Alex
It's all a big, sick deja-vu as I hear one voice clearly while the others are muffled out. Only this time I don't hear Harry, but only Liam's side of the argument.
"She doesn't want to see you," he says. "No, she didn't wake up, but I can tell you now that she doesn't want to. Just go away, Harry. Fuck off."
The intensity of Liam's words to Harry makes me shiver. I don't think I have ever heard him so angry and protective over me.
"I don't give a shit about your explanations. Leave and don't come back until I say so. You understand?"
Everything turns silent again then and I start to sob when I realize that Harry left. Although I couldn't hear him, I felt him and I feel him leave as well.
"Shh," Liam's voice comes closer as I feel his hands on my arm to calm me, but his touch isn't helping so I jank away.
It is then that I open my eyes to realize I'm not at Liam's or at home in the safety of my own bed. My arms are chained to the bed, the straps painful as I try to get out of them.
"What is happening?" I ask, panic rising in such a quick way that it makes me dizzy.
"You are in the hospital," Liam answers. He is in his scrubs and I realize I'm probably at the hospital he works. There's no one else in the room.
"Why?"
"You had a meltdown in the pub and hurt yourself. Don't try to get loose, it won't work and only lengthen the process."
"Why am I tied up?" I ask Liam and I sound so young and vulnerable through my tears.
"Because every time you woke up, you started to harass whoever was in sight. Alex, it is best if you keep calm," he says and I then realize that I still hadn't quit trying to wriggle myself out of the bands around my arms and legs.
"I won't do anything. Just let me loose, Liam, I beg you."
"I can't," he answers. "You know I can't. I'm at work. I have been checking in on you every hour since you're here."
"How long has that been?"
"Two days." No wonder he looks so tired. "Are you really awake right now? Then I'll get a doctor. Otherwise just release your anger on me."
"What are you talking about? I am awake."
"You don't remember what happened?"
"I remember blacking out in the bathroom. Sorry," I then add realizing it was at his girlfriend's party. He shrugs his shoulders as if not to bother. "Was that two days ago?"
"Yes and every time you woke up something else seemed to trigger you to start scratching or something else."
"Oh," I mumble looking down to my body that is sore and there are signs that I tried to hurt myself. It is all superficial as if I was trying to hurt as much skin as possible in a short time spawn. I remember sliding down the wall in the bathroom and wanting to get out of my own skin. My hands are the worst I see when I lift up my fingers.
"He even had the nerve to turn up here," Liam says. "Harry. Although it took him a day. Fucking bastard."
The details of what Susie told me are mushy, but it all felt as if my biggest fear had come true. He didn't cheat on me, not that I know off, but it feels like he did by kissing me on the day he left Palas only to return back to London to get back to Susie. How he laid me down in his bedroom to show me his paintings on the ceiling and my own face that he needed to sleep. Something she knew of. She must have laid there as well, maybe even the night before.
"What did he tell you about it?" I ask, fighting the urge to try and break free again to remove all skin from my body that he touched with the same hands he also touched Susie with. I want to get out of these cuffs as soon as possible. Get away from here. The fact that she, Susie, saw me as weak as I am makes me cry, but Liam knows me, he knows what I can take and what I can't. So he's honest.
"That he and Susie were together and that he never broke things off for real when he came back to Palas. That the fact that he was still in love with you and that you were single threw him off guard. After he found out about us and he left, he simply returned to her. Lied to her and said he was over you. He kept in touch with you in secret. They were looking at houses together before he got the house you lived in. He told her long ago about his suspicions that his mother never was cured of cancer. There's probably plenty more, but that was the part when I punched him in the face and couldn't listen to anything else that came out of his mouth."
"Thank you," I whisper through my tears. I don't mean for the punch in his face, but that he's telling me this while I'm chained up.
"He stayed away yesterday, but he was just here. You probably heard." I nod my head that feels heavy and painful. How did I manage to hit it so hard? All because he lied to me? Shame falls over me, reddening my cheeks. "I'll call the doctor, okay? Just stay calm."
Somehow I manage to do just that when a doctor enters the room who questions me, asking me about the date, place and my state of mind. It's clear that I'm being treated for the suspicion of trying to kill myself which isn't even the case. I just didn't want to feel anything for a moment and instead of using alcohol, I thought hitting my head against the wall was a good thing. At least I didn't attack Susie like I wanted to do when I met her. Thinking about the both of them pains me and it is a struggle to not show the doctor, but I succeed because I'm released from the straps around my legs and arms and am granted a walk over the hallway in Liam's company who holds the trolley with my IV.
"I should probably take this week off. Take care of you. You'll be alright once he is no longer around," Liam says and I take a deep breath.
"You don't have to do that. I'm sure I'll have great care here and also, don't speak of Harry like that. We both know this isn't just his doing."
He shrugs his shoulders. "I don't care, Alex. He's a dick. The way he treated me since he found out that I gave you a fucking smooch all the while knowing how he fucked things up even worse? I will never forgive him and you shouldn't either."
"I love him," I mumble, knowing it is the only real thing that I can hang on to. At least I hope that was the truth as well. He promised me, showed me it was, but I can't help this nagging feeling. Why wasn't I happy?
"I'm done with him, Alex and so should you. And that Susie? Who does something like that? It wouldn't surprise me if she said all of that knowing that you didn't know. Shit, I should have asked Harry that. I don't trust a word that comes out of her mouth and I don't get why Nina thinks she is nice, but I guess she's not a good judge of character considering Pascal."
"Liam, please don't fight about this with Nina. That is the last thing I want. I know he treated you wrongly, but it is my burden to bear okay? At least let me try to work through this."
Liam turns to look at me, clearly angry. "Work through it, with him? Are you serious?"
"I don't know, Liam. I don't know anything so I'm not making any decisions okay? But it is up to me to make them in the end."
"Yeah, well, you better make the right one or you can forget about me trying to be friends with him. I made my decision and I am done with him. And whenever you like it or not, I will take this week off and you are staying at my place once they discharge you."
"That's okay by me, Liam. Thank you." I know there is no point in arguing in where I'll stay if they ever leave me out of this hell hole.
Even I know that going back home after all that happened and the details still unsure, isn't the right thing to do. No matter how much I long to Harry's arms around me, I know it is best to wait. And I'm also sure that once I talk to him and hear him say the words Liam just said to me that I won't want him near me. I just long for someone close to me, to comfort me and although I love Liam to death, he's also hurt in this and he can't hide his own feelings which I understand.
After a few more minutes of walking around Liam guides me back to my room. The entire ward is full with rooms suited for one person and it is only then that I notice there's someone else in the room across of mine. It's a girl much younger than me, with dark hair but her root suggest she's actually a blonde. Her eyes are almost white, that's how light they are and she looks right through me. I nod to her and she gives me a faint smile before she turns around in her bed, away from me.
"I'm going back to work now. You seem a bit better so I'll check in on you when I finish my shift, okay?" I nod to him and settle back in the bed. "Rest and I'll see you soon. And if something is wrong I'm in the building."
"It's okay, Liam. Just go back to work. It will be fine," I tell him although I'm hesitant to say that I will be fine, but things will be.
"Okay," he says, backing off and giving the girl across of me a little wave. Her head perks up when he does and she gets out of bed and walks to the doorway where she stays still.
"Hi, I'm Nicole," she introduces herself.
"Alex," I greet her, unsure how to act.
"Oh, I know," she laughs. "God, you are quite the piece of work."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, I have been here a lot, but never saw anyone react the way you did. Extreme, but painful. How are you now?"
"Uhm, bit numb to be honest. Don't really know what I did."
"It's the medicine," she says holding up her arm to show she is also hooked to an IV.
"And what did I do then?"
"Just cry a lot and whenever someone got too close you tried to be violent. Except to Liam or the hot nurse as I like to call him. He's lovely."
I feel the need to tell her that he's taken, but maybe she needs him a little bit too so I keep quiet.
"Who else came?" I ask her and I feel slightly guilty for barely recognizing that she's here too with an IV full with medicine that makes me feel drowsy and like I'm ninety years old after walking on the hallway, but I can't contain my curiosity.
"Uhm," she thinks about it for a second and I see her fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, "you came in with the hot nurse and his girlfriend, closely followed by this wild dude who got in a fist fight with the hot nurse. The girlfriend calmed everyone down and left with the wild dude. Hot nurse stayed with you for the rest of the night and the next days whenever he could. Then just now the wild dude came again although he was a bit less wild. And well you woke up then."
"And through it all I just slept?"
"Well, not like sleeping beauty," she laughs. "You were awake for some of it, but all you did was either scream or use violence. They seduced you after you almost tried to choke the wild dude."
"I tried to kill Harry?" I ask, feeling the shame I already felt for being here creeping back up my cheeks.
"That's just a matter of interpretation. It's not like you were strong. In fact it was clear you were feeling anything but strong. It was just a reaction from your deepest conscious. You didn't even know how to form words. So you just lunged for him. Got him the message though."
I can understand that it got Harry a message, at least I think he's the wild dude in all of this, if I lunged him for.
"Do we have phone's in here?"
"No, the hot dude has your phone. Saw him take it."
"So how does he think I can contact him then?" I ask closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose. I know that Liam took it to protect myself from calling Harry which is what I would have done if I had a phone.
"They page him. He works here."
"Oh, yeah," I mumble. "I'm sorry you all had to witness that."
"It was fun," she says not one bit bothered that she finds my fucked up life entertaining. "I don't have many visitors so it is nice when something happens here."
"I doubt I'll have many more visitors now that he has my phone."
"Hot nurse means well. He's a pure soul."
"Hot nurse is. Doesn't mean he can't be dick from time to time," I tell her falling down in my pillow, ending my search for a phone. All I have is a red button that I doubt I'll need.
"So what are your injuries?" Nicole asks and I feel comfortable enough to keep talking to her while I turn on my side away from her.
"Not much beside a concussion and some superficial cuts. It explains the headache I feel right now and the tiredness."
"Explains it, yes."
She keeps quiet after that and I feel the need to return the favor and let her talk considering she just said that she doesn't have many visitors here and since I'm already bored after being awake for only an hour so I turn around again and face her.
"And your injuries?"
"Oh, I'm just here for the drugs," she laughs. "Sometimes I need to come here to level my medicine."
"What do you have then?"
"Depression. I have my ups and downs and every year or so I turn up here again."
"Oh, like manic?" I ask her, remembering the word from my conversation with Sophie and a quiet Logan.
"No, not like that. My ups are pretty normal, not out of control. And with you?"
"This is my first time here, so I'll guess we'll find out," I tell her and she smiles to me and it gives me a warm feeling inside.
That eventhough I'm dressed in clinical clothes in a hospital, after I've probably lost my boyfriend and tried to hurt myself in the middle of a party, and my father isn't here to make me see it a little bit brighter, maybe the other people around me can make me feel like the world is no longer only black, but specked with a little bit of dark grey.
****
Harry
The patch of skin where Alex's nails digged half moons are itchy as I walk back from the hospital. It's actually a nice day and the sun irritates my eyes who probably look as if I did nothing else but smoke pot for a week straight. That's not the case though. All I have done since Friday night is cry. Almost as if all the emotions I have been holding in since my life went to shit years back when the company had a freefall and my life started to change for the worse. Ever since I have been trying to stay strong, stand by my values and mostly keep to myself because getting to close could mean another disappointment like I felt from my mother. The ironic thing is that this time around I am the disappointment, not someone I love.
I have succeeded in hurting Alex so much that her panic attacks which started because of her mother are now almost always about me. There's is no way that we can come back from this and I have lost every last bit of hope now that I have seen her again.
She was held down in her bed and she looked way worse than Friday or more like Saturday morning when I last saw her. I had hoped that giving her some space and time would make a meeting easier. That maybe we could talk about why I did what I did, although I don't really know myself. Instead she was still out of it and Liam made clear that we're not seeing each other anytime soon.
It's probably for the best. Whatever I say will only hurt her more. I'm not worth her time. She should heal and Liam is right that she won't be able to do that with me around.
Feeling the reality of my life without her is hard and I'm not sure if I can continue like this. It scares me, but there's no point to work or to do much else than get drunk in my own misery. So I end up in front of Pascal's shop that is in full business on this Monday afternoon. Pascal looks up when the doorbell rings, announcing my presences. He stops his sketching and walks over and I know he's about to kick me out. Its exaclty what I want.
"Get out," he hisses between his teeth and his hands already start to grab for me.
"Don't do that," I tell him, my state of mind and appearance enough to make him back off. "I want my kit and then I'm out of here for good."
I can tell it surprises him to hear me say it. I have crawled back to him so many times that he probably thought that my phonecall from this weekend in which I told him that I wasn't comming in for a while was just like all previous times. It isn't.
"So, it is true then?"
"What is?"
"That you and Alex broke up," he says. "Susie told me."
"Of course she did. It is non of your business and for your own sake don't listen to a word she says."
"Oh, I listen to every words she says. It is interesting as fuck."
"Anyway," I say, trying to catch a breath. "My kit, then I'm gone."
"If you leave now, you are never welcome here again."
"Just how I like it," I mumble and then walk past him to my own booth and start to pack.
Tattooing has been my dream for so long and I did everything I could to keep doing it, but what's the point of it now? I only want to go home and wait for Alex.