The Best friend

Out of the Way

The " Welcome Home" banner was the first thing I saw when my mom pulled into the driveway, this made me not want to go inside because I knew that there would be people inside with fake smiles plastered on their faces inwardly judging me about my  failed suicide attempt, talking amongst themselves giving me the name, "that poor girl", it was all too much. I shifted in my seat being sure not to look at  my  mom because I knew she'd be looking with that pained, concerned expression.

I'd been in the hospital for two weeks, two weeks out of school, no communication with Jess or Ty, my mom stayed by my side the entire time though, well when she didn't have to work, she'd told me about Tomas and his family moving into the east wing of the house which was fine as long as I didn't have to see him. This was all his fault.

"Can we just go somewhere else?" I asked my mom

She looked at me, confused and sat straight up. I could tell that she had lost sleep, she didn't look as youthful, she only got little naps in when she was at the hospital and only went home to shower and go to work. That was my fault. I'd taken away that glow from my mom and now I wasn't the only one shuffling around like the living dead and I apologized the whole ride home.

"Lilah, everyone is in there waiting for you to get inside you can't just-"

"I can't face them right now, I'm too embarrassed, I mean look at the circumstances. They're throwing me a welcome home party because I've been released out of the hospital because I tried to kill myself. Those aren't pleasant nor warming circumstances if you ask me." I said looking at the dashboard the entire time.

She stared at me for a while like she was going to make me et out of the car but, she just sighed and waved her hand as if she was dismissing her original plan and  opened her door.

"Well, someone has to be here to at least welcome the guests and since your keys are inside, you can just take my car and I'll just explain everything to everyone." She said sliding out of the car.

I watched my mom walk t the steps and when she opened the door I saw all the people inside and I drove off, I looked into the rearview and saw all the guests filing outside, I guess trying to catch me before I drove off,but  had to get out of there, quickly. I would just wait them out, stay away until they all left and call my mom to make sure that the coast was clear.

"Shit!" I hit the steering wheel.

I had to go off instinct with this one because I didn't have my phone on me, the last thing that my mom was thinking about when she was takin me to the hospital was if she grabbed my phone. I drove past the stop lights and the buildings, straight out of the city.

I pulled into the clearing, parked and grabbed the keys before I began my walk. Usually when Jess and I would come here, we'd just park and sit on the hood of whoever's car we rode in, but when I came by myself I'd just walk up the trail until I got to this cabin and I'd just sit on the porch and look at the view.

The walk was about 30 minutes to the cabin, I usually brought my phone, but today I had to just entertain myself with nature, which wasn't much. There were trees but the grass was sparse, there used to be plenty of wildlife here years ago, like deer and stuff but with all the clearcutting all we get now are squirrels. And squirrels were cool, they just weren't deer.

Walking up the trail, I couldn't enjoy it, I was only reminded that everything was falling apart, crumbling, being torn down by people who didn't care that they were hurting other things. Not even 5 minutes into the trail, I broke down. I couldn't even make it up to the cabin, I was sitting in the middle of the woods crying like a child and I couldn't stop. Everything hurt from having needles stuck in me and I was tired of all the questions that came after I woke up from the nurses and everyone asking me if I was alright and giving me those looks like they felt sorry for me, I didn't need anyone's sympathy, I didn't want it.