Rowyn's Lullaby

Chapter Eight: Lullabies

Carter sighed in exasperation and fell into the crowd of staff shoving to get the IV back into my arm. I did not see him again for another week. I spent a week attached to the IV, seeing counselors and doctors, taking medical exams, and allowing myself unwillingly to be poked and prodded. The doctors did not have to ask too many questions this round because they were already familiar with the previous hospital stint. They knew the reason why I took the pills the first time. All they had to do was research or brush past the current events on the television or in the newspaper, and there was the reason why their then sixteen-year-old patient attempted her own suicide.

Romeo and Juliet Syndrome?

I heard them talking while I shifted in between the conscious and semi-conscious states that happen after taking a couple handfuls of sleeping pills. They had been working earnestly to pump them from the dematerializing lining of my liver and stomach.

No, Romeo was not that much older than Juliet. He was already married to Juliet and not married to someone else.

Wow, someone has been reviewing their Shakespeare notes from high school again.

Everyone with knowledge of pop-culture knows that. No, what we have hear is a desperate Ophelia.

It surely would have killed my father to see me dating someone who was criminally insane.

I had my first meeting with a therapist the next week. I refused at the beginning, but my conscience knew I had to find some help. My mother dropped me off in front of the doctor's office and made me promise to communicate this time.

The therapist I saw once at the beginning of the summer was the same one, I came back to that winter. Her name was Ty, and she was still in the same office from the last time I saw her. It had a stale scent and was rather stuffy.

"Hey, Rowyn, how have you been?" she asked when she greeted me in the corridor in front of her office.

"I've been all right." I said and entered her office.

She rounded the corner and closed the door. She took a seat across from and folded her hands in her lap.

"Your mom told me you hadn't been eating often. Why do you think that is?"

I did not appreciate that Ty put the spotlight on me and tried to make me answer questions I had no idea to.

I shrugged my shoulders.

She frowned. "I know that you're probably still upset about your teacher, Mr. Williams."

I sighed. She was trying to get inside of my head with her psychiatric techniques.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Mourning is different for different people. Some people cope differently. How do you think you've been coping?" She began tapping her finger on the wooden arm of her chair.

"I-," I stuttered. "I don't know how I've been."

"Do you think you've lost the desire to eat?"

"I try to eat, but I can't hold it down." I tried to subdue my shakes. I had not eaten that day before coming. "I want to eat, but sometimes I'm not hungry."

"When you do eat, what makes you throw it back up?"

"I get sick."

"What do you think makes you sick?"

I knew she was trying to get a serious answer from me. She wanted me to go in depth about him. I figured I might as well give into this help.

"The first time I got sick at school was when I was walking past Mr. Williams's old classroom at my school." I said after a few minutes in silence.