Alone This Holiday

"So how do you feel, Brian?" The irritating lady asked.

"Peachy,"

"Do you feel the need to die?"

"No,"

"Have you any memory of your suicide attempt?"

"Yes,"

"What was it like?"

"Painful,"

"Are you going to use more then one word answers?" She sighed, putting her glasses on the desk infront of her.

"No,"

"Brian, do you use the name Synyster. Is he your alter ego, or something,"

"Penis," She clearly gave up at that point, she clicked a few buttons on her laptop, and then allowed me to leave. I'd been in the hospital for the required time and was now three day's overdue to leave. They weren't convinced that I wasn't a risk to myself, or my children. Anna had even left the hospital, and been give custody of our children, and the court had decided that I'd have weekend visitation rights, but only every second weekend. My children's bodies had healed from their ordeals, and no perminant damage was seen to their health.

Anna visited me twice and sometimes three times per day, just updating me on the kids. Constantly I'd remind her that she left me, and despite her lack of memory, it happened. She'd constantly say that she still loves me, and she needs me, she wants to sort things out again. But I couldn't do it to her, the kids, or myself; the divorce needed to happen.

"Can I come in?" Anna asked, although she was already inside. Either way I nodded, just for the sake of manners. "The Doctor tells me that you're not co-operating with your councilling,"

"Yeah, well,"

"And your answer for things is one word; and a lot of the time you just say 'penis'," Shrugging I lay back on my bed, looking around the room make me think of a bleach commercial; everything was white and shiny, enough so that when the sun shone in here you needed sunglasses. "Brian?"

"Yeah?"

She sighed, "You need to co-operate. They won't let you leave, otherwise," I shrugged my shoulders, and looked at her. "So you don't want to come home, to your family?"

"Far out, Anna. We aren't a family, anymore, okay?"

She looked taken back, "Brian, please-"

"No, Anna, all I've done is hurt you. Okay? You mightn't rememeber it, but I did hurt you. I acused you of cheating, I knew you didn't, but I knew I was making you miserable, and I couldn't do it to you..."

"I know,"

"What?" My head shot up to her, and she was smiling like a kid on Christmas Day.

She noved closer to me, and sat just infront of where I was. One leg dangled over the edge, while the other was just infront of her, I feel her slightly tanned leg with the very tips of my fingers which made me sigh at how smooth it was.

"Brian, I rememeber everything,"

"But-"

"Don't ask how; it just came to me, and I played along with it though. Because I knew that it'd make me see exactly who you are. I still love you Brian, I always have and I always will," She pressed her lips to mine, and pushed me back onto the bed before I came to my senses and pushed her away a little.

"No,"

"No?" The corner of the room looked so right, and I found myself sitting in it, holding my knee's close to my head. "Brian, what are you doing?" She asked, knealing next to me.

"No. I won't do this!" My voice was loud, firm, and apparently scary, as Anna quickly fell backwards. "Don't let me hurt you!"

My doctor heard all the comotion, and rushed inside, where he crouched next to me, and asked Anna to leave. She didn't hesitate to run, her hair bounced as she did so, and I found myself crying into my hands.

"Brian? It's me, Doctor Coppland,"

"I need to stop this, stop it all,"

"Your life?"

"No, I need to stop hurting Anna," I told my counciller. "I can't do this to her. She deserves so much more!" Before my counciller could say anything else, I was standing up, shoving things into my bag, and leaving the hospital. Nobody stopped me, nobody made me say, nobody cared; everyone knew I'd made the breakthrough.

I needed to change.

I was going to change.

"Hello?" Matt asked, I could hear Val in the background asking what he wanted for lunch. "Anyone there?"

"Can you come get me?"

"Syn?"

"I'm at the payphone at Starbucks,"

"Yeah, I'm on my way," He sighed. I hung up, and found my wallet in my bag, and smiled as I saw I had enough to buy some ciggerettes from the shop across the street. Once I was carrying the cancer sticks in my hands I felt less scared, like an old friend was within reach; that thought was confirmed when I ran right into Matt.

"I'm sorry..." I stammered, looking up to see his worried face. "I called you, and you're here..."

"Dude, are you sure you're supposed to be out?" Matt's concerned voice mearly made me smile. "Dude?"

"You love Val, don't you?"

He nodded and added, "Yes, very much,"

Taking my hand I wrapped it around the back of his neck, and pulled him a little closer to me before whispering, "Don't fuck it up," Matt took me to his car, where he loaded my bag in, made sure I was buckled inside the car before driving to his house. Val was waiting out the front, taking the stairs two at a time, she ran down them before jumping on me and holding me close to her. I leaned back, causing her to back away with a weird look on her face.

"You smell like A-Anna," She sniffed her shirt before turning to Matt, he shrugged and led me inside by pulling me by my elbow. "Ow," I hissed over and over again, before I pulled my arm from his grasp.

Val pulled my sleeve up, and saw a needle still lodged just below my elbow. "Brian, did they let you out, or did you run away?" Val said in her no lying voice.

"I walked," I countered. "Very slow speed too,"

"Far out..." Grumbled Val, pulling the needle out, causing me to hiss. "I want you to go upstairs and have a shower. I'll make some lunch,"

"O-okay,"

"Did you get your medication, at least?" I pulled it from my pocket, placed it on the bench and went upstairs. Once I was showered, dressed and shaved around my face; I took the stairs to the kitchen, but stopped as I heard my Dad's voice in the kitchen.

"...We don't know," Matt said, clearly with food in his mouth. "He just rang and asked me to get him,"

Dad sighed, "He is acting like he did when he was five,"

"What happened?" Val asked.

"When Brian was fifteen, he and his convinced his cousin Connah to take the dirt bike for a ride. Brian had seen me use it heaps, and seemed to know what he was doing. But Connah wasn't interested in going with him. But Brian convinced him to. They were gone for close to three hours before anyone noticed they'd gone. When we found them, gosh, Brian was next to the bike, his arm was broken, badly, and he had passed out. Connah was about three hundred metres away, he'd broken his neck, we couldn't revive him. Brian, he went to hospital, and he started to break down, he convinced himself it was entirely his fault, althogh by his account Connah was driving it at that point; and he started to act like he was mental. We put him on medication, took him to councilling, but none of it worked. Then he met this girl, who let him be himself, didn't even ask what had gone on. Anna is the reason he went back to, well, normal, or as normal as Brian ever gets. Now she's gone from his life,"

"So he's having a mental breakdown?"

"No, not by medical standards. But by Brian standards, he's just shutting down..." Not wanting to hear anymore of the story I stepped out of the hallway. Dad saw me and looked startled. "Son, are you o-okay?"

"Dandy," Lies seemed to come so naturally, I didn't even need to think. "Fine and dandy. So did you all like dad's little story? He left out the part where it was none of your business though, it's just a small part of the entire story that I believe goes that front of it," I growled.

"Brian, we didn't know you went through that,"

"Yeah, rememeber the part of the story I just told you, stupid?" I spat at Matt. He looked hurt, and just backed away from me.

"Son, what do you want to do? Do you want to come home with me, or go back to your house?"

"Wow, so I'm a prisoner with choices?"

"Prisoner?"

"Yeah, you guys are going to follow me, watch me, every where I go. Even when I pee, you guys will stand there, make sure I stay sane. Well you know what I am fine, I am not having a breakdown! I am fine!"

Dad drove me to my house, clearly I'd just lost two friends.

"Brillient," I chuckled, crossing their names off the list of people I needed to push away for their own sake.