Cry Until You Bleed

2- Hospitals

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.