Abby

CHAPTER SEVEN

"I don't need rehab, and I'm not going." Abby had stayed overnight, but they'd made Aaron go to school so they could have the rehab conversation without him there.

"Abby, look around you. These machines, these doctors and nurses? They saved your life. If I hadn't broken down your door and found you unresponsive, you'd be dead." He didn't want to be argumentative. But she wasn't living in reality.

"And it was an accident. I just needed a little high to get through school, and it obviously wasn't what I normally use, so I took a little too much."

"I guess a little goes a long way, huh?" He mocked her language, her ability to play this down. "I need some air." He said, and he wanted to walk out. They knew they could forcibly have her admitted to rehab. They'd spoken with the drug crisis counselor at the hospital. They'd spoken with the director of the closest rehab center. But they'd warned that this was rarely successful. Because once there, the addict had to do all the work. And if they didn't want it, if they entered rehab in a cloud of hatred and animosity... well it just made the process weaker and more difficult. And longer. And there was money to consider. While they would do anything for their child, the reality of affordability was there. Insurance was next to useless. And they didn't have the money immediately available. There were outpatient options, counseling, group meetings. All pretty useless for a teen who didn't think she had a problem. And they still cost money to some degree. Jennie immediately felt bad for the amount of money they threw at Aaron's athletic career. They didn't even flinch at that. They just made it happen.

"I'll be more careful." She bargained.

"How about you'll just stop using drugs?" Jason said, still completely and utterly shocked by her nonchalance. She looked away. "Do you even want to stop?" She shrugged.

"I want to be happy. I want the fighting and anger to stop." She admitted.

"So, you want us to just look the other way while you destroy your life and end up dead." It sounded selfish and pathetic coming from his lips.

"I'm miserable all the time unless I'm high. I don't know how to fix that." She blurted it out, immediately regretting it. A shadow crossed his face. Her mother looked away, tears glistening in her eyes.

"Sorry we make your life so miserable." He said, accepting defeat. "Sorry we've failed you." He stood up. "I have to go to work." He told Jennie. He kissed her forehead and dried her tears. Abby wanted to tell him that she knew it was her, not them. But she let him leave. His anger was silencing her plea for help.

"You don't have to stay." Abby told her mother.

"Why, am I making you miserable?" She asked. Abby sighed.

"You're not, mom. It isn't personal." Abby clarified. Or tried to, at least. Her mother glared at her.

"It isn't personal?" She asked, astonished at her daughter's audacity. "How is it not personal that you think your life, the life that your father and I worked hard to give you and sacrificed to give you, is miserable?" Abby felt the shame creep up into her face. Drugs. Heroin. Whatever. It would make it all go away.

"That's not what I meant!" Abby wailed. "I don't know what's wrong with me!" She screamed, ripping the IV out of her hand. Blood sprayed from the entrance. She hardly noticed. She jumped out of bed and grabbed her sneakers.

"Abby, sit back in bed, you're bleeding." Her mother directed, the anger gone, concern an shock replacing it. Abby had gone from bedridden to physically out of control and emotionally unhinged in seconds.

"No. I don't want to be here. I'm just ruining everyone's lives!" She screamed back.

Jennie hit the nurse button as she knelt down next to Abby, making sure she didn't leave. Abby didn't even feel her next to her. She was getting blood everywhere, trying to put on and tie her shoes, her emotions clogging her basic motor skills. The nurse ran in.

"What's wrong?" She asked in controlled panic.

"She pulled the IV out." Jennie said, her voice quivering.

"Abby." The nurse said. "You need to get back in bed so we can stop the bleeding." She held Abby's arm, trying to stop her from flinging blood everywhere, and trying to put a compress on it.

"I need to leave!" Abby said, pulling at her arm. "You can't keep me here; I want to leave!" Her voice was escalating. Another nurse came in and took her other arm. Abby flung her body side to side, trying to get free. Jennie tried not to look, images of an exorcism fueling her fear. It had happened so quickly, No one could control her barely one-hundred-pound body.

"Abby!" Her mother screamed, slapping her. Abby stopped, her eyes wide, her body shrunk in. The nurses lifted her up and into the bed. They talked amongst themselves while they examined her hand.

"She needs a couple stitches." The nurse said to Jennie. Jennie nodded. Abby was quiet as the nurse began to stitch her up. "Will you see a therapist?" Jennie asked. "To get a handle on the emotions you're feeling that you don't understand and can't control?" Abby looked down at her hand where they had put in two stitches.

"I don't see how it's going to help." Abby admitted. "They'll ask me how I feel and why I think I feel that way, and I don't know." Jennie didn't say anything. "Can we keep this between us?" She asked. "I've already lost dad, and I don't want Aaron to know." Jennie nodded. She wasn't exactly dying to tell either of them anyway.

"You haven't lost your dad." Jennie said.

"You saw the way he left. The way he looks past me or through me." And Jennie couldn't deny that it was true.