Sinking Ships

Chapter Five

Song: Hawthorne Heights-This Is Who We Are

My arm hurts and there’s a loud beeping that surrounds me. These are the only two thoughts that I can really comprehend as I slowly come into consciousness. I’m extremely annoyed. I didn’t even know it is possible to be annoyed in the barely conscious state I’m in, however I am. Each beep signals that my heart is beating, which is something that I really don’t want.

If anything, I wish I could magically make it stop.

However the more awake I get, the more my arms hurt, particularly my wrists and all the way up to the inside of my elbows. They throb but mostly they feel like an open wound that someone’s shoved dirt in before closing it up.

“Thank god.” I hear someone sigh as my eyelids flutter, signaling I’m waking up. Honestly, I try my hardest not to give away the fact that I’m almost awake. If anything, I’ll fake sleeping until whoever is in my hospital room leaves. I don’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone or even explain to anyone why I did what I did. However, as I feel a hand on my own, my eyes shoot open. “Fallon!”

Eve stands beside my bed, tears sparkling on her cheeks. She gives a sad smile as she wraps her arms around me; however I immediately push her off of me. I’m beyond angry; I’m furious. I can’t even try to calm down as Eve gives me an upset look because she knows I’m pissed off that I’m alive. I just wish I was dead.

“You’re not supposed to move your arms,” she mumbles shyly, taking a step away from me. I look down at the white bandages that cover both of my forearms. “Or you’ll loosen the stitches.” It’s already too late as I slowly watch the blood seep through, the red creating a long, thin line that slowly gets bigger along where the cut is underneath. “Nurse!” Eve calls, starting to walk towards the hall.

“Eve, no!” I snap, grabbing her arm with my numb fingers. “I’m fine!”

She jerks out of my grasp and gestures towards my wrists. “I’m not just going to sit around and let you bleed right in front of me, Fallon!”

“Is everything alright?” A nurse pokes her head in the door and her eyes grow wide once she sees me bleeding.

I exhale nosily as I slump back into my bed. The nurse rushes over, grabbing fresh bandages and supplies on her way. As she starts to unwrap my arms, Eve sits on the edge of my bed, making sure not to touch me.

“So how did I get here?” I snap. If I’m going to be here for a few days, I might as well know how I survived.

“I found you,” she whispers with downcast eyes. Her brown hair falls in her face and I resist the temptation to brush it behind her ear. As if I wasn’t pissed off before, now I’m completely livid. Eve, the girl I barely know found me bleeding to death in a bathtub. She’s the one who saved my life when I wish I had just died.

“But you left,” I say through clenched teeth. “Why the hell did you come back?”

The nurse watches with wary eyes as she removes both bandages, as if in my anger I will intentionally rip open my cuts and try to kill myself in front of them. Eve avoids looking at my wrists as I stare down at the gashes. She was right; I did reopen the stitches. It’s a completely mess that I created and still I didn’t die. The worst thing you can fail at in life is dying and I did just that.

“I felt bad about how I acted and how upset you were,” she murmurs, brushing the stray hair behind her ear like I wish I had done. “When you didn’t answer me when I called for you, I started looking. When I found you in the bathroom…” She trails off, not saying anymore. It’s obvious she called an ambulance and that’s how I got here. I watch fresh tears roll down her cheeks and I start to feel bad, however the uncontrollable anger quickly overpowers the sympathy.