Who Can Really Blame You?

My aunt eventually had to go back to work, and I didn’t have the heart to ask my friends to watch me like she asked, especially since I didn’t need watching. I’m fine.

I just wish that I could sleep. Everything blurs together when you can’t sleep, and things get really hard to keep track of. I only remember what day things happened on because I can remember whether or not it was raining.

School has started sending me work to do at home; something my aunt is undoubtedly behind. I haven’t done any of it. At this rate, I’ll never graduate. I don’t really care.

Six weeks. After six weeks of continual nothingness, I managed to get out of bed, move into the bathroom, and take a proper shower (which is sadly enough, on a very short list of the number of showers I’ve taken since leaving the hospital) brush my teeth and look at myself in a mirror. Then, I went back to bed.

I don’t really care.

Talia’s been trying to break down my door for a week straight now. She’s been trying to visit since the hospital, but while my aunt was here, she made her go away, and since then I’ve left the door locked. She hasn’t been able to get in. I can hear her screaming outside, obviously past trying to coax me out, and now just mad that I just don’t really care.

They got a key. The landlord gave my aunt a key, and they broke in, they being my aunt, the twins, Hadley, and Carter. After breaking into my apartment, they promptly broke down my barricaded bedroom door and sent me in for a psychiatric evaluation.

I don’t really care.

Okay, I do care. I hate this place, the psych ward, more than anything in the whole world. There’s a girl, who obsessed over me in the papers, and has scars running up and down her legs, who follows me around (or usually sits outside my bedroom door). My roommate hasn’t eaten in two weeks, and wants to be me, since I haven’t really eaten anything in five and a half. She sits there, asking how I do it a lot, in between polite conversation.

I hate this place, and yeah, I do care.

I try to be angry when everyone comes to visit me after my first five days, when I get out in three, but I’m so glad to see people who aren’t obsessed with being like me, or feeding me pills, that I don’t manage to be mad at them.

“Have you been eating?” Hadley asks, and I shrug.

“Not really. It’s awful stuff here,” I admit.

She says nothing.

“Why not?!” Talia suddenly demands, and Tayler tries to quiet her, but she shakes him off.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” she demands, and I’m leaning as far back from her as I can. “You have a right to mourn! Why don’t you let yourself do it normally? When your dad died,” she starts and everyone gives her looks since no one really says it like that, “You were upset for four days and then you insisted on hiding it from us and punishing yourself for feeling badly! You didn’t kill him, just like you didn’t kill Mitchell or that poor boy!”

We all sit there silent, staring at Talia, but I look down to my lap.

“It could be worse,” I say quietly, and I feel everyone turn to look at me, “I could have aids, or no legs, or no friends.”

“Your suffering is no less just because you’re luckier than some!” she explodes and I flinch back.

Everyone stays quiet.

“Come on Tally,” Tayler says and leads his sister, who is more willing than usual, from the room.

“She just loves you,” Hadley says, taking my hand.

“I love you guys too,” I insist.

“We know,” she replies quietly, “she just wants you to see yourself the way we do. This year has been so bad, and we just want to help you make it better, to make yourself better.”

“I’m fine,” I try to insist, but she tells me to shut up.

“You know how much they told us you weighed this morning?” she asks. I don’t even know. I never bother to check. I don’t really care.

“You weighed 87 pounds, Ainsley. You could die if you keep on like this,” she says brokenly, and she releases my hands to cover her face. I put my arms around her shoulders. We all look up when we hear something fall and break in the hall, and Carter stands, saying he’s going to go make sure Talia isn’t hurt. We watch him leave us alone, and Hadley looks to me first.

“Do you have any clue what this is doing to Carter?” she asks, and I pretend that I didn’t just feel a stabbing sensation in my chest, and chalk it up to my healing bones. “I can’t believe you’re still blind to what’s going on with you two,” she says quietly, a smile on her face for the first time in a long while.

“Of course I know,” I say quickly, “I’m in love with him, and I’m too fucked up for anything to happen between us ever, just because I wanted to get over him by going out with—with other people.”

“You know that’s bullshit,” she says, “He likes you, and I think he likes you despite everything that’s happened while you guys have known each other, and he’s never thought of you any differently for your past.”

“Had,” I say, sighing. I want to tell her, I just want to say it. He raped me. Instead of that though, I say,” I can’t even sleep anymore.”

“You’re not sleeping either?” she asks worriedly.

“I can’t!” I exclaim, “I’m exhausted, but what can I do? The lights turn off and my mind goes crazy, thinking.”

Hadley takes my hand, and we sit there in silence until everyone else files back into the room, along with the nurse, who tells everyone that visiting is over. I feel like my heart’s breaking as I watch them all drag their feet out, yelling that they love me.

I go back to my room, and tell my roommate that the best way to stop eating is to stop caring. Once that goes, so does everything else.