Love and the Sea and Everything in Between

chapter forty-eight

I'm kept under watch for another week before they let me go. I am kept company only by my parents and Liz, which is fine by me. I don't want even my parents to see me this way. I never did. And now I have to live with the fact that they're never going to stop watching me, waiting for some giveaway that I might be suicidal again.

The sad truth is that I miss my secrets. Except, it seems, with Liz. She's the only person I don't feel uncomfortable around, despite her knowing every thought written in the pages of my journal. I guess that's another thing love does, it breaks down your walls in just the right places to let another person in.

Packing now, I place my journal and spare clothes in my backpack, gently as if they are fragile things. I swing my backpack over my shoulder and turn to see Liz standing in the doorway of my soon-to-be-vacant hospital room. I smile at her.

"You ready to go?" she asks.

"I've never been more ready to do anything in my entire life." I walk to her and rest my arm around her shoulders and we walk out together.

* * *

I stand in the middle of my dorm room for what will be the last time. Everything I own is condensed down into a stack of totes, boxes, and suitcases. It doesn't bother me, really. Leaving, that is. I never really felt like I belonged here or fit in with anyone and no one ever paid me any attention. I imagine nobody will notice I'm even gone except my roommate (who's barely here anyway) and Professor Garcia who was among those to visit me while I was in my coma. Or so I'm told. I haven't seen him since and I feel bad leaving like this without saying a word to him. So I make a mental note to go see him in his office before I head out.

All the things that have happened since my botched suicide attempt have been unexpected in many ways. At the top of the list is the fact that Jeremiah visited me while I was in my coma and left behind a letter. Behind that is the fact that apparently attempting suicide is against school policy, so now I'm suspended for the rest of the semester. Of course, they didn't directly say I was suspended. They were very careful to sound sympathetic so, instead, they said, "We believe it would be best if you took the rest of the semester off to find the help you need to fulfill all that this school asks of its students."

So here I am, packing up and leaving. My parents wanted me to stay with them until I can find my own place, but I didn't want to leave Liz and move two hours away from her so I told them I would just sleep in my van for a while until I can get a job and buy my own place. They were reluctant – extremely reluctant – but since I'm already living on my and am, for all intents and purposes, technically an adult I push my point that I need to live on my own, for all our sakes.

I would feel suffocated if I had to go back to live with my parents. Not that I don't love them. I just need to move on with my life and I feel like going back to when I was still a kid would be a major step backwards.

I'm all about moving forward right now.

I start carrying my things out to the common area where Liz meets me and helps me carry them to Gus. We work like this until all my things (which, to be fair, aren't abundant) are loaded in the trunk. I notice the few people that linger in the common area seem to avoid us and I roll my eyes at Liz.

"What?" she asks with a raise of her brow.

"Don't you notice the fact that absolutely no one is looking at us?"

"So?"

"C'mon, no one's that oblivious."

She laughs. "Who cares?"