Alex: Dark Places

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by ____tree____

by ____tree____

**CONTENT WARNING!!! Contains suicide ideation, drug mentions, and blood**
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Alex struggles after being injured in a job gone wrong.
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   I'm not a crier. I'm not a crier. The words were the only things that I could circle through my mind to keep the emotions in. I could feel that lump in my throat, choking me in it's painful grip as I struggled to swallow it away. My eyes were squeezed so tight I could hear a rumble in my ears and I was trying my best to keep them closed. If I opened them and saw my reflection, I just might lose the little hold I had on my emotions.
   The burn of cuts bore through my skin like a hot needle pressed against the flesh, I could picture it sizzling away until the white face of bare bone made its appearance. I hadn't assessed the extent of the damage yet, I was too busy trying to avoid trailing blood in the carpeted foyer of my apartment building, but I could feel the knot of flesh swelling my left eye to near close and the wet grip of blood that made my clothes cling to my body.
   I blindly felt for the bathtub handle, turning it to cold. My body felt too warm for anything else. I had to open my eyes to peel out of my clothes, but I turned my head as far right as I could, I didn't want to see my reflection, I couldn't stomach it.
   My legs felt too tired to stand, so I opted to sit in the cold water of the bath, watching the blood from my body seep in and tint the water.
   The job wasn't supposed to go that way. It had turned south right after the delivery came in—what was it, heroin? The details were already starting to get foggy. My head hurt. My ears were ringing. My fingers were getting hard to bend.
   I was just supposed to make sure it went into the warehouse safely, the job of a grunt, of someone expendable. I remember all the steps they told us, all the tricks, I was too close to the glass. That's what had gotten me, right? The glass of the car windows? Or was it the glass of the warehouse? No. The warehouse windows were too high. It was the car, otherwise it wouldn't have gotten me as badly as it did, right? The gunshots had hurt my ears, sparks had flown—was it from a busted light? Why were there sparks?
   Ugh. I can't remember. My head hurts so bad. It felt like someone had shoved the curly end of a wine opener into my skull and was slowly rotating it in an endless spiral. It was getting harder to keep it on my shoulders, I could feel it smearing blood and my hair sticking to the wall as I slid down deeper into the water.
I could just drown myself here. The realization startled me for a second, it felt like it had come from someone else instead of the depths of my mind. I could probably flip myself over, stop struggling, and just let the world move on without me. No more medical school, no more stupid fucking hazing, no more dangerous situations. It would be so easy.
   As I started to move to do so, I saw the light of my phone go off on the pants I had discarded on the bathroom floor. Leaning over with a pained grunt, I snagged the fabric, water spilled over the bathtub's edge and onto the tiled floor. Fuck, how long have I been in here to where the water was this high? I wrestled with the pants to retrieve my phone, I could see it lighting up with texts from a few classmates—they were my partners on a group project I had forgotten about, they were anxious about getting everything done in the next few days, from what I was struggling to read. A call lit up the screen, and I answered it. Not on purpose, though. I think.

   "Hey, Alex! This is Rebecca, from the Organic Chemistry 2 class! We were all trying to put all of our information in a word document for a our project, I'm just calling because you hadn't turned yours in yet, and to make sure you were still planning on coming to the group meeting tomorrow!" She sounded happy.
   "Hey, Rebecca!" I put on a smile, despite the fact she couldn't see it through the phone. You could definitely hear it, though, what with the way my tone rose to match her happiness. "Yeah, sorry! I've had a busy day, I'll be there, and I'll get my research in ASAP, no need to worry!"
   "Alright, thanks, see you tomorrow!"
   "See ya!" I hung up.
Fuck. Now I have to go turn in research that I have barely started.