a brand-new Land Rover, blue”

“Does it have the same look as a Jeep wrangler?’

“YES!” I squealed.

“There has been a car running on the fifth floor for a few hours. There is a kid sleeping in the back seat.” Gary slowly spilled.

What the fuck? A few hours? Who would walk past a running car with a kid sleeping in the back and not do anything?

Gary grabbed his keys and his telephone to come up with me. Izzy ran outside to tell Bri we think we found him.

“Bri! We found Charlie! He is sleeping in his car on the fifth floor. Chelsey is going upstairs right now with the security guard to get him. Bri carefully turned her face towards Izzy and goes “He’s not fucking sleeping. We need to get up there NOW!” Within seconds, they heard somebody scream bloody murder. It was me. Screaming at what my eyes were seeing.

When I approached the running car to find my beautiful Charlie laying in the back seat, everything in the world stopped. My heart had stopped pumping blood to the rest of my body and my awareness was shattered.

A body.

Cold.

With purple feet.

Lying in the backseat.

The first thing that knocked me beyond existence was the smell. It was the smell of pure death. I felt like I was inhaling dirt and my nose, eyes, and skin were slowly turning black.

A smell that still haunts me to this day.

The smell consisted of a rotting body, mixed with dry blood, and this dense sterling alcohol twist. There was music playing from his phone and air conditioning blasting. His body was lying there for a couple of hours so you could not even imagine how vulgar and intense the smell was.

My thighs locked to his shins, my body straddling his legs, one of my hands gripped his body as the other rubbed up and down. He was laying horizontal in the back seat with his head on the passenger side and his legs dangling behind the driver’s side. He was slightly pushed up against the row of seats leaving no room for his right hand. His right hand was off the seat and the left hand looked like it was holding a silver platter.

Was it the right hand that held the gun to his mouth? That’s what it seemed like.

I grabbed his left hand and tried to move it but was met with resistance. His arm was stiff. I was screaming so loud that it felt silent to me. I felt silent to the world. Charlie was silent. There was no movement.

Nothing.

I no longer feel silent to the world, but I am just as loud.

I let my mouth open to bite my teeth against his knee cap. I was met with resistance again, feeling like I just bit down on rubber. My lips were shocked with this cold tingly feeling. Gary was already dialing the police. Gary, a black man, was now green. I knew he was not okay. I was not okay either.

I am okay now. I know Gary is okay now, too.

I called Cram immediately, out of breath, telling him I found Charlie on the fifth floor of the parking garage, not sure if he is alive.

How did I not know Charlie was dead?

Cram and his best friend, Feldy, arrived in what felt like an instant.

What I did not see yet was the blood. I grab the collar of Charlie’s shirt where I bent over to see a large pool of blood spilled out from his nose.

The leaves, branches, and bark were no longer intact. Did I know he was dead then?

Because of the way he slumped from the impact of the bullet, his head was slightly tilted back in the space between the seat and the door handle. The blood was covering the upper half of his face, spilling into his hair. The blood was dry, and I did not even recognize who I was laying on top of. I dropped his collar and decided at that moment to never look at his face again.

I’m grateful I made that decision. What would have happened if I had looked at his face another time?

It was far too frightening for my eyes, for my soul. Screaming still, I urged Izzy and Bri to come to the car. I did not want to leave Charlie and they did not want to leave the area by the elevator. They wouldn’t come to me, but I do not blame them. Bri was using all her willpower to hold Mookie back, the strong and determined dog. Izzy was staring at his purple feet and that was all she could handle. She was screaming, but her voice was silent to me. I felt like I was not in 2020, I was not Chelsey, I was not a student, and I was not living on this Earth.

After 19 years of living, I didn’t know who I was. I had slipped out of the universe. I knew I was somewhere, but I knew I was nowhere.

Participating in a dream that I never thought would be mine, a part of me was dying with him as I looked down to the nothingness below me. My branches drooped; my leaves lost their color because I was not taking the same energy from the sun anymore.

A part of Chelsey died as she stood in the car, a part of her died when Charlie died, and the part that died deserved to die. She was a girl who was everywhere but the present moment. I am not sure she even understood what it meant to live a life for herself. She felt self-conscious if she was not doing what her friends were doing and handed her power away like it meant nothing to be alive. She did not take responsibility for her actions or allow herself to think independently. She took what other people said about her and let it define who she was. She was the slower girl who needed extra time and attention. She was the last to get the joke and always needed her friends’ validation on what to wear, eat, and do. She had two eyes but now she has three, two to look and one to see. Her soul is a ship, and she did not know she could be the captain. Chelsey watching Charlie take on the world was like taking the training wheels off your bike. Once you go forward, you will never return. She was not aware that this life was for one person and one person only, Chelsey Grace Jacobs.

This kick-started her self-discovery.

The moment I came back into reality was when I heard the sirens. The noise of the siren is triggering regardless of who is it for. My vision became clearer, and I realized that I was on the fifth floor of my apartment building, my boyfriend has become nothing, and I was with Gary, Bri, Izzy, Cram, and Feldy. Strangely enough, all I could hear in my head was “Everything happens for a reason.”

Since I was a little girl, I have been familiar with the idea that everything happens for a reason. As cliché as it sounds, I like to believe that saying was made for me. I never thought I would find a dead body let alone lose someone in this manner. I never thought, for a moment, that anybody in my life would use their own hands to end their journey here. I never thought I would be this girl. Nobody thinks it’s going to be their reality. It is a club you never want to be a part of.

It’s crazy that I’m even writing this right now.

I used to wish I never met him but without him, I don’t know who I would be. He has become a part of me and lives vicariously through me. I saw, felt, and heard the deepest terror in those moments when I found him. He was somebody I loved so much but couldn’t even recognize with all the dried blood spilled out from his nose.

Never say never because the word “never” turned into my reality.

Feldy respectfully told me to return to my apartment and wait for the officers. I still had no clue what was going on. My head was spinning, and my defeated heart was pounding. I did not know what universe I was in, if I was dreaming or awake, and if Charlie was dead or alive.

Nothing within me could admit that we weren’t on this Earth together.

My friends streamed into my apartment like water.

My friends fed me some life. They were the water my plant needed.

One after another, holding me and letting me sob all over their shirts. Their faces were filled with shock and sorrow. They were unsure what just happened and were so downright broken for me. The boy who put a smile on everyone’s faces was somewhere we did not know.

The pain in my chest from this event is still indescribable. I have dreams where the pain comes back, and the rest of my day will be altered. The pain is pure abandonment, and it is rooted in the deepest corner of my heart. I can’t talk about how painful the phone call was with my parents. My vocal cords were broken, and my throat felt like it was bleeding. I was gagging then, and I am gagged now.

That voice still haunts me. Will it ever not haunt me?

The officers told me that Charlie took his life with the act of a gun.

I dropped to the ground on my knees, put my forehead to the floor, and slowly slid forward till my nose and stomach were touching the ground.

My father jumped on the next plane out to take me home. My friends started to pack my bags filled with Charlie’s belongings. I was holding my friend’s hand while I took a shower and had the darkest thoughts of my life. I could see the road ahead of me and I did not want to continue. This was not anything I had signed up for.

Who cares if I died?

I didn’t.

Why would I want to be here after what I just saw?

No one would.

If Charlie wasn’t here, why should I be? In what world do I deserve to be here, and he doesn’t? He was my ray of sunshine.

That was the old Chelsey speaking. I did not think I deserved to be here. But, wow, I couldn’t deserve to be here more. I am now my own ray of sunshine. I am made for this life and I would never want to walk out of this universe. I have a purpose and the work I will do on this Earth will be catastrophic and everlasting. This world was made for me. I am the creator of making the impossible possible.

Charlie dying ignited a part in my soul that has never been lit before. I feel my hands. I see my worth. I inhale the beauty that is filled within the air of this world. I express gratitude to whatever higher power or incomprehensible reason granted me the permission to play in this game of life.

We are players in the game of life.

I strongly attach to the idea that there are going to be horrific experiences we must endure for the growth of our souls. I believe we pick routes we are going to face in the physical realm before we even come here.

But why this type of defeat? Because I was capable of rising through it. Sometimes it scares me to see myself in the mirror knowing what I’ve risen through. I turned my darkness into blue skies, self-doubt into self-love, and all those voices went from hopeless to hopeful. I’ve created an entire universe inside of me; one that loves to love and acknowledges the beat of my heart. I signed up for this life, this name, this identity, and this journey. People have a hard time understanding this because of the daunting and dreadful experiences we face. With each daunting and dreadful experience, we swallow pain, learn how motivating our inner voices can be, and eventually prove to ourselves that the most important person is the one inside of us.

The transition from the old Chelsey to the new Chelsey was not easy, I’ve never done anything harder. I turned around and looked at what broke me through the course of my life. From issues under the roof, hard-wired body shaming, and always using the wrong words to describe how I was feeling- I decided that’s not who I am, and that is not who I want to be. Healing the wounds of my inner child saved my life. The woman I am now is the woman I dreamt of being. I did not know this Chelsey was possible. I feel chosen; Chosen to be alive and chosen to be the one who found Charlie.

It’s a brave thing to be living.

Rest peacefully, Charles.

The End….

Of this story, was the beginning of my life, Chelsey’s life.

Xoxo, Chelsey Grace Jacobs #W2W

#CGJDictionary