Acting Out [Student/Teacher, GxG]

Angel Down

"Honestly, Ms. Harris — may I call you Rowan?"

I nodded in affirmation. Her voice was softer than I'd expected, but unwavering.

"Well, Rowan, what happened yesterday afternoon on its own wasn't a huge concern to me — don't get me wrong, a young girl unconscious with a stomach full of Tylenol and Codeine isn't something I take lightly. I don't want to frighten you, but if your brother had gotten you here even half an hour later, you would've either died or retained severe damage to your internal organs — not limited to you liver, kidneys, and pancreas — damage which would likely have had lifelong complications. When you arrived at the hospital, your brother told the ER team that you told him you'd taken Tylenol-3 but he didn't know how much of the medication was ingested, or the time of ingestion. You were drifting in and out of consciousness, and each time you woke back up you seemed more and more agitated. You were experiencing hemoptysis — sorry, coughing up blood, and we were very worried that if we weren't able to get the toxins out of your system fast enough, there was a serious risk that you would fall comatose. We administered a drug called Acetylcysteine to counteract the paracetamol you ingested and a drug called Naloxone for the Codeine, and then — as I'm sure you remember — when you were alert enough to help us out, we gave you a dose of activated charcoal to stop as much of the absorption of the pills into your bloodstream as we could and clear out your stomach. Since then, that IV in your arm," She pointed to my elbow and I shrunk in on myself instinctively. Shielding tired my body from her vigilant eyes. It felt like she could see all of me, and see right through me. "Has been rehydrating you with an isotonic sodium chloride solution, and the sensor on your finger has been monitoring your vitals. As of right now, I would not recommend that you leave the hospital until you've had a chance to rest and fully recuperate the fluids your body has lost, and give us the chance to run further tests to determine the extent of the damage to your internal organs, if any was sustained. The fact that you've been conscious and alert for the past few hours and presumably not in excruciating pain — feel free to correct me on that — is a good sign, but this really isn't something you can afford to take risks with."

I opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me off before I could even find the words.

"Let me finish." She chided. "That being said, I am willing to sign off on a release if you'll meet me half-way and be honest with me. As I said, what happened yesterday was very serious, but I can tell myself it was an accident that won't happen again, if, and only if, you'll answer the following questions honestly. If you lie to me, not only will I know, I will have you pink-slipped as an involuntary psychiatric patient faster than you can rip out that IV and run for the door. Do we have a deal?"

I was silent for a few long moments. I didn't really have a choice, now, did I? What was she going to ask? Did it even matter? It wasn't like I'd been lying about the whole thing being an accident — the only lie had been that I'd been having a migraine at the time, which was such a white lie it was practically irrelevant. "Deal." I spoke, resolute.

"On October 10th, 2015, you were admitted to the Los Angeles Children's Hospital with ligature marks on your neck. Can you tell me how you got there?"

I swallowed hard. I knew what it meant to be pink slipped into the Psych Ward, and that was the last thing I needed. Ten minutes of trauma, Rowan, you can do this. I took a deep breath and clasped my hands in front of my body.

"Yes. Well — I don't remember arriving at the hospital, but I was later informed of how I got there." I took another deep breath and continued. "Our Beverly Hills home was under renovations and the wooden rafters weren't well-reinforced. I guess they were more for decoration, and my parents had cut costs by favouring aesthetics over functionality whenever possible. Without going into detail, the rafter snapped under my weight. My family's housekeeper at the time, Rosa, was downstairs in the kitchen and heard the impact of my body and, of course, the wood, hitting the floor. I was already unconscious at this point, and she was under strict instruction from my parents to never bring attention to our residence, so instead of calling an ambulance, she untangled the rope from my neck and called our driver, Benoît, who brought me directly to CHLA. I have very little memory of what happened after reaching the hospital..." I trailed off, remembering the dream I'd had earlier. It couldn't have been entirely a flashback — parts of it were conversations I definitely wasn't present for — but a lot of it must have been memory, every detail I'd repressed, just as my subconscious recalled it. I'm sure at one point I could remember every conscious minute in that hospital; every face and voice I came into contact with during the periods when I wasn't stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey with sedatives. "I spoke to a nurse named Amanda. She was young — probably a recent graduate of UCLA's nursing program or something of that caliber. She had no idea what to do with me." I looked at my hands, still covered in dry blood. "Anyway, there's your history lesson, have I met my part of the deal yet?"