Love Isn't Love, 'Til You Give It Away

The doctors took every precaution necessary. They removed all the objects that I could possibly harm myself with. None of the doctors talked to me about why I had cut myself, but I knew that conversation was coming. But I didn't want to have it. Especially not with some strange doctor. If I was going to be forced to talk about how I felt, I wanted it to be with...Alex. I didn't want to open up to anyone else.

One week after I had woken up, and since I'd last seen Alex, there was a gently knock on my door. My heart skipped a beat, anticipating that it was Alex. But the door opened and a doctor stepped slowly into the room. She had a white coat on, unbuttoned, but underneath it, she wore a pencil skirt and a white shirt. She didn't wear scrubs like the other doctors. "Hello, Nicholas," she smiled. "I'm Doctor Turner." I smiled weakly and then quickly stopped. She was lucky she got that.
"You're a shrink," I guessed and she smiled and nodded.
"How did you guess?" she asked and I shrugged.
"I figured they'd be sending one sooner or later..." I said softly. "...to talk." I visibly winced at the words.
"You don't have to say anything that you are uncomfortable saying," she reassured me. "You can say as much or as little as you choose." I nodded once. "Let's start with the...event which occurred a few months ago," she said and I realised that she was going to make me say something whether I want to or not.
"Joe betrayed me," I said simply. "I know he apologised and I forgive him, I do. But he still did it." She frowned at me slightly and then nodded. I realised that it was actually very easy to tell her this stuff. It was easy to let out what I had been keeping bottled up for the last few months.
"You lost your trust in him," she said. It wasn't a question, she knew.
"Him, my family...everyone," I said.
"Your family did something to you as well?" she asked and I shook my head.
"But they could..." I said. "They could in the same way that Joe did. I trusted Joe and he stabbed me in the back. What's to stop them from doing the same thing?" I could feel myself getting angrier so I forced back the emotion.
"Your mum said that someone came to see you every day?" she asked and I nodded, a small smile on my mouth.
"Alex...he's my best friend," I said, my voice softer and more gentle now. And Dr Turner would have to have been an idiot to have missed it. I glanced at Dr Turner and saw she was smiling softly and nodding. "He...he helped me. He was the only one I felt like I could trust. I don’t know why...but I just felt safer with him..." The corners of my lips were raised slightly in a small smile. "Alex...he wouldn’t let me go. He wouldn’t let me...detach myself from the world. I mean...I was pretty much gone...but whenever he came to talk to me, I just came back. He pulled me back. And I always came back to him. I wanted him. But...then he told me...he told me..." I trailed off and closed my eyes. "He kissed me," I whispered, my eyes still closed. "And I freaked out. I'd spent the last few months not feeling anything...and then he suddenly forces all these emotions onto me and I didn't know what to do. I pushed him away and told him to leave. And he did...and he didn't come back. Without him...I didn't have anything. There was no point." I could feel my throat closing with emotion but I didn't cry, I wouldn’t let myself cry in front of her. And I didn't want to tell her that Alex hadn’t come to me in hospital yet.
"Your family love you, Nicholas," she said softly and I shook my head.
"No they don't," I said. "And I don’t blame them. I mean, I know I was awful to them. But that was the only way it worked. The only way I could distance myself from them was if they distanced themselves from me. If they didn't care about me, it was easier not to care about them."
"They're your family," Dr Turner said. "Surely you want to care about them?"
"No," I said surely, shaking my head. "If I care about them...it will just hurt so much more the next time one of them hurts me. And I don’t know if I can go through all of this again."
"Nick," she said, using my nick-name for the first time. "Your family are worried about you. They want you to have therapy until you're better."
"I'm not sick," I said adamantly. "I've been telling them for months. I'm not sick! I know what I'm doing. I've just made a choice and I'm following it through. I won't let them hurt me again."
"They didn't all hurt you," she pointed out and I shook my head.
"That's not the point," I said. "They all have the potential to hurt me. Even Alex." She paused for a second, looking at me, reading my face.
"Alex hurt you?" she asked and I lowered my eyes.
"He left me..." I whispered. I then rolled over, telling her that I didn't want to talk anymore.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Nick," she said and I heard her cross the room and open the door, before shutting it again softly.

As soon as the door clicked shut, tears started rolling down my cheeks. Why had he left me? Does he not realise that it was because he left me the first time that I did this to myself? I need him so bad. I looked at the bandages on my wrists and traced my fingertip along the top of the white gauze. I wondered briefly what the cuts looked like. I knew I would have scars forever, reminding me of what I had tried to do. And as I was lying there, crying in my hospital room, alone...a part of me wished I'd succeeded and that Alex hadn’t found me.