Barely Breathing//Ethis

99||

Chris' point of view:

"Do you have to go?" Ethan's voice comes out small as he stands in front of me holding onto my hand. He's looking down at our hands intertwined and he won't look up at me.

"Yes, I do. But I'll be back as soon as visiting hours start tomorrow okay?"

"Okay" he says quietly, meeting my eyes now

He slowly drops my hand and pulls me into a hug.

"I love you" he mumbles

"I love you too," I pull away from the hug "and now I really do have to go"

I quickly kiss his forehead and step away. I open the door to his room and walk out, I don't look back because I know that if I look back I won't be able to leave him.

I find Jakob and he smiles "How is he?"

"He's a lot of things," I think for a second "and okay is definitely not one of them. He tried to act like he was, even in this situation."

"They're going to help him" Jakob reassures me

"I know, I'm just scared that they're going to change him. He's going to be in here for a while and they're going to put him on all these drugs and I'm worried that it's going to have some kind of weird affect on him" I confess

"I'm sure that he's going to be okay, and if there are effects then they will wear off with time." Jakob still tries to reassure me

"I don't know." I shrug

We reach the end of the psychiatric ward and are buzzed out. We continue to walk the corridors until we finally reach the original waiting room and sure enough Mum and Dad are there waiting for us.

Mum immediately engulfs me in another hug.

"Did you see him? How is he?" She asks pulling away but keeping her hands on my shoulders

"I saw him." I confirm "he's okay"

She smiles and I have to look away, I wish I could help Ethan because as much as say it, he isn't okay.

"I think we should go home now, you need to rest" she tells me softly

"But I don't want to leave Ethan. I can't leave him here, he's all alone."

"I know Chris but you've been here for two days and you haven't slept. Ethan would want you to look after yourself." She tells me

"Can we come back first thing tomorrow?" I ask quietly

"Of course we can," she smiles "it's time to go"

I nod and walk back over to Jakob

"We're going now" I sigh

Jakob and I follow my parents out of the hospital and find their car. Jakob and I sit in the back, no one speaks. I don't want to speak, I don't want to leave Ethan here by himself. I don't want to leave him at all.

Everyone is being cautious with me, everyone is being cautious with me when I'm not the one they have to be cautious with. It's almost like they're ignoring the fact that Ethan tried to kill himself only two days ago. I know that the doctors will monitor him overnight but they're not me. They don't know how to calm him down in the middle of the night, they don't know how to help him or what to say when he's crying. I know I'll see him again tomorrow but that doesn't make up for how he needs me the most in the night.

These next few weeks are going to be hard for him but they're going to be hard for me too and no one understands.

"Chris" Dad snaps me out of my thoughts, I look up and notice that we're at Jakob's house.

"Why're we here?" I ask possibly a little too rudely

"We're dropping Jakob at home and you're going to stay with us at home." Dad replies

Jakob unbuckles his seatbelt and thanks them as he opens the car door and gets out. We stay until he's inside the house and Dad pulls out of the driveway.

It doesn't take us long to get to our house, but it does take a long time for me to get the will to pull myself out the car. I walk inside and kick off my shoes, I go straight to my bedroom and I'm about to shut the door when Mum appears.

"I'd like to talk." She says

I sigh and sit on my bed waiting for her to join me.

"It's about Ethan." She says slowly "tell me what happened. You don't have to keep it to yourself."

I'm taken aback at first, I blink a few times and find my bearings.

"Um, well.. Jakob was going home to his house and I was planning to go to the beach, Ethan didn't want to come," I start "I didn't question it, not even when he started telling me how much he loves me and how grateful he is, he did the same with Jakob so I didn't think anything of it. I should have. Ethan was in the shower. I waited an hour and he still wasn't out. I walked into the bathroom and there was more blood than I've ever seen before, I called the ambulance and it felt like they took forever to get there. And now I've left him alone at the hospital, he's not okay. He needs me and I'm not there Mum. I've always been there. He depends on me a lot and I depend on him too, we've been apart before so I don't know why this is harder than most times."

She stays silent for a few seconds, trying to figure out what to say I assume.

"Maybe you being apart will help, maybe it's not good that you depend on each other so much. What I do know is that everything will be okay, you can spend all day with him tomorrow."

"I don't want to talk about this Mum, please go"

A/N: I hate this