Temporary Home

Chapter 5

Since nobody else was home at the time, Dan was still in school, and would be for another two hours, Char was still off doing some PTA stuff, I guess, and Rob was still at work. I knew he would not get home until later and that Char would be home who knows when, so I decided if I wanted to do this, I had to do it now. 

I ran to my room and went to my bag. I grabbed the bottle of sleeping pillsI got a while ago to help me sleep through some nightmares, which was mostly full. I also grabbed my water bottle off my bedside table and a razor blade I also kept in a secret pocket in my bag in case I decided to ever do this again, which I thought I would not, but now, I am glad I kept that blade. 

When I went into the bathroom, I was still crying, I think the longest record for me. I sat on the edge of the bathtub and opened the bottle of pills and screwed the cap off my water bottle. I quickly poured eight pills out of the bottle and popped all of them, one at a time, in my mouth and swallowed them all in fifteen seconds. I then sat down on the closed toilet lid, after wobbling a little bit, and pulled the razor off the counter. I grabbed it with my right hand and rolled up the sleeves of my jacket and leaned my left wrist over the sink and began running water. 

I let out a small hiss as I drug the blade across my left wrist and it broke skin. I watched as the blood came out of the perfect slice on my wrist, a perfect line. I did this at least six more times, making perfect lines on my wrist. Perfect, I thought, I could get used to that word. I went into a pure bliss, whether it was from the pills finally kicking in, or from the cutting, I do not know, but the only thing that was able to be heard was the running of water and the quiet drip of my blood hitting the side of the sink. 

I was starting to go into a peaceful blackness when I hit the bottle of pills sitting on the toilet lid with my arm and they toppled to the ground and I screamed, scared of losing my bliss, scared of losing the perfect. 

I heard a booming coming up the steps leading to my room. I quickly tried to clean everything up, and lock my bathroom door, but I was wobbling too much to even stand up, so locking the door came to no avail. I fell over again and smeared blood on the bathroom tiles from my still bleeding wrist. I could not focus on anything because my vision would come infected with black spots, obscuring it at times. 

I heard and felt the draft of my bathroom door opening and I tried to sit up, but fell the other way, spreading even more blood on my bathroom tiles. I could not see anything anymore, I was fading in and out of real life and the perfect world in my head. The world where my family is, peaceful and happy, in a cloud, waiting for me. I was walking to them when I heard the voice of someone, and I felt someone cleaning my arm, and putting something, some type of material on it too. 

“Come on. Stay with me Annabeth. Please stay with me.” I could not tell who the voice belonged to, but I could tell they were worried. I heard the beeping of a phone, sounding like they were calling someone. I heard three distinct beeps and then the voice began to talk again. “Yes, my friend, I guess, my neighbor, I-I found her in her bathroom, she was, is, bleeding from her wrist, I put a bandage around it, and it looks like she took a lot of pills. She won’t answer me, and-and I-I...” The voice broke off and then gave my address and then said thank you and hung up. I still could not see anything, I could only hear, and the voice was saying more things, like sweet nothings, into my ear. 

As I heard more footsteps coming up the stairs and the sound of a siren outside, I realized I was probably going to the hospital. No! They are going to take away my pills, my razor, my peace, my bliss, my perfect. And as I felt myself being picked up and onto a stretcher, I heard that voice say, “Annabeth, it’s me, Ren, don’t worry, you’ll be-be fine. T-trust m-me.” But he did not sound so sure himself.