Say Smething

People often come into our lives without warning, nor reason. They come crashing into our daily routine and after thirty times, so they say, they become a habit. Someone you grow use to seeing, feeling, loving. Soon you take their presence for granted.
Until they try to leave.
Until you get a call from his parents saying that they found him in the bathroom with a razor in his hand.
And blood on the floor.
From his wrists.
And you don’t know why he wants to leave, but there’s nothing you can do.
“Say something,” he says.
I chip at my dark nail polish. I remember when I use to scrap off the polish with my teeth when I was nervous. I think about doing that now.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask.
“That you forgive me,” he suggests gently.
I look up at him from my nails. His face is painted with sad
emotion, along with red eyes from tears.
I feel myself shaking, the kind of feeling you get when you haven’t eaten in a long time and you start to think about eating a double cheese burger. I would love to forgive so that things could go back to how they were, but things had already changed.
We have changed.
I feel my eyes burn with tears poking behind my eyes like a thousand needles. I try to hold it together for him and for the fact that I didn’t wear waterproof mascara today.
“Just tell me why you did it? I don't understand why? What did I do wrong?” I whisper so that my voice didn’t shake.
He puts his arms around me and burry my face in his shoulder. “No…God no, Lee. Please don't blame yourself for this.”
The tears spilled over, unto his hospital gown. I claw at it, trying to be closer.
“Shh,” he whispers in my ear, rubbing my back. “I’m okay.”
I shake my head. “They said you're sick.”
“I’m healthy as a horse,” he chuckles.
I am angry at him for trying to make me laugh.
Angry because I want to laugh.
I pull away and see black stains on his gown.
He takes my hand and pulls me closer. His fingers weave their way in my hair, his other hand is on my neck, his index finger on my pulse. And he kisses me, drowning out the sobs. Tears fall off my cheeks and carry black dye with them as they hit the floor.
My hands run over his face, then to his arms. They reach his wrists.
The bandages.
I pull away and take his wrists and kill the bandages. “Why do you want to die?” I ask him.
“It was too much,” he replies.
Only four words?
“No, I want a real explanation,” I say firmer, anger painting my voice.
“I don't want to talk about it,” he says sighing. He goes to sit on the hospital bed.
I glare at him.
“You…you don't?” I hiss.
He looks down.
“Well then!” I yell, “How about I put a pistol to my head because it’s too much!’”
“LeAnna,” he sighs.
I walk out the door and then run down the halls. I run into the bathroom and look in the mirror. I’m a mess.
I have to make sure to wear waterproof mascara if I am going to visit more.
I glare at the mirror now. What if he had cut too deep and died? I wouldn’t have been there to protect him, like he promised he would protect me.
I take some paper towels out from the dispenser and clean my face.
Then I take a deep breath and go back to his room.
He is lying on his side looking blankly at the wall. Then he sees me, and those green eyes light up
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, “I was upset.”
“And you hid it so well,” he says smiling.
If you had met Aiden a few months ago, you wouldn’t think that he was capable of murder. You wouldn’t think that he would have a reason to cut himself, or hang himself.
They found rope in the closet.
Sitting on that hospital bed in silence, because the truth hurts him, I realize how helpless I am to him. I can’t do anything to help him, nor save him. That was the worse feeling, watching someone you love dying in front of you without being able to help him.
It’s demoralizing.
All I can do is sit there in this God awful silence that he insists. It isn’t fair.
“When can you leave?” I whisper, keeping my voice low for him.
He doesn’t meet my gaze. “I don’t know, Lee.”
I really need a cheeseburger.

Being at school without Aiden is weird, seeing the sympathetic looks I get from people as I walked down the halls. It’s not like they know him or anything. But that’s high school, just stupid teenagers who are desperate to have some drama to fill their pathetic lives.
The rooms are vacant without his presence and it is even worse that he is tied up to a hospital bed with IV needles.
With bandages covering his wrists.
Lunch is even worse, for I’m sitting at the reject table alone today. No one to talk to but my conscience, who is silent with heavy guilt.
I debate going to the hospital after school. I drive to the drug store and buy waterproof mascara. I sit in my car in the hospital parking lot using my mirror to put it on.
Then I just sit there. Thinking.
About how we met.
About the way we fell in love.
About all the troubles we went through only to get here.
About the possibility that this would be it.

>>December 31, 2006<<

After putting on my mascara, I put on my silver heels and walked down the steps. It was two days after my last anger management session. And it was two months after my last cigarette.
Alex was waiting for me at the front door. His blond hair was perfected into gelled disarray. His blue eyes were brought out by his ironed blue button down shirt. He was everything my parents wanted for me, and he was nothing less than perfect. I couldn’t help but think perfect over and over when I saw him. And what was more, was that he wanted to be with me.
He wanted to be with the girl who threw a bat through her neighbors’ window after they crossed her on the day she received an F in chemistry. The girl who took out her anger by smoking down cigarettes like they were oxygen.
“Are you ready?”he asked, in his smooth voice.
I nodded and walked to his side.
He took my hand and we walked outside to his car.
It was New Year ’s Eve and we were going to some party his friend was throwing.
Once inside he left my side and went to find his friend. I was in the dark haze of smoke and drunken shadows. I stumbled into a room that had a few seats and found an empty chair. It was always the same. We would go to his rich friend’s party, and he would leave his imperfect girlfriend.
But it was okay, I had the perfect boyfriend who wanted me.
I could smell the smoke and longed to join in with them. I longed for the smoke filling my lungs to burn out the pain and anger.
Some guy sat in the chair and lit a cigarette, blowing out a cloud of delicious smoke. I breathed in and sighed.
“Want one?” He asked, turning to me.
I nodded my head and took one as he lit it for me.
It was a sweet reunion of numbness.
“What’s your name?” He asked.
“Le Anna,” I said.
“Aiden,” he said, “So how do you know Mathew?”
I inhaled more, “I don’t. My boyfriend does.”
“Ah, who’s you're boyfriend?”
“Alex. How do you know Mathew, was it?”
“He’s my brother,” he said grinning, “Our parents are out for the weekend. He’s so full of clichés.”
I smiled.
“Want a drink?” He asked getting up
I got up too. “Yeah I think I’ll get a soda.”
“Not a drinker?” He asked.
No, alcohol made me act angry. It brought out the worse in me, but doesn’t it do that to everyone? My therapist made me quit both cigarettes and alcohol, she thought that they made me worse. I won’t lie, she’s right.
“No, I make a lousy drunk,” I confessed.
He nodded. “I find that refreshing, there’s too many drunks here.” Ironically, he took a beer and handed me a cola.
I grinned.
“I also find your will power refreshing, for I have none.”
I saw Alex across the room with a beautiful red head. She was skinny and had great legs that were conspicuously shown with her skimpy outfit.
“Oh god, that’s…” Aiden trailed off.
“He’s only talking,” I said.
Then Alex laughed and bent down and kissed the red head.
I looked away; I could feel the anger boil my blood.
“Geez, Lee, I’m sorry,” Aiden said softly.
My hands were shaking and my breathing was coming in and out quickly. I went back to the table with the beer and took a plastic cup and walked to them. I dumped it on Alex and her obviously expensive blouse.
“You bitch!” She shrieked.
Alex’s eyes were wide. As if I had no control, my arm swung back then flew into his face with a loud smack.
I turned away before I did more damage and walked out of the house.
I made it out to the front lawn before I collapsed and began to cry.
All the last year’s work was shattered with one kiss, one poisonous kiss. It was all his fault.
No, it was mine for believing that he would want to be with me.
I saw a pair of torn up converses.
“Let me take you home.”

>>Now<<

I wipe my eyes, for I’m already crying.
I wait for the tears to stop and for my eyes to lose their redness.
Then I get out with the school books that he needs and walked to the door to save him like he saved me that night. The only difference is he’s was fighting against me.
He is sitting in bed watching “I Love Lucy” reruns. When he sees me, he turned off the TV and smiles.
“Hey stranger,” he says softly.
I place the text books on the table and come over to his bed.
“I thought you loved me,” he groans, looking at the stack of books.
I grin even though I don’t want to, but he has that effect on me. “Well you need to stay on your game.”

I crawl under my covers and curl up into I tight ball, so that my knees are pressed against my chest which is rising and falling uncontrollably. I feel so terribly ugly about everything. Not only with my appearance, which is a given, but everything about me;
My anger,
My personality,
My lack of reason.
And for a moment I wonder if this was what Aiden felt when he dug into his wrist with those razors. I wonder if these same thoughts went into his head when he hid the rope in his closet for future uses, or the bottle of painkillers hidden under his mattress.
I had asked him once what he was thinking and he told me he didn’t want to talk about it.
The second time he said it was too much.
The third he told me that it was because no one could fix the way he felt.
When I asked about how he felt, he turned onto his side and curled up into a ball, the same position I was in now.
Melanie comes over later that afternoon. She sits on the side of my bed and for the longest time, doesn’t say anything.
But soon the silence is too much. “Please talk to me,” she says, “say something.”
“He wants to die,” I say, unaware of my voice.
“But that’s not your fault,” she says, trying to make me feel better, but it doesn’t, it makes me feel worse.
“I cant leave him there,” I hiss.
“I know, but he wouldn’t want you to isolate yourself from others,” she says.
“you're talking about him like he’s already dead,” I growl, noticing her use of past tense.
“Anne,” she sighs.
“I want to be alone,” I say, curling back under the covers.
She pauses for a moment, then gets up and leaves.
I get in the shower and stand there till all the hot water leaves. I close my eyes and feel the hot water for both Aiden and myself; I don’t want him to be cold. After awhile I feel like I'm burning, my skin is bright red, but that’s better than the numbness I felt before.
I get out and get dress then walk downstairs. My mother is sitting at the kitchen table paying bills. My father is watching the football game on the T.V. They stop and look at me with sympathetic faces.
I want to crush them.
I’m taken back by my anger, I haven’t felt this way since that night at the party.
Aiden always kept me calm.
But he’s not here.
He wants to leave me.
I look down at my shoes. “I want to go to the hospital.”
“Honey, you know it’ll be the same. He’s still…like that.”
My head snaps up. “It’s called suicidal he wants to DIE!” I scream.
My mother gets up but I walk past her and walk outside. I get in my car and drive to the gas station.
It’s like déjà vu.
For some reason I feel like I’ve done this before.
I go inside and stand in front of Stan.
He grins. “Thought you quit.”
“Well I’m starting again,” I hiss.
And then he rings me out.

>>AIDEN<<

They want me to sit in a circle with a bunch of kids who have issues.
I don’t have an issue.
They do.
They won’t let me die like I want to.
The nurse comes in with a needle ready. They tell me it’s to make me feel better. All it does is make me sleep.
She injects the poison in my IV and then it goes into my bloodstream, poisoning all that’s me.
As soon as she walks out, I see Lee.
“I’m sorry miss, but he can’t have any visitors,” she says.
“No,” I say, “Please let her in.”
The nurse looks at me and I give her my best “I’ll slit my wrist” look.
She sighs and steps out and Lee walks in.
I smile and hold out my arms.
She keeps her eyes down and walks to me and climbs in bed with me. I hold her tight and wish that it was just me and her. Then I would love to live.
But something’s different. I smell her hair and can tell she’s been smoking again.
“Lee, why are you smoking?” I whisper, stroking her hair dark curls.
“It’s too much,” she whispers back, “You’re not there and it hurts to know you're in here. And everyone is making it worse.”
I hug her tighter. “Lee,” I sigh.
She shakes her head. “I really need you.”
I feel a stab of guilt. I was hurting her, but it hurt to be here as well. Well it felt good to be in her arms, but it hurt to be alive.
“Will you tell me Aiden?”
I shake my head and cover her ears with my hands.
“Please Aiden?” She whispers, “You’re always the strong one. I don’t understand.”
“That’s exactly why I won’t tell you,” I say.
I close my eyes and remember their faces. I remembered their words.
She sits up, and I start to feel drowsy again.
She takes my face in her soft hands. I look up and see her tears to her chin, no longer black like the first day.
“I have to know,” She says firmly, even though there are tears in her voice.
I nod. “Come here,” I say, pulling her back into my arms.
“My medicine is making me tired,” I tell her, in case I fall asleep on her.
She kisses my cheek.
“So can we talk about it later?” I ask.
She nods. “Alright.”
And I just hold her while the medicine takes me down into the cold and darkness. But I can still feel her in my arms and she hangs on.
She won’t let me go.

When I wake up, it’s morning.
Lee is gone.
But she left a note.

Good Morning
Love you,
Lee

It’s not much, but it means a lot to me.

>>May 12, 2008<<
“Come on I quit,” I say to her taking her pack of cigarettes.
She glares at me. “That seems like a personal choice to me.”
I grin at her, she’s so stubborn.
We’re at her house, sitting on her bed. She looks down at her purple comforter and picks at a loose string.
I wait for her to look up at me.
And when she doesn’t I say, “Lee.”
She inhales and exhales deeply before looking up. Her eyes are pleading. They are pleading for me to help her get better, and then the demon pleading for her cigarettes back. But I have to save her from her demons, I have to protect her.
“Look,” I say softly, “We’ll throw them into the lake.”
“That’s pollution,” she tells me.
I laugh at her, which only makes her glare at me again.
I take her hand and pull her up from the bed. I run with her down her steps and out the door. When I was younger my friends and I would go to this lake in my back yard and play hockey on it when it froze over.
We run till we got to my house down the street and then we slow to a walk as we reach the lake. She stops and shakes her head. “I can’t do it. I need them.”
I hand her the pack of cigarettes and pull her to the front of the lack. I stand behind her and take her arm and raise it.
“Now,” I whisper in her ear, “Let go.”
She shakes her head. “Why? I can always buy another pack tomorrow.”
I place a kiss on her cheek. “But you won’t.”
“How do you know?” She challenges.
“Because,” I reply, “This is going to be life changing. Once you drop these, you won’t want to go back. You’ll be too proud of yourself. And besides, I’ll help you. I won’t let you hurt yourself.”
I hear her sniffle, and I know she’s crying then. But then her hand opens and the pack falls into the water. We watch it bob in the water and move with the wind to the center of the lake.
“See,” I say, “That wasn’t so bad.”
She turns and wraps her arms around me. I hug her back, knowing that we defeated the demon together.

>>now<<

Today I have to go to group therapy with the other kids with their issues. I have to listen to them spew about their problems about how they’re parents are druggies and how they knocked up their girlfriend.
At ten I walk down with two nurses to the meeting room. They make nurses follow me everywhere.
When I walk in there are at least ten or so kids taking a seat in the circle. I walk over to the empty seat by the window. Lee would have picked that seat, she likes to be distracted from her anger.
Anger of not being perfect, so she says.
I look out the window as they begin with introductions.
It was warm outside; I could tell by the heat waves off the cars in the parking lot.
“Hey,” a kid next to me says.
I look at him.
“Its your turn,” the leader says. She’s about thirty years old. She has blond hair that’s in heavy waves, pined up. Her brown eyes are lined with silver glasses. She hunches over in her chair and waits.
I don’t say anything.
“What’s your name?” She asks.
“Aiden.” I say.
“Aiden,” she says smiling, “And why are you here?”
“The nurse made me,” I say. I get a few laughs.
“Why are you in the hospital, Aiden?”
“My parents made me come,” I say.
No one laughs that time.
“Why, Aiden?”
I don’t want to go back to that day. When I ran into the bathroom and took a razor to my wrists. I don’t want to recall the look I got on my parents’ faces when they saw the blood. Or the wounds on my wrists.
I don’t want to recall the events that happened before I got home either.
“Aiden?”
“Can I pass?” I beg.
She nods. “Alright, just because it’s the first meeting.”
I look back out the window.
“But Aiden, “ she waits till I look back.
“Admitting it is the first step.”

Sitting in the hospital room alone is the worst. I hate the school hours when Lee is away from me. I don’t know what she’s doing.
If she’s smoking.
If she’s angry.
If she’s hurting.
I look at my bandaged wrists, they’re almost healed now. I can feel them itching.
I’m glad Lee wasn’t there to see the cuts and the blood. That would have been too much for her.
I hear a knock on the door.
It’s my mother.
She has a brown paper bag, which means she brought more of her chocolate chip cookies.
I grin and she sits on the corner of my bed, handing them too me.
“I thought you might need something sweet to hold you over till you get out of here.”
“When?” I ask.
She looks at me. “Whenever they think you’ll be okay.”
I remember what the lady had said. “Admitting it is the first step.”
“They want me to recover here?” I ask, “That could take years!”
“Well not here. They’re waiting till your wrists heal, then they’ll let you go. But you’ll have to go to therapy three times a week. And you’ll be watched at school. They counselor wants to see you when you return.”
“No one will trust me again will they?” I ask.
She looks down. “You brought this upon yourself, Aiden. You won’t tell me why you did it, so I’m doing all I can to help you.”
“If you wanted to help me all you had to do was shut the damn door and let me die!” I yell.
I see Lee standing in the doorway, she’s crying again.
She heard what I said.
She turns and walks away.
My mom watches her leave then looks at me. “Think of what you’re doing to those you love. LeAnna’s mother says she’s a mess. She doesn’t eat or talk. All she does is come here or lay in her room.”
I cover my ears, I don’t want to hear that Lee is suffering.
“You’re killing her,” she continues.
I press harder.
“You’re killing all of us.”
“I want Lee,” I say.
My mother stands up and sighs. “Do you even care that your father hasn’t been up here? Do you care why he hasn’t been up here?”
“I want Lee.”
She gets up and leaves the room.
And minutes later, Lee comes in the room. She’s holding more of my school books. “They want to know when you're coming back.”
I look down at my wrists. “When these heal.”
She doesn’t say anything, but sits down in the chair on the opposite side of the room. “Did you really mean what you said?”
I don’t want to answer; I don’t want to hurt her again.
She takes the silence as her answer.
“Aiden,” She says, then waits for me to look up.
I take a deep breath before looking at her.
“If you die, I die.”

>>LEANNA<<

Today Aiden would get out of the hospital.
Classes seem to grow extra long because of my excitement. Finally, my last class ends and I drive straight to the hospital, like I promised.
I sit in the parking lot and open another pack of cigarettes. I push my seat back and open my window before I light it.
I know that I’ll hear about it from Aiden, but my nerves are getting to me again. It seems like all of last month’s events are piling up on me in these few minutes.
The phone call.
The first day in the hospital with him.
The silence.
The bandages.
His pain.
I flick the rest of the cigarette out the window and get out of the car to save Aiden.
His mother is signing his papers while he sits on the bed running his hands over his bare wrists.
As soon as I walk in, he looks up and smiles.
“Look,” he says holding them up.
It’s the first time I see the scars. There are two thin pink lines on each wrist. I walk over to him and take his wrists in my hands.
“Promise you’ll never do this again,” I whisper.
He nods and raises his hands to hold my face. “I won’t hurt you again.”
I smile and kiss his scared wrists.

It’s like it always has been. Aiden is sitting on my bed and we’re listening to Nirvana.
“Do you think they tried to stop Kurt?” He asks.
I get up and take “Bleach” out and put in a REM CD.
“What?” He asks, then catches what he said, “Lee, I wasn’t…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, sitting back down.
He sighs, “We can’t pretend I never cut myself.”
“I can,” I say firmly.
“No, you can’t. Because if this is you pretending, then your acting skills need some work.”
I stand up. “Damn it, Aiden!”
I already feel the angry boiling in my head, even though nothing has happened yet. But it’s been getting worse. They anger gets easier to trigger. Those weeks without Aiden have brought me back two years ago when I was the girl who smoked down cigarettes and drank alcohol like water.
I turn to my dresser and pull out my secret pack of cigarettes. Aiden eyes me as I take one out and light it, walking to my window and opening it.
“And how long has this been going on?” He asks.
I sit on the window sill and lean back on the frame. “Awhile.”
“Lee, I only wanted to hurt myself, not you,” He whispers.
I smile bleakly.
“What?”
I look at him. “If my parents called you at two in the morning telling you that they found me in the bathroom covered in my own blood because I sliced open my wrists, what would you have done?”
He looked down. “But Lee, I wanted to die.”
“Wanted to, or want to?”
He looks back up. “Please don’t.”
“Do you still want to die?”
And he nods.
I cover my mouth so I don’t yell at him and look out the window.
“I should go,” he says softly.
I want to tell him to stay. I want to hold him here, but my hand stays glued to my mouth.
He pauses, like he wants me to stay with him.
That makes it hurt even more when I hear the door close behind me.
It echoes.
In my head.
Over
And over
Again.
I flick the remains of my cigarette and open the pack when I see that it’s empty.
I sigh and walk downstairs.
Mom is cooking something that smells spicy.
“I’m making your favorite,” she says, “tortilla soup.”
I force myself to smile. “Could you save me some? I have plans with Melanie.”
She puts the spoon down and smiles. It’s been weeks since I’ve been out.
“Sure, honey.”
I smile and walk out.
I get in my car and drive to the gas station.
Stan grins and gets my usual. Cigarettes and a six pack.
“When do you get off?” I ask.
“Not till midnight,” He says.
“That’s awful!” I say.
“Yeah it sucks late at night though, not too many people I know come in,” He says.
“Well,” I say hopping on the counter, “How about I share this nice box of drinks with you?”
He grins. “Alright.”
I hand him a beer then open my own.
“So this is how you spend your weekends?” I ask.
“Yeah, gotta pay for college.”
I nod. “Yeah, makes sense.”
“Can I ask you something?”
I shrug.
“Why did you pick up your old habits? I thought you went to therapy for that.”
“I did,” I say, “But then my boyfriend tried to kill himself. It sort of got to me, you know?”
He chugs the remains of his beer. “I’m sorry Anne.”
I open my cigarettes and light it. “Besides, old habits die hard. I’ve been craving these babies for months.”
He chuckles.

I wake up to someone shaking me.
I sit up and see Aiden with his hand on my back. “It’s three in the afternoon, how late were you out?”
I can’t focus on what he’s saying.
I run to my bathroom and throw up all of the events of last night and the month before.
I feel Aiden pull my hair back. “God, Lee…”
My tears fall as well and when I stand up I see the product in the mirror.
More black stains down my cheeks.
“Lee what did you do last night?”
“I drank and smoked at the gas station with Stan,” I say, getting out my tooth brush.
He sighs and sits on the edge of the tub. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe you should have thought that through?”
I brush my teeth in silence.
He waits till I can speak again.
“I just wanted to get rid of the pain,” I say.
He gets up and puts his arms around me. “I know,” he whispers in my ear, “I know what you mean.”
I shake my head. “No, you don’t have to watch someone die.”
He holds me tighter. “I won’t die,” he continues in that soothing voice that I’ve grown so accustom to, that I believe him. “Not for a long time.”
I close my eyes and turn in his arms and hug him back.
“Not here,” he says, “Not now.”
I nod in agreement.
“It’ll be peaceful. In bed while I’m sleeping.”
Yes. That’s how its suppose to be; when he’s old and sleeping in bed. Not in the bathroom covered in blood.
“Come on,” he says, “Let me take you out for lunch.”
I smile. “Lunch sounds good.”
We go to Wendy’s of course because we love their food and its really all we can afford.
He dips his fries in his frosty. “God, I missed real food.”
I laugh. “Oh yeah because fries and a milk shake is real food.”
“It is in ‘Aiden World’,” he says with a mouthful.
This is how it’s supposed to be.
“Ready to head back to school Monday?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No they’ll all treat me weird. My mom says that the counselor wants to see me first thing in the morning.”
I grab his foot between my feet. “Do you want me to come with you?”
He grins. “That might be a tad embarrassing.”
“Why?”
He dips another fry. “Because it’ll make me look like I’m weak.”
“Aiden, you are not weak,” I say.
He dips another. “Yeah well and I really don’t want you to hear the answers to some of the questions she may ask.”
I take my cigarettes out and light one.
He looks up. “I wish you’d stop,” he says quietly.
I look at my cigarette, smoke rises from it. I stick it in my mouth and inhale, loving the feeling of it filling my lungs. The only thing that fills the hollowness.
“I thought you were hungry,” he says.
“I’m having a cigarette,” I say with a grin.
He gives me a disapproving look and dips a fry then gives it to me.
My smile grows and I take it.
He takes my cigarette out of my hand and puts it out on the ash tray. “Much better.”
I roll my eyes and take another.
“Get your own!” He whines.
I laugh and realize how long it’s been since I’ve laughed with him.

>>AIDEN<<

I sit on the porch waiting for Lee to pick me up so we can go to school.
I don’t want to go to school.
I don’t want to see their faces.
I laugh at the thought of me suddenly popular. Everyone will know me now, the kid who tried to kill himself. That’s what everyone will remember me as.
Some are remembered as the football captain, or the Valid Victorian, but I will be known as the guy who was in the hospital for slitting his wrists.
The day before I was freed, I had group therapy.
“So Alice,” Linda, the group leader, asked, “Do you want to tell us why you’re here?”
That was everyone’s first challenge, to admit why they were hospitalized.
“I’m bulimic,” She whispered.
It was noticeable. She was far too skinny, her bones stuck out of her papery skin.
“Well done, Alice,” She said.
She turned to me. Now I was the only one who hasn’t said why I was here.
Mark is an alcoholic.
Kaylee pops pills.
“Aiden?”Linda asked, “And are you ready to say why you’re here?”
I shake my head. “No.”
Everyone looked down. They were dying to know why I was in the hospital; they needed to know they weren’t alone with their pain. They wanted someone to understand them.
Linda kept her eyes on me. “You’ll have to admit it sooner or later.”
“I prefer later,” I said.
I hear Lee honk her horn. I look up, that day gone now.
I get up and get in.
“Ready?” She asks.
I grin. “Not even a little.”
She puts in a Pearl Jam CD and turns the volume all the way up. She was strange that way. She listened to another era of music; she always said that she should have been a teenager in the 90s. It’s grown to me. I like Nirvana the most, I guess somehow I relate to Kurt, and maybe it’s like those other kids, I need to know someone feels, felt, my pain.
I watch her as she slips a cigarette out of her pocket and lights it while driving.
She rolls down the window.
I decide not to say anything to her; it’ll be a stressful day for her as well. I know that the students have given her a hard time, or worse, have pitied her.
Now it will be ten times worse today.
“Do you think Mr. Everson will let you skip the semester project?” She asks, in a way to lighten the mood.
“Honestly, I don’t want him to,” I say, “I don’t want any special treatment.”
She smiles. “Well it would still be cool.”
I shrug.
We pull up to the school too quickly.
She parks then sits there, smoking the last of her cigarette. I wait, listening to “Jeremy”.
She quickly turns it off.
“What? I’m not allowed to listen to any song about death.”
“You know that’s not what it’s about,” She hisses.
She’s right; it’s about suicide as well. And I have to admit, it was getting me down.
She sighs and flicks the cigarette out, then gets out of the car.
I follow and we walk inside.
I already get a few glances from people who I never talked to. Lee grabs my hand and squeezes it. I smile and remove my hand and slip it around her waist instead.
It feels safer to have her close.
She smiles and walks to our locker, which is really only a scrap of medal glued to the wall. She gets out her books, and I get mine out of my bag and stick the remainder in the locker.
“counselor first?” She asks.
I nod. “Unfortunately.”
She walks with me to the counselor’s office.
“Are you sure, Aiden?” Lee whispers.
I pull her closer and place a kiss on her cheek. “Yep. I’ll see you later.”
And before I see her expression, I walk in.
Mrs. Lewis is waiting for me behind her mahogany desk.
“Ah, Aiden, have a seat.”
I sit on the leather chair in front of the desk.
“So your mother said that she has you in group therapy?”
I nod.
“And she also says you won’t tell her the reason you decided to cut yourself,” she says.
“That’s right.”
“And I don’t suppose you’ll tell me.”
“No I won’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think it’s your business. Besides I haven’t told my family or Lee, why would I tell you?”
She nods and writes something on a notepad.
“The school is requiring you to take a year of therapy.”
“And if I don’t?” I challenge.
“You won’t be allowed back in the school,” she says calmly.
When leave, I walk to my first period class. I walk in to the room when and clearly interrupt Mr. Andrews, so everyone looks at me.
And then they whisper.
“That’s the kid who tried to kill himself,” I imagine them saying.
Its one of the classes that I don’t share with Lee and that just makes it so much worse. Mr. Andrews continues with his lesson, but never fully gets his class to pay attention to him again. They are too fascinated with the crazy boy..
I look out the window like I did at the hospital, when I sat in that room with all those kids with issues. That’s all it is…issues. It’s not like anything is serious…they aren’t the same as me. I can’t relate. They want to live. I don’t.
“Aiden?” Mr. Andrews asks.
I look at him. “Yes?”
“Class is over,” he tells me.
I look around and see that I am the only one left in the room. Again I have been abandoned.
When I meet up with Lee at lunch she has that expression on her face, like she needs a cigarette and a punching bag.
I take her hands in mine and squeeze them so she knows that I’m with her. She looks up and her hard expression melts and she worms her way into my arms.
“I hate today,” she grumbles.
I laugh slightly and stroke her dark curls. “Me too, Lee.”

>>LEANNA<<
“What are you doing?” He asks.
I take a box out of my car and walk into his house. I start in the kitchen and take all the knives I can find and put them in the box. Then I got upstairs to his room. He follows me, wary. I go into the bathroom and throw in the razors. I finally go in his room and move his mattress. I find his bottle of pain killers and put them in the box along with the rope and his “secret” stash of razors.
“Is there more?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
I give him a look. “If you lie to me, I’ll never forgive you.”
He pauses for a moment, and then goes into his closet. He pulls out a blanket and then unravels it. There he is hiding more rope and razors. I sigh and put them in the box as well. Once I’ve got everything, I walk downstairs and walk out his backdoor to the lake.
He follows me till we’re in front of the lake.
“What are you doing?” He asks.
I hand him the box. “I’m not doing anything, you are.”
He looks down at the box and then at the lake. “No.”
“Yes,” I say firmly.
“Lee,” he whispers, his eyes haunted, “I can’t.”
“Can’t what?” I demand. “You can’t live? You can’t live for me? I thought you cared about me. I thought you loved me!”
He closes his eyes. “I do, Lee, but I can’t dump this.”
“Why?”
“They’ve helped me. They were there when no one else was.”
I’m not buying this. It’s not an excuse; it’s an attempt to make me drop the subject and give him his things back. “And whose fault was that? I was down the street. All you had to do was knock on my door.”
“I didn’t want you to know!” He yelled. “ I was always the strong one. I was the one who looked out for you. I didn’t want you to lose your faith in me. I still wanted to be the one you ran to.”
I look at him. Take it all in. His dark hair is in complete disarray and his hazel eyes have bags under them. His skin seems papery and pale. And he has lost weight. He looks sick, because he is sick. And he’s the only one who can heal himself. I can only show him how, but I can’t heal him.
“It’ll be easy,” I say walking behind him.
I gently push him closer to the lake. “Just dump it.”
He shakes his head. “Why? I can always buy another pack tomorrow.”
I place a kiss on his cheek. “But you won’t.”
“How do you know?” He challenges.
“Because,” I reply, “This is going to be life changing. Once you dump these, you won’t want to go back. You’ll be too proud of yourself. And besides, I’ll help you. I won’t let you hurt yourself.”
He tenses, like he’s going to turn around and go back inside. But then he turns the box over and everything falls in. We watch the knives and razors sink while the bottle of pills and the rope bob to the middle of the lake.
“See,” I say, “That wasn’t so bad.”
He laughs.
It’s a shaky laugh, but it’s still a laugh.
I’ll take it.