Give Me a Break

Breakfast is the strained attempt to form something cohesive, yank some common ground out of yellow eggs and waffles coated with a shimmer of syrup. It’s Brendon chewing between short sentences commenting on the weather, on how I slept, if I liked the room, the house. It’s the deafening sound of teeth grinding across slightly burnt batter still soft in the center. Breakfast is a half hearted attempt to pretend everything’s normal like we do this every day and like I didn’t pop a stitch reaching up into the cupboard for a glass ten minutes earlier. The bandage is dissolving into red, sopping up the liquid and spreading it out to keep it from dripping onto the half eaten plate in front of me and I drop my hand beneath the table.

Brendon doesn’t notice or he doesn’t ask. Either way, the wound keeps bleeding, keeps draining me a drop at a time, more with every movement, every quickened pace of my heart beat, and by the time I’ve washed the sugar off my plate and put it in the dishwasher, the gauze has turned a deep red. Brendon finally notices and then we rush to the hospital, breaking speed limits as I relish in the familiar feeling of life seeping out of me.

Good job on keeping an eye on your suicidal friend bleeding out beside you, Brendon. Way to hide the knives and the razor blades in the cupboard, the bathroom. How you handled the strained looks and the broken smiles and the promises from doctors that regardless of what I say I’m not okay could really earn you a medal. They should give prizes for that kind of obliviousness. And the award for Most Likely To Not See His Friend Hanging from the Rafters goes to.

The doctor’s the same mock up of a mock up of a doctor that maybe once cared, three generations ago when the mere thought of saving a life was enough to cause premature ejaculation and now he hopes there’s only cases like me to deal with, quick problems, quick fixes, the minimal need secluding the extreme need patients never talk about. Because you’re a doctor and you’re busy and it’s just a suicidal tendency. It’s just the thought of driving off that cliff. It’s only taking a 20 mph curve at 55. It’s only memorizing the overdose quantities on every drug in the pharmacy. So, really, it’s nothing. You’re busy. Don’t worry about it.

“You be more careful this time around, alright?”

Why? So you don’t have to see the scars and smell the blood and know that you maybe should have paid a little more attention the time I came in for a check up with a sleeveless shirt on and my wrists bare, open, begging you to look. You didn’t. I watched you and you didn’t. You looked at the thermometer. Not at me. You looked at the blood pressure gauge. Not at me. You looked at the gonorrhea poster on the wall and probably wondered if I would come in with that one day. You looked at the needles fuzzing through the toxic waste box and the blue and white paper container with latex gloves erupting from it’s plastic seam and the silver sink made rusty around the mouth by the water drip drip dripping in to the basin. You looked out the window. You looked at your reflection in the mirror. You looked at the pen in your crinkled fingers and the white paper resting on the clip board and the metal screws holding the whole fiasco together. And you never looked at me. Feeling guilty yet?

“Brendon, was it?” Nod like the lost puppy we all know you are. “I’m going to need you to keep a better eye on Ryan. Therapy helped, but he is still in no condition to be left alone. Ryan, would mind stepping outside so I can discuss some of the logistics with Mr. Urie?”

Wait, wasn’t I not supposed to be left alone? Guess he thinks a soda machine counts as a buddy. Or maybe the chair and its cushion digging a sore spot into my ass is the furniture equivalent of a friend. We all end up sitting on the things that help hold us up.

The nurse behind the counter tries to watch me without making it obvious that she’s checking me out. I sneer at her when she lifts her eyes above the computer propped in front of her, the blue glow draining her face of color, making her a monster. She retracts, lips open enough for me to see the white of her teeth, and she huffs, turning back to the computer, back to the internet and digital files holding all she’ll ever need to know about her patients. I’m probably in there. Ryan Ross. 19. Suicidal: slit wrists. Staying with: Brendon Urie. Duration of Stay: 2 weeks. Likelihood of Readmission: So likely there’s no point in even guessing at a percentage. Likelihood of Succeeding in Suicide Attempts: Depends. How long’s he staying with Brendon?

Around the corner, through 8 inches of concrete and plaster and wooden beams and metal, their own asses crushing the foam of their seats, Brendon’s rubber soles grinding out squeaking noises to scratch at the nameless doctors ears, my old friend and the doctor replacing the doctor replacing the doctor replacing the doctor replacing the first doctor talk about the ways to keep me alive. Ignore if I want to. Ignore if I like the idea. Ignore if them trying to stop me, hiding all the normal tools, only makes me want to try harder, only adds a sense of play to the whole process. Can you slice your wrists with a paper clip? Can you hang yourself with a braid of sewing thread? Let’s find out.

They’re talking about me. The better statement is their talking about what they think is me: the cutting, the suicide, Spencer, my father, the alcohol, the late nights, the razor blades, the meds. Not the smiles or the books or the late night walks or the paintings. No, none of that because that’s happy and that’s relaxed and it’s all a cover in the end, all a clever ruse to make everyone think I’m fine. I don’t love acrylic paint. I do it to pretend I love it. I didn’t love Spencer. I used him so I could feel like I loved something. It’s all one big lie, just like you, just like me. I’ve never been happy doing anything. My entire life has been one big expanded attempt to paint over the broken pieces and pretend they were never cracked. All one big lie to pretend I’m alright. You’ve never been happy with anything. It’s always been your attempt to shield yourself from the things that aren’t happy. It’s always been one big pretend. Happiness is an armor against that which is not happy and could make you like me.

I’m not depressed. I’m just not pretending anymore.

The thing about hospitals is that everything in them is white and bright, overly illuminated and over compensated for. The nurses smile too big. The doctors give their consolations with too much sympathy. The needles poke with too much sting. The fluorescence bulbs glow with too much heat and intensity. Everything’s over done. Everything’s amplified until just her typing on her keyboard makes me imagine strangling her throat and choking out her oxygen because I don’t care how much the hospital can augment and raise things above their normal frequency: her suffocating would still sound the same. There’s at least that.

The patients scuffing by drag their feet rather than give that extra 3 calories of effort to walk like they mean to move. We’re all too lazy to do anything right. Even me. I was too lazy to drive a block away and park in the deserted asphalt fields of Macy’s the night I planned to off myself. Too lazy to talk him out of it. Too lazy to drive there so I could finish off the job with a guarantee of no rescue. Instead I did it in the bathroom. Ignore the raging cliché. Did it in the empty tub and watched the red stain my clothes. You can still see the line of where my blood filled the bottom of the basin like a mold line on a martini glass growing rust. Poor Keltie’s bathroom. She always put such effort into making it contemporary. Maybe she’ll find the blood line as added depth and detail to her design.

Better than a cruel reminder of an ex-boyfriend she could never put with in the first place.

I’m just a walking contradiction.

“Mr. Ross, it would seem you are not reacting to the medication we’ve prescribed. I see Doctor Reeves has left a recommendation to up the dosage of your current medication, but-”
“The doctor said we should go on a vacation for a little while. Get you out of Chicago, maybe Hawaii? You’ve never been there right? I heard that-”
“I don’t believe we should change you to a whole new medication. Iscocarboxazid is designed to treat-”
“beaches there are crystal clear with gorgeous fish, colorful. So, um, do you have swimming stuff? You can borrow my-”
“severe depression and seeing as the other medications appear to have no effect, this is the best-”
“swim trunks if you need them. I mean, only if you don’t have your own. I mean-”
“option to assure-”
“you don’t have-”
“another relapse-”
“to take them-”
“because we wouldn’t want-”
“just offering if you need it-”
“to have another suicide attempt-’
“we’ll go shopping tomorrow and pick up-”
“Iscocarboxazid. It’s one of the strongest treatment invented and-”
“stuff for the vacation. I mean, do you want-”
“I’m giving you a prescription for three months worth. After then-”
“go to Hawaii?”
“It should handle this problem.”
“There’s no rush.”
“In the mean time, go on a vacation.”
“We don’t have to go.”
“Relax a little outside of the familiar settings.”
“If you’d rather stay in Chicago, that’s totally fine.”
“But what you really need to do-”
“He said you should-”

“Relax.”

‘Cause that’s possible with you idiots around. Ignore the twitching towards the door. Ignore the eye roll.

This is the part in the story when I’m supposed to thank the doctor and hug Brendon and say I love the idea of going to a tropical paradise to sit on a beach and sunburn. Instead, I’m shuffling in my seat, blinking slowly and ruffling my hair and all I can think about is how Iscocarboxazid is pink and I hate that color, how Spencer loved it. Fucking mental associations.