Desired

"Ruby?"

"Don't wake her up!"

"She's been out all day, I need to see that she's okay"

"She lost 39% of her blood, let her be"

"I agree, she needs rest, the doctor said the blood transfusion was successful and all everything else seems just fine"

"But what if she's not? What if she doesn't wake up?"

"Stop it, she will wake up, just give her a little time. Go get a drink or a snack or something"

"What if she wakes up when I leave?"

"Asher. Do it."

"Fine, I'll be back in 5 minutes"

Asher's here? And where is 'here'?
A tingling of consciousness and awareness moves up my body and I feel the familiar feel of a bed beneath me. But it's not my bed, not my room. The mattress is hard and air sterile.
"Hmm"
I groan softly and force my eyes to open, a blank, foreign ceiling stares back at me.

"Ruby?"
A small voice sounds to the left of me, I turn my head to see the pretty face of Farrah as she smiles slightly,
"How are you feeling?"

"I don't know"
I really don't, I can barely think clearly, everything is hazy and numb.
"Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital"
Blake appears behind her and looks sympathetically at me.

"Why?"
They share an uncomfortable and stay quiet.
Raising a hand to my head, I grab me blurry head, as if trying to steady the world around me. Something catches my attention and I see that my arm is wrapped in bandages, I quickly lift the other one up and stare at their wrappings.
Everything slams back to me and I close my eyes, gritting my my teeth.

It hadn't worked.
I'm so pathetic, I couldn't even kill myself properly.
"Dammit, it was suppose to work, what happened?"

"You're mom found you, I guess she thought you were showering and was going to ask you something. You had blacked out already, but she got you to the hospital in time, thank God"

I look at her for a long moment.
"Where are they, my parents?

"They went home to clean themselves up and get you a change of clothes, so Asher, Blake and I stayed to watch you"
She smiles timidly before turning to her brother.
"Blake, could you help Asher, he's probably lost"
She requests softly, patting his leg.

"Yeah, sure"

I watch him leave, pulling myself up so I'm sitting against the pillows. Something in her tone worries me. She stares at her lap for a long, ringing moment.
"Ruby, I know that things happen to us and we can't control them, we can fight, and deny them, but they still can end up controlling us even long after they happened"

"What are you saying, Farrah?"
My heart beats a little faster as she looks up, looking into my eyes; into my soul. I feel exposed and fidget under her gaze. She reaches out and grabs my hand.

"When I saw you for the first time, I thought I had you all figured out, but then after awhile, I saw something in you, something buried and hidden. It was the same thing I saw in myself once and it almost ruined me. I just want you to know that no matter what, even if it seems like everyone else doesn't understand, and they probably don't, you have to remember that there are others who know and understand."
Farrah finished, leaning in to brush my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear in a mothering sort of way. I move away from the touch quickly.

"What could you possible understand? You're a child, a child with a perfect little life"
The words came out more spiteful than intended, but I don't care.

"I understand what it feels like to have someone else take over your life, your mind your body. To become something that barely resembles who you used to be. I don't know how it happened to you, but I know you are never the same, because you can never forget what it felt like."

I hate Farrah now more than ever, because she figured it out, she had ripped off the bandage and clawed open the internal wound that I so desperately tried to keep hidden. When I told Asher, it was different, I was the one who reveled it at my own will. Farrah exposed me and made me remember it even more clearly; remember the pain, remember the revulsion that would come over me every time I looked in the mirror, remember the guilt and fear.

"Get away from me."

"Ru-"Your wrong, you don't know me, so get away from me!"
I scream, crawling backwards and accidently pulling out my IV. Fingernails dug under the gauzy wrappings around my wrist as I proceed to tear them off, panicking.

"Ruby!"
Farrah raises her voice and took hold of my now bleeding wrists, a few stitches split. I try to get away, but Farrah easily subdue me, a rush of dizziness hitting me, but I don't let it quiet me.

"Don't touch me! Don't you ever touch me!"

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you, Ruby, I'm not him. You're safe, he can't ever hurt you again"
A sob of angry anxiety wrenches through my lungs, my shoulders shaking, my lips trembling. Farrah only moves closer, wrapping thin arms around me.

I give up.