Troubled Thoughts

one

Pete

Pete woke up and immediately felt the burning pain shooting through his head. He blinked against the bright lights and rubbed his eyes several times before he was able to open them properly.

His surrounding was strangely unfamiliar and it didn't take him long to realise that this was a hospital room. He tried to figure out why he woke up here and not in his own bed, but he couldn't remember. He couldn't think of anything and he slowly felt the panic rising in his chest. The steady beeping of the heart monitor, that was attached to his body speeded up and Pete struggled breathing.

A nurse rushed in immediately, to check on him. Pete barely noticed her. He felt her hands on his arms and heard her distant voice. "Don't worry, Mr. Wentz. It's okay. I'm here."

She somehow managed to get his breathing and heart beat back to normal.

"Why... why am I here?" Pete finally managed to speak properly.

The nurse smiled at him for a moment. "I'll get Dr. Stump for you. He'll explain everything."

Pete nodded and the nurse rushed out of the room again.

Why didn't she just answer his question? Pete was worried. How did he end up in a fucking hospital?! He tried to think back. To remember something. Anything. But it was just a huge mess of black nothingness left in his head, plus the burning headaches. What could he possibly have done to fuck him up that much? Pete sat in silence for what seemed an eternity until the door opened again. He tried to sit up properly to greet his doctor but he suddenly felt an unbearable pain in his stomach and fell back into the pillows.

"Please, stay down Mr. Wentz. I'm Dr. Stump. I'll take care of you."

Pete looked up and saw a bright smile. It belonged to a man in a white coat, who now stood next to his bed. He looked a few inches shorter than Pete and also a little younger. A few strands of his blond hair fell over his blue eyes. He was a bit chubby, but Pete kinda liked that. He looked cute.

"Please, call me Pete!" he smiled up to his doctor.

"Alright, Pete, how do you feel?" Dr. Stump asked and opened the patient record, he hold in his hands.

"Well," Pete looked down at himself and back up again. "I have a pretty bad headache and my stomach hurts like hell."

The other man nodded and wrote something down. "Right, I already expected that!" Dr. Stump closed the record and shove his pen back into his chest pocket. "your aches will get better in some time. Do you have any questions so far?"

Pete swallowed heavily. "What happened to me? Why am I here?" he kept eye contact with the doctor and he could see that this was the question the other man was trying to avoid.

Dr. Stump finally exhaled loudly and pulled a chair, that stood in a corner of the room, closer to the bed and sat down next to his patient.

"You were found in a parking lot yesterday in the early morning and brought here. You must've lost consciousness several hours before you came here. You were in a pretty bad condition. We diagnosed an overdose on Atavan. We pumped out your stomach. To be honest, it was pretty hard to keep you alive. A few minutes later and you'd be dead. Pete... I'm sorry, but we have to assume that this was a suicide attempt."

The room was silent for a moment.

It took Pete a few moments to realize what the man just said.

"I... I tried to... kill myself?" he finally spoke it out.

"I am really sorry. But that's the only explanation we could find. It... It doesn't have to be true." Dr. Stump tried to keep him calm.

"Fuck..." Pete exhaled and looked away from the man, out of the window.