Beep… Beep…
“Oh my, God, what is up with that beeping sound?” I groan as I’m being woken up by this insistent beeping sound that just so happens to be right beside my head as if it’s life mission is to wake me up from my deep slumber.
“Ana. Guys, she’s waking up!” I hear a petit female voice starting to yell from the other side of me.
I groan again at the sudden loudness of the voice and use my right hand to rub my temple and squeeze my eyes shut. I’m so tired and my head hurts a lot and so do my arms, my wrists ache.
“Oh, sorry, Ana,” I recognize the voice as Sienna’s and now, she’s only whispering which is something that I greatly appreciate. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty shitty,” I sigh, blinking a few times to adjust to the bright lights hovering above my face on the ceiling. Everything is so white and sterile that I find it easy to assume that I’m in a hospital and since Sienna is hovering over top of me and I’m laying down, I think that it’s safe to say that I’m the one in custody. “What happened?”
“Erm. You don’t remember?” She wonders as her face drains of most of its color.
I shrug one stiff shoulder. “Not really. I remember being at the party and then I was watching the news in the lobby and I… I remember that he’s going for parole. Other than that… no. I don’t remember anything after that. What is it?” I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this. Sienna looks like she’s about to cry and I want to know where Penn is and I want out of this goddamn hospital and I want to know why I’m in here in the first place. I also would like to know why I have bandages wrapping around both of my wrists.
“Penn should be here any second,” Sienna assures me with a weak smile.
I stare at the bandages and blink a few times, making sure that I’m not just imagining them or mistaking them for something that they’re not. But they are exactly what I think that they are- I’ve seen them a few times right there in the exact same spot, hiding my wrists from the outside world like a barricade to hide all of the bad things from everybody else. Except for the fact that I know what’s behind the barricade. “No,” I whimper in disbelief. I don’t want to believe that I’d do this again. Not again. Not after last time when Peter found me in my bedroom almost passed out in a puddle of my own blood and then they shipped me off to Alaska to be somebody else’s problem. “No, not again. I didn’t do this,” I tell her but mostly, I’m just telling myself. I’m better now. Completely better. I got help in Alaska and they sent me home because now, I’m completely better.
Sienna opens her mouth to say something else but before she can, the door swings open and I can’t tell who I want it to be. I don’t want it to be my mother because she will just give me a disapproving look and then give me this whole lecture on how I’m ruining my own life and then she’ll sign the papers for me to be off to Alaska again. I don’t want it to be my dad because he’ll cry. He always cries. Most of the time, he’s as tough as nails and super terrifying but when it comes to me and the barricades on my wrists, he blubbers like a baby and I can’t take it. Seeing your parent(s) cry because of the decisions that you’ve made is like the world’s biggest guild trip. I don’t want it to be Peter because then that means that he isn’t in rehab and I’d feel bad for making him leave the place that is helping him get is life back in order- another major guilt trip. But out of everybody, I most definitely do not want it to be Penn.
However, I’ve never been one for luck, and it’s Penn that walks through the door, making a bee-line for the side of the bed.
“I’ll go get the doctor,” Sienna says quietly before stepping out of the room to leave me and my brother alone.
“Ana,” He breathes, taking my left hand in his right one. He glances down at my wrists and then up to my face as I’m chewing on my bottom lip, trying my hardest not to cry.
“I didn’t do this,” I whisper because I don’t think that my voice is working right now. Waking up after a long, deep slumber like I just did makes my throat really dry and scratchy and on top of that, I feel like I’m going to throw up for multiple reasons.
“Ana, nobody’s mad at you or anything,” He says in a tight voice- the voice that he always uses when he’s incredibly stressed out about something. Right now, I find it obvious that the thing that he’s stressed out about is me.
“But I’m better now,” I remind him as one single tear rolls down the left side of my face. How could I do this to my family? To Penn, who has always been on my side? He has always believed in me, he has always had faith in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself, Penn wouldn’t give up. He thought that he knew that I was okay. That I wouldn’t do this again. I thought that I knew that I wouldn’t do this again either and yet, here we are. I did it again. I can’t face him- not after everything that he’s done for me and this is how I repay him- by betraying his trust in me.
“Ana, it’s okay. It’ll be okay,” He assures me as if he really believes that. After all that’s happened, I can’t see how he could possibly still believe that everything will be okay. He’s an optimist, I’ll give him that.
“I don’t remember anything,” I say quietly. “Penn. What happened?”
He puffs out his cheeks and looks up at the ceiling as if he’s trying to figure out the right words to say- as if there are right words to say in this situation. “I found you in the bathroom of the hotel. Ana, why do you have a pocket knife?”
“Self-defense,” I trail off when I realize that me carrying a small pocket knife in my purse at all times may come off the wrong way considering my history with sharp things. Another tear trickles down my face as I look back to him. “Penn, I swear. I had it for self-defense. I always have it with me.”
“I believe you,” He says quickly. “Ana, I’m not blaming you for anything, okay? It’s alright.”
“Where are they sending me?” I mutter, looking up to the ceiling as if looking up will help me make it through this with any remnants of dignity at all. That ship has sailed though, and it’s not coming back.
“I didn’t say that they were sending you anywhere,” He tells me.
“Please,” I snort in disbelief. “Mom’s probably already copped a deal with the lawyers and signed the papers.”
“You know, if it was up to me, I wouldn’t let you go anywhere,” Penn says with a small smile to try and lighten the mood of the hospital room. We both know that it won’t happen though.
“I know,” I sniffle. “I just… I was better. But I saw the news and I just panicked. I don’t know what happened. I got so scared. I am still so scared. I know that you know about the whole parole thing. You didn’t want to tell me but I found out anyway.”
“I just wanted you to have a party, Ana,” He sighs apologetically. “I was going to tell you.”
“I know,” I say again. “It’s okay. I understand. How could they let him out on parole? How could they do it?”
“He’s not actually going to get out, Ana, I promise. Did you see the part where there are protesters all over the court house? Nobody is going to let this dirt bag out of prison. It’s where he belongs for the rest of his life,” He assures me.
“I don’t want to go away,” I cry softly, wiping the tears from my face just as the doctor opens the door and following him are both of my parents and Sienna. I look away quickly, not wanting to face my mother or my crying father at all. I don’t want to do this.
“Where am I going?” I ask, looking up at the ceiling again.
“South Carolina,” My mom announces. “They have a wonderful program there.”
“I think that we should talk about other options before you send her away again,” Penn speaks up, staying beside me as the doctor stands on the other side of me and starts reading things from the machine that’s beeping beside me. “I’m sure we can figure something out so that she can stay here with us.”
“Penn, you know that we’ve tried everything,” She assures him, handing him a long piece of paper that looks like it’s probably a brochure. “This place is the only thing that we haven’t tried. Look through that- it’s a very nice facility and they offer their patients a lot of freedom in comparison to the one in Alaska. I really think that you’ll like this one, Ana.”
“Right,” I sigh, still not looking at her because I’m crying and I don’t want her to see me cry. I don’t want anybody to see me cry, actually, and I’m so embarrassed. I’ve honestly never been so humiliated and disappointed in myself. I can’t believe that I let this happen again- after two years of being better, I feel apart again. My tiers of cake have crumbled. “Awesome. What day is it?”
“It’s Sunday. Your party was yesterday,” Penn informs me and I cringe just thinking about the horror show that I gave my entire family by being taken away on an ambulance probably covered in blood. “I brought some stuff from home that I thought that you’d want.”
He hands me a small bag full of stuff from around my room- mostly clothes, really- but on top, my journal is resting. I pull it out and sit it on my lap before dropping the duffel bag to the floor. I wonder if this new place in South Carolina will let me wear my own clothes. The psychiatric hospital in Alaska let us were our own clothes but they had to be processed and approved first. I’ve heard of other places making patients wear uniforms and stuff like that though. I can read on the front of the brochure that Penn is holding that this place is called Bernard’s Mental Rehabilitation Center, which is nice because it’s not called a ‘hospital’ like the place in Alaska is. I hope that this one is better although I doubt that it will really change anything about my situation. “Thanks.”
Once I ask for my privacy and I’m finally all alone in the room, I finally find it in myself to let it all go- crying my eyes out for hours on end. Two years. I had two years without an incident but here I am with fresh cuts on my wrists that were intended to kill me. I don’t know how many times it’s only going to be a close call instead of the real thing but I wish that it’d just work already. Why can’t I just die? I would be much happier as a spirit than a human. I know that it’d hurt Penn and my parents and my oldest brother, Peter, but it hurts me to be alive so no matter what, somebody is hurting- why does it always have to be me?
I open my journal and flip to the next page, after my ‘day 745’ and then I write the next line with a tear dropping onto the page as I do so.
It has been 1 day since I have attempted suicide.
*Thank you for dealing with the long wait! Starting today, I'm going to be posting every Sunday! What do you think so far?! And this chapter is dedicated to InsaneOutcast_ for helping me loads with casting :3 And the picture to the side is Rachel Hendrix, who plays Ana! (: