Voices |E. Cullen|

THREE

Turns out, being drunk all the time isn't something people found appealing. Especially not something my mother found appealing. One would have thought that a CNA would be educated on the fact that you can't just rip alcohol out of someone's hand and expect them to recover just fine the next day. She was smart in other areas, I supposed. Her stupidity, to put it in lamest terms, ended my ass in the hospital. Fuck her, man, I hated that place. 

I had an IV in my right hand which grossed me out every time I moved around and a blood pressure cuff attached to my left arm that would squeeze the crap out of it every fifteen minutes or so. A golden-haired man that I met in the Emergency Department had become my doctor for the entirety of my stay and we had a decent rapport. He was the only person in the entire hospital that didn't judge me for being an alcoholic at seventeen. None of the hospital knew about how I used to hallucinate, though, and I knew that was going to come back to bite me in the ass. 

My sweating was from the alcohol withdrawal and for that I was getting Valium to control my anxiety and tremors. Of course, I was in a hospital, people died in that place constantly. Therefore, when two a.m. came around and I saw my first dead person in months, it sent me into a fit of screaming. 

Doctor Cullen rushed into my room and placed his hands on my biceps to offer comfort, "Julia, what is it? What's wrong?" 

I clung to him like a child, "They're back."

"Who's back, Jules?" 

"The dead people, they're back."

"Shh, they're hallucinations from your detox, you're okay, it's not real."

"They're not from detox," I cried, "I've had them for two years now."

The ghost stood at the foot of my bed which caused me to cling to Doctor Cullen harder, "I was shot," it groaned. 

"When?" My voice trembled, usually they never responded to me. 

"2003," the panic from the ghost began to fade. 

"What is your name?" I was still nervous but my energy was also evening out. 

"Jace Henry," he was calm.

"Jace Henry?" I repeated and Doctor Cullen's face grew confused.

"How do you know that name?" He questioned.

"He's standing right in front of me," I let go of the doctor's clothing and pulled my knees close to my chest. 

"Julia, why did you begin to drink?" He knelt down beside the bed and looked at me. 

I sighed and pulled my gaze away from Jace who was still at the foot of the bed, "They disappeared if I was intoxicated."

He looked around the room not seeing what I was observing, "I want to schedule you for an MRI and CT of your head, I want to rule some possible diagnoses out."

"Please, if I have schizophrenia don't put me on meds that destroy my affect. I don't want to be a zombie," I curled on my side opposite of him. 

"We're gonna figure this out, I'll put in an order for the tests, I'll accompany you to both and wake you up when it's time," he soothed, rubbed my shoulder, and then stepped out of the room. 

That was my biggest fear, the whole reason I didn't want to go into a hospital in the first place, I didn't want to be put on a bunch of psych meds that made me a walking zombie with major constipation and no emotions whatsoever. In my opinion, I lacked several key aspects of the disorder, but I wasn't the doctor, he was. 

My muscles relaxed after a while due to Jace simply relaxing in the corner of the room in a chair, he wasn't afraid and neither was I. If only I had spoken to them before, maybe I wouldn't have had to go through months of destroying my body just to escape the terror and screams. 

"Why are you here?" I asked the dead man sitting across from me. 

"I'm not ready to go yet," he shrugged and looked at the clock on the wall. 

"Oh, absolutely not. I am not the Ghost Whisperer, buddy," I groaned and pulled the blankets over my head to block out the visual stimuli. 

"You're not the one that helps me, calm down. You're not the only one that can see dead people, you know," he grunted. 

"Uh, okay? Then how do you know when you're ready?"

"When my assassin comes through the front doors and dies, then I will be ready."

"You're going to wait all that time? You don't want to know what happens when you let go?" 

"I've thought about it before, seeing him pass will be much more gratifying."

"You're going to waste your time by waiting possibly years for the man to die? Do you even know if he lives here anymore? If he even lived in the town to begin with?" 

"He was my father, I know he still lives in Forks."

I sat up in my bed, still trembling from the detox. "Okay, laying down some ground rules, I am not the Ghost Whisperer, I've said it before and I'll say it again. I am not Jennifer Love Hewitt, I am not going to help everybody cross over, but what if he was caught?"

"Like how?"

"I don't know, what if the police found out who the killer was? What if they found evidence?"

He looked at me and smirked, "If you could make that happen I would consider not bothering you anymore."

I huffed, "I don't know any police officer who would listen to me."

A knock at the door didn't even make me jump anymore, not when there were dead people popping up all the time in random ass places. "What is Jace saying now?" Doctor Cullen was playing into my hallucinations.

"Says he was shot by his dad. Even if by some slim shot it was true, what the hell kind of officer is going to listen to the town's seventeen-year-old alcoholic-schizophrenic?"

He smiled lightly, "I think I know a few people with some influence. To my knowledge, it's still a cold case- what's the harm in making a suggestion?"