I’M IN the intensive care unit. I’ve been unconscious for two days, and they didn’t know if I was going to wake up. I don’t know anyone here, except for my mom, who visited while I was unconscious, but I haven’t seen her yet since I opened my eyes before. God, she’s probably a mess right now. I guess I didn’t think about her when I did it. I’m only thinking about myself. I want to be free. But my mom could be okay. She’s always been so supportive of my choices. Now there are twenty-eight stitches in my arms.
The doctors are overly suspicious, which makes sense considering I’m still on suicide watch. If I so much as cough, everyone looks at me with a sharp, owl-like twist of the neck, and I become the star of a one-woman show. I can’t even try anything, there’s nothing here that could take me away.
I want darkness. I want to rest and never to wake again. I want to be alone, and more than that I want to be free and anywhere but here. Obviously. I don’t want this, the constant surveillance.
I am boxed in by blasé walls and the stuffy environment. On my left, there is a machine beeping out my pulse, fluttering around every time I think about it and drawing in more tired, wrinkled faces with their hair pulled out of their eyes so they can see me. I can feel all of their eyes watching me, boring uncomfortable holes in my personal bubble. I hate the staring eyes.
Also on my left, there is an IV. I suppose that nearly bleeding out must dehydrate you, or something, and I find that I am suddenly picturing myself as somewhat deflated. So the contents of the IV drain into me, slowly inflating me like the shriveled balloon of a person that I am. A sticker on it states that the bag is for Carter Alice Rogers, and I watch gravity slowly pull away the sticker with my name on it from the bag. The only thought that I can muster is what an annoyance gravity can be, always dragging everything down.
I ponder my general lucidity, and I doubt I’m quite “all there” as the phrase goes, but the question remains: whether or not I’m that special title of “all there” on purpose, or if I’m hiding in myself, hiding from who I am and what I’ve done, not letting the bastards in scrubs see me as I live and breathe.
On my right there is only a large window that shows off a dirty gray rooftop strewn with dead leaves. It is depressing and dull, and it reflects my mood perfectly.
There comes a second when the boring eyes are turned, and my personal bubble feels untouched again, so I ferociously pick at the stitches on my left arm, trying to gnaw them free. They are like saplings, growing roots and making a home on my arms. They are hideous, they are black worms consuming my skin, and I don’t want them fixing the beautiful red droplets that are starting to leak free and bead on my arm. They almost seem like bubbles, growing larger as they fill with the disgusting hospital air, and I can imagine them popping in the bitch nurse’s face when she comes back in.
Instead, I am caught and restrained. They watch me much more closely, and I fall asleep under their oppressive gazes that shatter any remnants of privacy I was under the illusion I had. But I was disillusioned from the start. I know how little privacy I have, absolute zero. Those ten seconds were an absolute blessing.
When I wake up, the arm with the stitches that I tried to remove with my teeth is covered with new and equally pristine bandages as the old ones. I can only vaguely wonder where the old bandages could have gotten to since they aren’t in possession of legs, because then a man walks in, back rigid, dressed in slacks—he’s someone who knows how to communicate with a child.
Because that’s who I am to them. A child. One who couldn’t handle the pressure of growing up. More like a girl who couldn’t stand losing her hand, then her livelihood, then her will to live. He asks me if I regret my actions, so I think about it and tell him that if I regret anything, it’s the fact that I tried to slit my wrists in such a spur-of-the-moment manner. There could have been a much better time to make sure it worked, but I panicked and wanted out right then. I regret that there were so many times I could have done it better—done it right—and if I had been patient I would have gotten a much better chance.
Slowly giving up is much easier when you’re quiet about it.
The man introduces himself as Jordan, my therapist, politely apologizing about not introducing himself before.
“I guess I was pretty anxious to discuss your case,” he says, and he sits and takes notes while I stare out the window and refuse to answer. I think awhile on his name. Jordan, my therapist. That’s quite an interesting name to possess, to have one’s title in one’s name like that. I’ll have to use his full name every time I see him, I think. It’s only right. Then he asks about my hand, or lack thereof.
“This?” I sneer, holding up my left wrist tattooed with the stitches that remain hidden under that stupid pristine bandaging, one that ends abruptly where a hand should start and there are older scars instead, scars that have faded, as inconspicuous as they will get.
“This is no hand. There is no hand. It’s a blunt object. A stump. A symbol for stupidity and an eternal mark that screams ‘score one for peer pressure.’ It is by no means a hand. There is no fucking hand.” I rush through the first few thoughts in my mind, but by the end of my speech I am so enraged that I say the words slowly, savoring their bitter inflection in my mouth. I lower the thing that is supposedly an arm back into my lap and pointedly ignore it. I am suddenly exhausted by my miniature tirade, and I flop backward, just now realizing I had been leaning forward in bed as I spoke.
He asks more questions, some of which I answer in short, clipped sentences; the others I pretend I don’t hear. When he asks me why, I look him in the eyes and say, “Take a guess,” twitching my arm vaguely, to which he slowly nods and stands up, his back cracking as he stretches.
As he walks out, he turns and says, “We won’t let that happen. We’re trying to help you, Carter, I promise. I know you don’t believe that now, but it is my hope that you will thank me for this someday. We’re going to get your antidepressants sorted out and we hope those will help you feel better. Now, I want you to think hard about something good, and I’ll be back tomorrow to talk some more.”